Zoe Zenghelis' paintings create an unprecedented imaginary inspired by
metropolitan structures, landforms and abstract tectonics.
Born in Athens in 1937, she began her career as a founding member of
Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), where her contributions
created new opportunities for the group at the vanguard of architectural
representation. Within, alongside and beyond this collaboration,
Zenghelis developed a body of work exhibiting a playful and iconoclastic
evocation of a very particular urban form - one that is perhaps a
surreal mix of the Aegean landscape of her youth and metropolitan cities
such as Paris, Berlin, New York or London. She has lived and worked in
the latter since 1955.
Do You Remember How Perfect Everything Was? traces the development of
Zenghelis' artistic career through her paintings, projects and teaching.
Published to accompany her first major retrospective exhibition, this
monograph assembles an extensive selection of Zenghelis' work from the
early 1960s to 2020, alongside a unique collection of her paintings as a
member of OMA. Containing a number of studies, sketches and archival
documents, it reviews the working process behind Zenghelis' OMA projects
and teaching methods at the Architectural Association.