Author(s): Kerry Hill Architects

Architecture Australia

The definitive monograph of the late Singapore-based Australian architect's practice, internationally admired for its 'tropical modern' design and luxury resorts. The late architect Kerry Hill designed buildings that whisper rather than scream. This beautifully illustrated book brings together a corpus of works from 1992 to the present, with an emphasis on the actively ongoing practice's recently completed works, including the celebrated Aman hotels and resorts in Tokyo, Kyoto and outside Shanghai, as well as important large-scale buildings in his home town, Perth. Kerry Hill was one of the masters of 20th-century architecture, consistently designing restrained, cleverly conceived buildings that often blurred the boundaries of defined space with permeable screened walls and lush landscapes beyond. His practice's sensitivity to local materials and construction is renowned, resulting in architecture with a lightness of touch that sits perfectly in its environment. With recent projects such as the Amanyangyun hotel in China, the practice has explored restoration, moving ancient trees and houses 700 km (435 miles) to be meticulously reassembled and updated with modern-day touches to create a series of historic villas set in bamboo groves. The Aman Kyoto resort, meanwhile, reimagined a forest landscape initially slated as the garden for a textile museum as the setting for a 26-suite contemporary ryokan. Documenting in detail more than fifty projects across Australasia, this is the only comprehensive monograph of perhaps the most refined and respected architect of his generation.