How and where is architecture created today? Where do architects find their inspiration? What design tools do they use? This book offers a behind-the-scenes look at twenty high-profile international architecture firms and provides authentic glimpses of the architectsa (TM) individual creative worlds. Rather than a collection of glossy portraits, the volume offers a step-by-step account of the design process, made vivid and three-dimensional by "snapshots" of the studios and texts with quotations from conversations with the architects.Each firm is depicted with a characteristic tool; the result is an overview of the tools used by successive generations of professional architects as they change over time, a phenomenon that has never been fully documented until now. The studios depicted are Alvar Aalto, Lina Bo Bardi, Bow-Wow, Hermann Czech, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Edge Design Institute, Yona Friedman, Antoni GaudA-, Lux Guyer, The Jerde Partnership, Steven Holl, UN Studio, Lacaton & Vassal, Rudolf Olgiati, Charlotte Perriand, R&Sie(n), Theiss-Jaksch/Schwalm-Theiss, Karl Schwanzer, SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), and Venturi Scott Brown & Associates.