The Faces of Contemporary Cities

The great global cities of the Western, Middle Eastern, and Asian world tend to resemble each other more and more. The new buildings of cities such as London, Hong Kong, New York, or Frankfurt are similar, and even the skylines increasingly seem to resemble one another. The fact that there are just a few great architects behind these constructions partly explains this phenomenon.

The Faces of Contemporary Cities reveals the work of Permasteelisa, which offers technological solutions for constructing the most futuristic buildings. Permasteelisa produces continuous external cladding—the skin of skyscrapers, large airports, and current business centres—and collaborates with large architectural firms to transform an architect's project into a building.

Such buildings include the Sydney Opera House, with its futuristic sails; the Guggenheim in Bilbao and its curved facades conceived by Frank Gehry; and the scintillating blades of Renzo Piano's Shard in London.