Container Architecture

In this book the reader will find the full range of current container architecture projects – one container for a temporary exhibition Hall, or thousand containers for a football stadium. In an ever-changing world with its hybrid forms of living and working, this book presents a collection of remarkable and carefully selected container buildings. Invented in the 1950s by Malcom McLean, these plain steel boxes with corrugated profiles revolutionized the worldwide trade sector. Furthermore, these huge receptacles for storing and transporting cargo have found their way into architecture to become an essential part of global building culture. Ever more astonishing architectural applications and design experiments are based on these standardized, strictly geometrically conceived units. Their imaginatively designed shells are just as versatile as their use: sometimes with original, rough surfaces with traces of use that tell a story, sometimes with a curtain facade made of wood and large-scale glazing, or even as a purist composition with a sophisticated light installation.