Fairy Tale Architecture

Book excerpt: Fairy Tale Architecture is a ground-breaking book, the first study to bring architects in conversation with fairy tales in breathtaking designs. Little Red Riding Hood, Baba Yaga, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Snow Queen: these and more than fifteen other stories designed by Bernheimer Architecture, Snøhetta, Rural Studio, LEVENBETTS, and LTL Architects and many other international vanguards have created stunning works for this groundbreaking collection of architectural fairy tales. Story by story, Andrew Bernheimer and Kate Bernheimer--a brother and sister team as in an old fairy tale--have built the ultimate home for lovers of fiction and design. Snow girls and spinning houses. Paper capes and engineered hair braids. Resin bee hives and infinite libraries. Here are futuristic structures made from traditional stories, inspired by everything from Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen and The Little Match Girl to the Brothers Grimm's Rapunzel and The Juniper Tree to fairy tales by Jorge Luis Borges and Joy Williams and from China, Japan, Russia, Nigeria, and Mexico. A desire for story and shelter counts as among our most ancient instincts, and this dual desire continues to inspire our most imaginative architects and authors today. Fairy Tale Architecture invites the reader into a space of wonder, into a new form that will endure ever after.