Eugene the Architect
Thibaut Rassat
Prestel

Eugene the architect is obsessive about order, liking only things that can be arranged in a neat and tidy fashion in his tall, dark home. he is especially proud of his latest creation – a tall building with not a single curve in sight. “All the buildings in the city should be like this,” he tells himself.

Fridays are his day for visiting the site to check on the progress of his new construction, but on one such Friday Eugene arrives to discover that a beautiful tree has been blown over during a gale and now lies across the centre of what is to be his third floor living room.

Despite everything he’s believed in for his entire life, to the astonishment of the workers, the man orders that the tree, with its wealth of curves, angles and elegant proportions, be left exactly where it is.

Not content with that, from that day on, Eugene begins to look differently at everything around him, especially the natural world which he discovers, has a perfection of its own kind.

Ideas flow thick and fast and even the building site workers start getting creative.

Before long there’s been a total transformation, not only of the building, but also of the architect himself. And even better, Eugene has considered the entire town in his magnificent masterpiece.

Superficially fairly simple as this story with its delightfully quirky illustrations, might be, it is an invitation to readers to think about aesthetics, the built environment, and its impact on everyone and everything.