In the 1960s and '70s, one book you were likely to find on the shelves of architect's offices and university architectural departments was "Architecture Without Architects," by Bernard Rudofsky -- a wide-ranging, predominantly photographic study of indigenous housing and structures built by man and insect.
From Navajo adobe dwellings to the fantastic anthills of the African subcontinent, nothing was ignored. The influence of the book was felt in other areas of the design world -- Han Solo's desert hideout in "The Return of the Jedi" was in fact a Berber community in North Africa, which still stands today.
Thus, it was not surprising that my teenage daughter's reaction to the current traveling exhibition of the architectural projects of the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser was based on her knowledge of such imagery as has been plundered by the film industry.
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