Once synonymous with eyesore highway bridges and crumbling, unloved walls, concrete has been reborn as adventurous and sexy. This Bibliotheca Universalis edition considers the elaborate feats and prodigious engineering of contemporary concrete architecture, from stars such as Tadao Ando and Herzog & de Meuron, to fresh new studios like the Russian SPEECH.

Concrete? That characterless stuff of parking lots or Communist tower blocks, right? Well, yes. And no. Concrete is actually a name applied to a remarkably wide range of building substances, and, when properly handled, is one of the noble materials of contemporary architecture. A kind of “liquid stone” at the outset, it is malleable, durable, and capable of prodigious feats of engineering.

This Bibliotheca Universalis edition highlights the best work done in concrete of recent years. It includes such stars as Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, and Steven Holl, but also surprising new architects like the Russians SPEECH and artists such as James Turrell, who turned the famous concrete spiral of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in New York into the setting of one of his most remarkable pieces.