The first book by the highly acclaimed Swiss architecture firm Made In. It may sound banal, yet it is a fundamental truth of architectural design: all ideas are based on previous ideas, on their imitation, inversion, rejection, adaptation, reinterpretation, or ignoration. The same applies to our visual perception and how it influences our thinking and world of ideas. Portraits: Architectural Parables traces these themes through a wealth of images from art history and everyday culture, as well as through analytical and classifying texts. With this book, François Charbonnet and Patrick Heiz, the founding partners of the highly acclaimed Swiss design firm Made In, reveal the approaches they take in their design methodology as well as in their teaching at ETH Zurich's Department of Architecture and the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio. The distinctive feature of this book lies in the linking and collaging of mutually illuminating, yet apparently antagonistic, programs. Made In's method does not claim historical accuracy, as sources and facts are intentionally collaged to serve a reductive purpose. The focus is on the potential they see in the cross-fertilization of different images and ideas rather than on a single, all-embracing model of thought.