Concrete

Love it or loathe it, concrete is everywhere. It is not smart like silicon and has no self-respect like steel. But concrete is the material of modernity, the insignia of progress, the worlds most ubiquitous artificial material.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Concrete has an image problem. Portrayed as boring, cheap, and thoughtless, it is often considered synonymous with bad architecture. For many, concrete is architecture gone wrong dogmatic, ugly, and as miserably grey as English drizzle.

Stephen Parnells Concrete is an apologia of concrete, second only to water as the worlds most consumed material. From the personal, intimate scale of jewelry to the monumental scale of Brutalist architecture, Parnell explores the personality of concrete and how it is embedded and embodied in everyday and familiar objects. He revels in concretes