Cool Construction examines four architects in whose work the tactility of craftsmanship and the luminosity of understatement are combined and refined to an unprecedented degree - one of the most significant trends in architecture today. Although the architects - David Chipperfield (London), Peter Zumthor (Vals, Switzerland), Eduardo Souto de Moura (Lisbon) and Tod Williams, Billie Tsien (New York) - are based in different cultures and produce buildings within a variety of local conditions (often as extensions to existing structures), their architecture exhibits a rare singular vision of purity and serenity. From Chipperfield's sensitive reinterpretations of historical forms to the exquisite detailing of Zumthor's breathtaking monoliths, from Souto de Moura's robust but elemental use of vernacular forms and materials to Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's experimentation with planar form, each finds maximum expression through the ingenious use of materials and a rigorous manipulation of form. Against the excesses of postmodernism and embracing the forms but not necessarily the tenets of modernism, the architecture in Cool Construction is finely honed and carefully wrought, sublime and resonant.