we are all well aware of architecture’s intrinsic artistic value. yet what if architecture is realized as nothing but art, embodying both frame(work) and art(work)? this is, in a nutshell, what robert irwin’s untitled (dusk to dawn) is all about. spread out over more than 13.000 square feet, and built from the ruins of an abandoned military hospital near marfa, texas, the building (owned by the chinati foundation) is a play on light and time and, most importantly, our means to perceive them, its walls arranged and re-arranged on the spot in response to the very location it occupies – thus embodying the perfection of the california installation artist’s “conditional art”, as irwin himself has come to call his artistic approach.

obviously, untitled (dusk to dawn) needs to be experienced, as they say, in the light of day. still, its documentation, published at hatje cantz, is a gift. featuring photography by alex marks which is both brilliantly clear and magically immaterial, and a number of essays that betray all too understandable fascination with the artwork, it is the next best thing to plane ticket all the way out west.