Dynamism and collage emerged as leading motifs in 20th-century art—and continue to play vital and evolving roles in architecture today. As this year's selection of Record Houses suggests, architects are actively exploring issues of movement—be it in kinetic building parts, in forms and compositions that imply vectors or potential energy, or in structures that prompt journeys through and around them. And while collage appears in architecture still influenced by Postmodernism and Deconstructivism and, one could argue, in the work of Frank Gehry, this motif currently finds expression most often through the visible layering of materials and textures. Sometimes the layering itself—with its potential for interstitial spaces and translucent boundaries—stimulates movement.

Please feel free to move about—to peer between layers and behind the moving parts.

—Sarah Amelar

See the April, 2003 issue of Architectural Record for complete coverage of these houses. Plus, see this month's special web-only presentation of unbuilt houses and the very first Record Houses.

Click the photos below to see more.

Photo credits from left to right—
Top row: Hiroyuki Hirai , Earl Carter, Scott Frances, Tim Griffith
Bottom row: Nils Peter Dale, Duccio Malagamba, Barbara Karant, Timothy Hursley