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"Coop Himmelb(l)au is not a color but an idea of creating architecture with fantasy, as buoyant and variable as clouds." So the architecture group itself defines its name and design concept. Beginning with inflated bubbles and interactive installations in the 1960s, the group, consisting of the architects Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer, began to create harsh interventions in the urban context under the headline "architecture must burn." The designs of the buildings are like oversized sound boxes, with dancing silhouettes and collapsing lines that are always rushing and echoing. As one of only a few groups in those early times, they are among the leading international architecture offices today, justified by their outstanding expressiveness and professionalism. Coop Himmelb(l)au's most well-known projects include the Rooftop Remodeling Falkestraße in Vienna, Austria (1988); the Groningen Museum, East Pavilion, in Groningen, Netherlands, (1994); the UFA Cinema Center in Dresden, Germany, (1998); the BMW Welt in Munich, Germany (2007); the Akron Art Museum in Ohio, USA, (2007) and the Central Los Angeles Area High School #9 of Visual and Performing Arts in Los Angeles, USA (2008). Among the recent projects that Coop Himmelb(l)au is pursuing throughout the world are the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, the House of Music in Aalborg, Denmark, the European Central Bank's new headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the Dalian International Conference Center in China.

Emile Prisse d'Avennes (1807–1879), a French Orientalist, author and artist, was one of the greatest pre-20th century Egyptologists. An ardent admirer of the superb skills of Egyptian and Oriental artisans, he was enamored of Arabic art. As a youth he dreamed of exploring the Orient, and at 19 began travelling to Greece and Palestine. Over the next 40 years he explored Syria, Arabia, Persia, and resided in Egypt and Algeria. Converting to Islam, he travelled Egypt disguised as an Arab, using the name Edris Effendi. A student of ancient Egyptian and Islamic cultures, he later wrote: "We shall discuss all the arts, all the industries cultivated by Orientals with so much taste, brilliance, and fantasy. We will present splendid reproductions of the monuments, objects of art and luxury, which provide evidence of an advanced civilization, the influence of which has been felt even in Europe." In 1848/1851 Prisse d'Avennes published his Oriental Album in London (Oriental Album. Characters, Costumes, and Modes of Life, the Valley of the Nile). This brilliant collection of 32 chromolithographs illustrating the people and costumes of the Nile Valley was accompanied by a commentary by renowned Orientalist and Egyptologist James Augustus St. John. After again travelling to North Africa, Prisse d'Avennes returned to France in 1860, bearing the fruits of his journeys—hundreds of folio drawings, photographs, sketches, plans and 400 meters of bas-reliefs. Fascinated by the symmetry, complexity, and opulence of Egyptian and Arabic art, he drew from this vast collection to create compilations of the finest examples of art and architecture, which also took into account historical, social, and religious contexts. In 1877, he published his outstanding survey on Islamic art and architecture, Arab Art (L'Art arabe d'après les monuments du Kaire, 1869–1877), in Paris. This publication reproduces the three atlas volumes containing 200 plates—137 of them magnificent chromolithographs—mainly by Prisse d'Avennes. L’Art arabe is an indispensable compendium on the development of Arabic art, portraying its splendor and diversity, and a work of supreme draftsmanship.