The book brings up today's goals of architectural practices:
efficacy,
innovation and
realism. While
efficacy seems generic (for the author this means that architects are politically credible again), innovation and realism are clear:
Innovation is the desire of being new and unexpected – not in technical aspects like durability or energy efficiency but in
form (see "12 reasons to get back in shape" by Robert Somol, in Content, OMA / Rem Koolhaas, p. 86).
Realism,
however, results from architecture's production environment:
architecture is rather a handcraft than a bourgeois, gentlemen's
profession.
The book features articles by Alejandro Zaera-Ppolo,
Robert Somol, Sarah Whiting, Philippe Stark, K. Michael Hays, Roemer
van Toorn and more. Maybe architecture get’s meaty again!