Please join us for a book presentation on Behind the Green Door: A Critical Look at Sustainable Architecture through 600 Objects by Rotor, a Brussels-based collective of architects, designers, and researchers.

Behind the Green Door: A Critical Look at Sustainable Architecture through 600 Objects is a richly illustrated critical portrait of the concrete consequences and paradoxes of sustainability as a dominating paradigm in architecture and urban planning. Drawing on a year-long investigation for the Oslo Architecture Triennale, Rotor presents and contextualizes the 600 objects gathered for its main exhibition (building models, samples, specialized construction tools, campaign posters, footage of lobbyist gatherings, etc.).

The book also contains 300 short comments by prominent architects, critics, and scholars from around the world. The publication is presented in an accessible, visually compelling, and thought-provoking manner, and will interest engaged citizens, experts, practitioners, activists, and politicians alike.

Co-author Maarten Gielen, a co-founder of Rotor, will present the book. Rotor is a group of people who share a common interest in material flows in industry and construction. Rotor handles the conception and realization of design and architectural projects. On a theoretical level, Rotor develops critical positions on design, material resources, and waste through research, exhibitions, writings, and conferences. The group recently curated OMA/Progress, a large exhibition on the work of OMA, at the Barbican in London. Together with Rotor's Lionel Devlieger, Maarten Gielen curated Behind the Green Door – architecture and the desire for sustainability at the 2013 Oslo Architecture Triennale.

Organized by: Center for Architecture
Support: The reception is provided by the Government of Flanders, through Flanders House New York