Updated 6 August 2026

BOOK REVIEWS

XXenakis Creates in Architecture and Music
The Reynolds Desert House

Review in TEMPO by Edmund Hunt


... "While Xenakis’ approaches to music, architecture and the design of the Reynolds Desert House provide an overarching structure, the [book’s] content is fascinatingly discursive … personal reflections, anecdotes and expressions of feeling serve to underline the touching honesty, even idealism, at the heart of this project. [The] supplementary material suggests that the Reynolds Desert House was not just a plan for a building, but an idea that grew with and from human connections and the exchange of ideas.… the analysis provided is thorough and informative.… the authors invite us to view decades of artistic endeavor and friendship. This book is an affirmative testament to the abundant creativity of lives lived to the full.""
excerpt Edmund Hunt TEMPO, Volume 77, Issue 302, July 2023


Review in Music & Letters by Roger Redgate


"In 1984, almost as an aside, the composer/architect Iannis Xenakis suggested designing a house for his long-standing musician friends Roger and Karen Reynolds, having worked on a similar project for the French composer Françoise-Bernard Mâche. What subsequently unfolded was the design of the Reynolds Desert House, to be built in Southern California’s Anzo-Borrego desert, a project that forms the underlying thread throughout this book. The gradual development of the design, documented in detail here, forms a valuable insight into Xenakis’s creative thought processes in respect both to his music and his architecture, which are authoritatively aligned throughout. To date the house has yet to be realized due to excessive costs beyond what was initially predicted"

excerpt Rodger Redgate Music & Letters, Volumne 106, Issue 1, February 2025, Pg 153-155