The Kistefos Museum in Jevnaker, Norway
BIG’s Kistefos Museum in Jevnaker, Norway. Photo: © Kim Erlandsen. Courtesy Taschen

Bjarke Ingels on Creating Extraordinary Environments for Today and Tomorrow

“Formgiving,” the Danish architectural firm’s new book, is an anthology of visionary ideas.
By Tom Morris
January 2, 2021
1 minute read

Formgivning, the Danish word for “design,” serves as both a thesis and a call to action in a new book, Formgiving: An Architectural Future History (Taschen), by the Copenhagen-born architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). This is no project-by-project compendium—it’s a 700-page anthology of ideas that begins with the Big Bang (or is it BIG Bang?) and moves onward, up to the most distant future the eye can see or mind can imagine. Alongside a selection of BIG projects, including a twisted bridge for a Norwegian sculpture park, a floating city that produces its own fresh water, and a proposal for living on the moon, the book maps out the firm’s forward-looking efforts to create a more sustainable, ecologically minded world. In a time when passively letting events—be it the climate crisis, the pandemic, or otherwise—run their course is out of the question, BIG’s latest publication underscores the urgency and importance of creating environments for a more resilient and robust future.