Thursday, 4:13pm
28 June 2012

Balmond's structures in a brick book [extract]

informal

By Cecil Balmond with Jannuzzi Smith, Prestel, £29.95

The best structural engineers are modern conjurers who can make the tangible appear intangible. The work of Sri Lankan-born engineer Cecil Balmond is endowed with more sleight of hand than most, slickly conjuring into being the apparently unbuildable paper visions of superstar architects such as Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid. Balmond’s magic wand makes extraordinary things happen, backed up by the resources and experience of blue-chip engineering firm Ove Arup, who have nurtured his talents for some 30 years . . .