Amazon.com description: Product Description: In recent years contemporary architects have become obsessed with a variety of new materials, and above all stone. The limits and predictability of the modernist palette have long been recognized, and contemporary architects are now looking to the ancient values of stone to give new expression to their ideas. Above all it is the permanence of stone that is increasingly used to express a sense of civic stability, or ground the otherwise fluid forms of contemporary architecture. New Stone Architecture explores the special role of this material in a timely reassessment of the ideas which underpin today's renaissance of stone architecture. The introduction uncovers the expressive possibilities of stone, describes the new technologies which make the new forms possible and offers an interpretation based on the author's technical and theoretical understanding of material themes. This is followed by thirty-three case studies from around the world. Architects featured include Michael Hopkins, Kengo Kuma, and Renzo Piano.