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Although the first universal color slide film came onto the market in 1935, it was reserved for the world of advertising, and as late as the 1980s it was still considered commercial, vulgar and unartistic. Despite this, from the 1960s onward, more and more photographers began to discover the creative possibilities of the medium. William Eggleston, whose career has spanned(...)
William Eggleston: Mystery of the ordinary
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Although the first universal color slide film came onto the market in 1935, it was reserved for the world of advertising, and as late as the 1980s it was still considered commercial, vulgar and unartistic. Despite this, from the 1960s onward, more and more photographers began to discover the creative possibilities of the medium. William Eggleston, whose career has spanned over five decades, not only substantially contributed to this paradigm shift; he also noticeably influenced many subsequent generations. Along with Saul Leiter, Evelyn Hofer and Stephen Shore, Eggleston was one of the first photographers to recognize the distinctive power of color and its unique capacity to create pictures that continuously challenge the everyday. He imbued banality with the uncanny and mysterious, investigating his immediate surroundings again and again—as if he were somehow suspicious of the contents of his freezer, the ketchup bottle on the diner counter, not to mention the guns that appear as if by chance in so many of his pictures. "Mystery of the ordinary" captures the full scope of Eggleston’s evolution and legacy: from the early black-and-white work of the late 1950s, in which we witness his discovery and exploration of themes and unconventional croppings, to some of his most iconic color images.
Photography monographs
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Cities are at once among humanity’s crowning achievements and core drivers of the climate crisis. Their dependence on the outside world for vital resources is causing global temperatures to rise and wildlife habitats to shrink. But we have the opportunity to make cities more sustainable by transforming the built environment. Dickson D. Despommier proposes a plan for(...)
The new city: How to build our sustainable urban future
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Cities are at once among humanity’s crowning achievements and core drivers of the climate crisis. Their dependence on the outside world for vital resources is causing global temperatures to rise and wildlife habitats to shrink. But we have the opportunity to make cities more sustainable by transforming the built environment. Dickson D. Despommier proposes a plan for creating a new, self-sustaining urban landscape. He argues that we can find solutions through the concept of biomimicry: emulating successful strategies found in nature. A better city is possible if we heed the lessons that forests and trees teach about how to store carbon, grow food, collect rainwater, and convert sunlight into energy. Touring established and leading-edge technologies, ''The new city'' provides a blueprint for tomorrow’s urban environment. Cities built from wood will be more resilient and less destructive than concrete and steel construction; they will also encourage reforestation, boosting carbon sequestration. Vertical farms inside city limits will supply residents with a reliable, healthy food supply. Buildings will harvest moisture from the rain and air to secure a clean water supply. Renewable energy, including not only wind, solar, and geothermal but also clear photovoltaic window glass and nonpolluting hydrogen fuel cells, will power a cleaner city.
Urban Theory
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Dr. Maya Angelou’s unforgettable poem is matched with the daring art of Jean-Michel Basquiat in this powerful ode to courage. Angelou’s brave, defiant poem celebrates the courage within each of us, young and old. From the scary thought of panthers in the park to the unsettling scene of a new classroom, fearsome images are summoned and dispelled by the power of faith in(...)
Children's Books
January 2018
Life doesn't frighten me (25th anniversary edition)
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Dr. Maya Angelou’s unforgettable poem is matched with the daring art of Jean-Michel Basquiat in this powerful ode to courage. Angelou’s brave, defiant poem celebrates the courage within each of us, young and old. From the scary thought of panthers in the park to the unsettling scene of a new classroom, fearsome images are summoned and dispelled by the power of faith in ourselves. Angelou’s strong words are matched by the bold vision of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose style reveals the powerful emotions and fanciful imaginings of childhood. Together, Angelou’s words and Basquiat’s paintings create a place where every child, indeed every person, may experience their own fearlessness. This brilliant introduction to poetry and contemporary art features brief biographies of Angelou and Basquiat and an afterword from the editor. A selected bibliography of Angelou’s books and a selected museum listing of Basquiat’s works open the door to further inspiration through the fine arts. Presented as an impassioned ode to courage, the late poet Dr. Maya Angelou’s 1993 poem in this handsome anniversary edition will inspire a new generation of brave readers, no matter the challenge. Young readers will be inspired by poetry, by art, and by the tremendous talent of these two legendary creators in one beautiful picture book.
Children's Books
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Bernd and Hilla Becher's photography can be considered conceptual art, typological study, and topological documentation. Their work can be linked to the Neue Sachlichkeit movement of the 1920s and to such masters of German photography as Karl Blossfeldt, August Sander, and Albert Renger-Patzsch. Their photographs documenting the architecture of industrial structures,(...)
Photography monographs
March 2006, Cambridge,Mass.
Bernd & Hilla Becher : cooling towers
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Bernd and Hilla Becher's photography can be considered conceptual art, typological study, and topological documentation. Their work can be linked to the Neue Sachlichkeit movement of the 1920s and to such masters of German photography as Karl Blossfeldt, August Sander, and Albert Renger-Patzsch. Their photographs documenting the architecture of industrial structures, taken over the course of forty years, make up the most important body of work to be found in independent objective photography. This volume adds cooling towers to a list of photographic projects that includes book-length studies of water towers, blast furnaces, gas tanks, mineheads, and frame houses. Since the end of the nineteenth century, cooling towers have formed a striking part of electricity and steel works. The first cooling towers were wood-clad structures at coal mines; more recent examples are the steel or concrete constructions seen at nuclear power stations. The simplicity of these forms and their hermetically sealed external skins create an impressive, monumental effect. The Bechers have been photographing cooling towers since the 1960s. This volume contains 236 photographs of cooling towers - in all their different shapes and structural forms - from Belgium, England, France, Germany, Holland, and the United States, and includes a short text by the Bechers.
Photography monographs
Queering architecture
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Featuring contributions from a range of significant voices in the field, this volume renews the conversation around what it means to speak of the "queer" in the context of architecture, and offers a fresh take on the methodological and epistemological challenges this poses to the discipline of architectural theory. Architecture as a discipline, a profession and an applied(...)
Queering architecture
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Featuring contributions from a range of significant voices in the field, this volume renews the conversation around what it means to speak of the "queer" in the context of architecture, and offers a fresh take on the methodological and epistemological challenges this poses to the discipline of architectural theory. Architecture as a discipline, a profession and an applied practice, is always subordinate to its own conceptual framework, which is one of orderliness. It refers to buildings, but also to infrastructures of thought and knowledge, to conventions and taxonomies, to structures of governance, hierarchies of power and systems of administration. How, then, can one look at queering architectural discourse when the very term "queer", celebrated for its elusive, slippery nature, resists and attacks such order? Divided into four subsections, the essays in this anthology each purse a distinct line of inquiry - methods, practices, spaces, and pedagogies - in order to help particularize the proposed queering of architecture. They demonstrate the paradoxical nature of the endeavour from a diverse range of perspectives – from the questions of mapping queer theory in architecture; to the issues of queer architectural archives, or lack thereof; to the non-Western linguistic challenges to the very term queer alongside decolonial approaches to architecture via indigeneity and landscape.
Gender Theory in Architecture
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Dating from the early 1970s, ‘'Design and the Building Site'’ is Sérgio Ferro’s most influential theoretical work. Written just after Ferro had arrived in France after fleeing the military dictatorship that took power in Brazil in 1964 and arrested him in 1970 for his involvement in active resistance, the essay reflects much of what he had left behind: encounters with(...)
The building site and the design
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Dating from the early 1970s, ‘'Design and the Building Site'’ is Sérgio Ferro’s most influential theoretical work. Written just after Ferro had arrived in France after fleeing the military dictatorship that took power in Brazil in 1964 and arrested him in 1970 for his involvement in active resistance, the essay reflects much of what he had left behind: encounters with Brasilia’s harsh construction sites; experiences with the collective ''Arquitetura Nova''; work on the editorial committee of the journal ''Teoria e Prática''; and the year Ferro spent in prison, befriending construction workers and reading Freud. The text constitutes a critique of architectural production under capitalism, surveying the political economy of architectural production and its influence on the contemporary practice of architecture. Half a century after its first publication, and in the face of capitalism’s greatest crisis, it has never offered such a pressingly relevant call for action. This edition contextualises and expands on Ferro’s essay with earlier and later texts, clarifying both the contextual and theoretical elements at play in its argument. A preface written by Ferro especially for this first English-language edition recounts his journey from Brasilia’s building sites to the experiments of ''Arquitetura Nova'', as well as a topic he has rarely touched on before: postmodernism.
Architectural Theory
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LaToya Ruby Frazier’s award-winning first book, "The notion of family", offers an incisive exploration of the legacy of racism and economic decline in America’s small towns, as embodied by her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. The work also considers the impact of that decline on the community and on her family, creating a statement both personal and truly political—an(...)
Photography monographs
October 2016
LaToya Ruby Frazier: The notion of family
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LaToya Ruby Frazier’s award-winning first book, "The notion of family", offers an incisive exploration of the legacy of racism and economic decline in America’s small towns, as embodied by her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. The work also considers the impact of that decline on the community and on her family, creating a statement both personal and truly political—an intervention in the histories and narratives of the region. Frazier has compellingly set her story of three generations—her Grandma Ruby, her mother, and herself—against larger questions of civic belonging and responsibility. The work documents her own struggles and interactions with family and the expectations of community, and includes the documentation of the demise of Braddock’s only hospital, reinforcing the idea that the history of a place is frequently written on the body as well as the landscape. With The Notion of Family, Frazier knowingly acknowledges and expands upon the traditions of classic black-and-white documentary photography, enlisting the participation of her family, and her mother in particular. In the creation of these collaborative works, Frazier reinforces the idea of art and image-making as a transformative act, a means of resetting traditional power dynamics and narratives—both those of her family and of the community at large.
Photography monographs
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Paul Hutchinson’s work (b. Berlin, 1987; lives and works in Berlin) conveys an intimate and unvarnished perspective, rendering the imperfections, incidental details, and human facets of urban culture. Fleeting moments and encounters often act as a base for his critical photographic practice. The central protagonists in his most recent project, titled Stadt für Alle(...)
Paul Hutchinson: Stadt fur alle
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Paul Hutchinson’s work (b. Berlin, 1987; lives and works in Berlin) conveys an intimate and unvarnished perspective, rendering the imperfections, incidental details, and human facets of urban culture. Fleeting moments and encounters often act as a base for his critical photographic practice. The central protagonists in his most recent project, titled Stadt für Alle (transl. City for All), are countless cranes, excavators, and construction signs. They are the tools that power the remaking of any city’s urban fabric – here Berlin mostly sets the example. Building pits constitute the foundation for farewells and new beginnings. Advertising banners for luxury developments vie against protest placards hanging limply on the façades of older buildings. The artist has compiled a pictorial atlas that prompts reflections on the transformation of the city and thereby gives form to the advancing gentrification, the constant feeling of threat and the increasing loss of inner-city street culture. Hutchinson’s writing complements the deft visual analysis of these processes: "The way you look at me, smiling while I’m losing my vision" is one such observation that, in conjunction with his images, opens up a space for interpretation and a probing inquiry into what urban life will mean in the future.
Photography monographs
Perspecta 37 : famous
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Does fame empower architecture or undermine it? Does the star power or cult status of an architect enhance the art or dilute it? This issue of Perspecta examines the inner workings of fame as it relates to architecture though media and culture. It looks at how the commodification of architecture affects the design process - whether fame emphasizes all the wrong aspects of(...)
Magazines
June 2005, Cambridge, Mass.
Perspecta 37 : famous
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Does fame empower architecture or undermine it? Does the star power or cult status of an architect enhance the art or dilute it? This issue of Perspecta examines the inner workings of fame as it relates to architecture though media and culture. It looks at how the commodification of architecture affects the design process - whether fame emphasizes all the wrong aspects of architecture or provides the only way an architect can produce truly ambitious projects. How does architecture generate fame? And how does fame generate architecture? Celebrity permeates all levels of contemporary society; architecture, academia, the architectural press, and the mainstream media all play a role in promoting the mystique of the designer genius. The tradition of learning through apprenticeship and the struggle to have projects commissioned and built perpetuate the importance of the famous architect. Does this serve architecture or only the architectural star? The contributors to Perspecta examine both sides of the argument: Architecture moves forward through a process of innovation; fame provides the architect with the leverage needed to accomplish innovation. Or is it that fame, because of its relationship to the media and popular tastes, inevitably dilutes the quality of the architecture? Does "famous" architecture glorify only itself and neglect the people, the values, and the functions that it must serve?
Magazines
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In the 11 days following the Chernobyl catastrophe on April 26, 1986, more than 116,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant. Declared unfit for human habitation, the zones of exclusion includes the towns of Pripyat (established in the 1970s to house workers) and Chernobyl. In May 2001, Robert Polidori photographed what was(...)
Robert Polidori : zones of exclusion : Pripyat and Chernobyl
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In the 11 days following the Chernobyl catastrophe on April 26, 1986, more than 116,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant. Declared unfit for human habitation, the zones of exclusion includes the towns of Pripyat (established in the 1970s to house workers) and Chernobyl. In May 2001, Robert Polidori photographed what was left behind in the this dead zone. His richly detailed images move from the burned-out control room of reactor 4, where technicians staged the experiment that caused the disaster, to the unfinished apartment complexes, ransacked schools and abandoned nurseries that remain as evidence of those who once called Pripyat home. Nearby, trucks and tanks used in the cleanup efforts rest in an auto graveyard, some covered in lead shrouds and others robbed of parts. Houseboats and barges rust in the contaminated waters of the Pripyat River. Foliage grows over the sidewalks and hides the modest homes of Chernobyl. In his large-scale photographs, Polidori captures the faded colors and desolate atmosphere of these two towns, producing haunting documents that present the reader with a rare view of not just a disastrous event, but a place and the people who lived there.
Photography monographs