MOS: Selected Works / The Art of Zootopia
Issue No. 142
MOS: SELECTED WORKS – A COLLECTION OF THE PLAYFUL ARCHITECT COMPANY’S UNUSUAL AND ECCENTRIC WORK
MOS: Selected Works
by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample
Princeton Architectural Press
2016, 288 pages, 6.2 x 8.5 x 1 inches
If the enormous hairy solar chimneys that these architects once built in the middle of Long Island City don’t make you smile, then your sense of play might need renovation. The fun-loving, aggressively eccentric work of MOS Architects includes some recurring motifs: canopies, unusual materials, solar chimneys, shaft lighting, and buildings that look like blocks tumbled to earth. Engaging for architects and non-architects alike, this is a book that I keep picking up: to look through the illustrations, to wonder at, to think about how to work creatively, to show something weird and wild to a friend. While there is some discussion of theory in the included essays, this is a book refreshingly light on architectural jargon.
The architectural historian Lucia Allais suggests in an included essay that one of the primary questions that the work of MOS poses is, “Is this simple or complex?” While the works presented are often simple, the reactions they provoked for me were complex, ranging from confusion to glee to disbelief. Crammed with 300 images, the just-released MOS: Selected Works demonstrates the firm’s unusual range of having produced buildings, installations, furniture, software, films, and pavilions, along with smaller works (like this book).
MOS, as a firm, is on a very serious mission to advance the limits of architecture, but without taking themselves too seriously. Their hilarious office manual is included in the book and will inspire glee in anyone who has ever worked in a corporate office, advising, “You will arrive at the Office when you are awake and ready to work. We ask that you not come to work resembling a “bad version of yourself” (or someone else for that matter; however a good version of someone else is acceptable under § 2.1)…” While the MOS office manual insists that their work merely “mumbles, if anything,” I hope they keep mumbling in my ear for a while. – Brent Garland
THE ART OF ZOOTOPIA – A FANTASTIC COMPANION BOOK TO A FANTASTIC MOVIE
The Art of Zootopia
by Jessica Julius (foreward by Byron Howard and Rich Moore; preface by John Lasseter)
Chronicle Books
2016, 160 pages, 9.5 x 11.5 x 1 inches
I got my hands on a copy of The Art of Zootopia last week, days before the movie opened, and was so enamored with the fresh yet classic Disney-inspired art that I was already set on reviewing the book. Then over the weekend I watched the movie with my 12-year-old daughter and friends, and wow! What a brilliantly humorous and moving winner of a movie it was. Bravo to directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore! But this is Wink, so back to the book…
The Art of Zootopia is such a treat in the way that it not only revisits the movie’s delightfully heartwarming characters and fantastic art, but gives us an engaging look at what went into the making of Zootopia. The book starts with author Jessica Julius describing the movie’s original story pitch – a 1960s spy story – and how it evolved over four years into the modern day tale of underdogs, prejudice, and fighting for justice for all. She gives us the scoop on how the characters were developed (balancing a feminine yet tough, naïve yet sharp, optimistic yet challenged bunny cop isn’t so easy!), shows us amazing “sets” I don’t even remember in the fast-moving film, and she lets us in on all kinds of fun details, like the fact that it took eight months to get the various animals’ fur just right (color, texture, and direction of fur growth takes more contemplation than I realized). We are also privy to many sketches and scenes that were eventually cut from the film.
Just released today, The Art of Zootopia is both a captivating companion book to the movie, as well as a stand-alone coffee table book that doesn’t need any knowledge of the movie to be appreciated. – Carla Sinclair
Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.
11/3/26
