How does a person dream up future cultural landmarks, with nothing but a field to work with? Portraits of Architects, part of Platonic Press’s new collection, explores the answer by pairing original black and white portraits with long-form conversations featuring some of the world's most remarkable practitioners of architecture.

Minco van der Weide, founder and photographer for the London-based independent publisher, travels to meet a group of extraordinary architects who have changed the landscape of their field. In new interviews, they cover topics from village-bound childhoods to adolescent uncertainty, to the decisions that led them to the careers and lifestyles they love. Each conversation has been developed into a biographical essay and paired with black and white portraits taken on location in LA, Porto, and Tokyo, among others.

“I wanted to make books that show the lives of extraordinary professions which might not seem like obvious trajectories,” says Minco, who began the “Portraits” series as an extracurricular project at the University of Cambridge. The new collection follows Platonic Press’s well-received debut project, Portraits of Philosophers (2025), which emerged from Minco’s philosophy studies and reached its Kickstarter goal within one month of opening. It has since shipped to readers worldwide and can be ordered on Platonic Press’s website.

Among those photographed and interviewed are Pritzker Prize laureates Eduardo Souto de Moura and Riken Yamamoto; winnter of the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize and Heinrich Tessenow Gold Medal, Alberto Campo Baeza; Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale, Sumayya Vally; and world-renowned designer of the iconic Jewel Changi Airport and Marina Bay Sands Hotel, Moshe Safdie.

Each volume is a linen-bound square hardcover (24.5 × 24.5 cm), printed on matte paper with a foil-stamped cover, ribbon bookmark, headband, and tailband. Pre-orders open July 1st on our Kickstarter page [link TBA], where backers can secure all four volumes at an early-supporter price ahead of the general release. The campaign runs until 1 August 2026. RRP £45 per volume. General release September 2026.