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"Peeking through the Keyhole" is about transformations in the way we live and the places we call home. Until the past few decades, transitions in the style of homes and types of households were slow and gradual. With today's instant communication, the way we observe other people, other cultures, and other times has altered, and been altered by, the homes we live in.(...)
Architectural Theory
January 2002, Montréal
Peeking through the keyhole : the evolution of North American homes
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"Peeking through the Keyhole" is about transformations in the way we live and the places we call home. Until the past few decades, transitions in the style of homes and types of households were slow and gradual. With today's instant communication, the way we observe other people, other cultures, and other times has altered, and been altered by, the homes we live in. Avi Friedman and David Krawitz guide the reader through the trends and changes that have influenced residential design and construction over the last fifty years. From kitchens to home offices to entire neighbourhoods, they unravel the effect of technology and consumerism on the way we perceive and use domestic space, arguing that the home is no longer a product of pure design but a response to factors and forces beyond the control of designers, builders, and users. Each chapter approaches the theme of home from a different vantage point: the first three chapters focus on food and kitchens, communication, construction and renovation; the middle chapters deal with childhood and aging; and the final chapters examine our ideas of home in the context of the broader community and as an object of commerce. The authors demonstrate how much life has changed in the years following the Second World War, showing how transformations in society, the economy, and lifestyles are reflected in our homes.
Architectural Theory
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Conceptual art was one of the most influential art movements of the second half of the twentieth century. In this book Alexander Alberro traces its origins to the mid-1960s, when its principles were first articulated by the artists Dan Graham, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Lawrence Weiner, and others. One of Alberro's central arguments is that the conceptual art movement(...)
Contemporary Art Monographs
January 2003, Cambridge, Mass.
Conceptual art and the politics of publicity
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Conceptual art was one of the most influential art movements of the second half of the twentieth century. In this book Alexander Alberro traces its origins to the mid-1960s, when its principles were first articulated by the artists Dan Graham, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Lawrence Weiner, and others. One of Alberro's central arguments is that the conceptual art movement was founded not just by the artists but also by the dealer Seth Siegelaub. Siegelaub promoted the artists, curated groundbreaking shows, organized symposia and publications, and in many ways set the stage for another kind of entrepreneur: the freelance curator. Alberro examines both Siegelaub's role in launching the careers of artists who were making "something from nothing" and his tactful business practices, particularly in marketing and advertising. Alberro draws on close readings of artworks produced by key conceptual artists in the mid- to late 1960s. He places the movement in the social context of the rebellion against existing cultural institutions, as well as the increased commercialization and globalization of the art world. The book ends with a discussion of one of Siegelaub's most material and least ephemeral contributions, the Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement, which he wrote between 1969 and 1971. Designed to limit the inordinate control of collectors, galleries, and museums by increasing the artist's rights, the Agreement unwittingly codified the overlap between capitalism and the arts.
Contemporary Art Monographs
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Recognized in his own time for extraordinary architectural achievements, Leon Battista Alberti (14041472) five hundred years after his death continues to influence the practice and theory of architecture. This book is the first full-scale study of Alberti's life and architecture in more than a quarter century. Robert Tavernor provides a biographical account of the(...)
On Alberti and the art of building
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Recognized in his own time for extraordinary architectural achievements, Leon Battista Alberti (14041472) five hundred years after his death continues to influence the practice and theory of architecture. This book is the first full-scale study of Alberti's life and architecture in more than a quarter century. Robert Tavernor provides a biographical account of the Italian architect and a detailed consideration of each of the building projects with which he was involved. With new reconstructions of Alberti's buildings and new interpretations of his design intentions, this book will fascinate every reader with an interest in Renaissance architecture. From Alberti's supreme knowledge of the thought and buildings of antiquity, he developed a set of writings on science and the visual arts, including his important treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria. In this volume, Tavernor examines Alberti's architectural writings and his practical example, his relations with his patrons, how he extended his theory into practice through major building projects across Italy, and how he succeeded in raising the status of architecture to an art-one that sought harmony with the natural world. Focusing on the analysis of Alberti's buildings, the author sets each in historical context; provides a building history; and considers source material, proportional systems, and iconography. He concludes the book with a fresh view of Alberti's theory and practice and a summary of his design process.
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December 1998, New Haven
Treatises
A meaningful order: OK-RM
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Across its 328 pages it holds a new history of the distributed realities of design. It depicts designed objects on their own terms to give an account of vision, material, and curiosity—representing a selection of the vast archive of more than 16 years of work from OK-RM through an orchestration of the lithographic process with a special set of colours. It is a site for(...)
Graphic Designers, Monographs
July 2025
A meaningful order: OK-RM
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Across its 328 pages it holds a new history of the distributed realities of design. It depicts designed objects on their own terms to give an account of vision, material, and curiosity—representing a selection of the vast archive of more than 16 years of work from OK-RM through an orchestration of the lithographic process with a special set of colours. It is a site for committed study and experimentation, away from the structures of academe. It generates examples, prototypes, and models. It stages a dialogue rendered in a designerly writing through 26 alphabetised chapters (A–Z). It is unashamedly performative in its play with language, direction, and story. It captures the ongoing, open-ended conversation between the editors, who are makers and thinkers of design, including a long form discussion in the form of an interview with long term collaborator Jack Self and is introduced by poet Lila Matsumoto. In this social arena, the book is considered as everyday object and object of art. It examines designed objects and their meanings, which emerge from the interplay of form and context. What does it do? Why does it do it? How does it do it? It lays out new ideas about how designed objects relate to the cultures that they are borne from and the cultures they can create. It strives for transparency, but not at the cost of transcendence.
Graphic Designers, Monographs
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Today's urban riverfronts are changing. The decline of river commerce and riverside industry has made riverfront land once used for warehouses, factories, and loading docks available for open space, parks, housing, and nonindustrial uses. Urban rivers, which once functioned as open sewers for cities, are now seen as part of larger watershed ecosystems. Rivertown examines(...)
Rivertown : Rethinking urban rivers
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Today's urban riverfronts are changing. The decline of river commerce and riverside industry has made riverfront land once used for warehouses, factories, and loading docks available for open space, parks, housing, and nonindustrial uses. Urban rivers, which once functioned as open sewers for cities, are now seen as part of larger watershed ecosystems. Rivertown examines urban river restoration efforts across the United States, presenting case studies from Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Portland, Oregon; Chicago; Salt Lake City; and San Jose. It also analyzes the roles of the federal government (in particular, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) and citizen activism in urban river politics. A postscript places New Orleans's experience with Hurricane Katrina in the broader context of the national riverside land-use debate. Each case study in Rivertown considers the critical questions of who makes decisions about our urban rivers, who pays to implement these decisions, and who ultimately benefits or suffers from these decisions. In Los Angeles, for example, local nonprofit and academic research groups played crucial roles, whereas Chicago relied on a series of engineering interventions. In each case, authors evaluate the ecological issues and consider urban river restoration projects in relation to other urban economic and environmental initiatives in the region. Rivertown is a valuable resource for urban planners and citizen groups as well as for scholars.
Landscape Theory
The birth of graffiti
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The now global phenomenon of graffiti was first captured in New York by a professional photographer in early 1973. The result was Jon Naar's The Faith of Graffiti, the first and most celebrated book about this controversial new art form. Now the forty or so photographs in that book and more than one hundred additional never-before-published pictures from that landmark(...)
June 2007, Munich
The birth of graffiti
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The now global phenomenon of graffiti was first captured in New York by a professional photographer in early 1973. The result was Jon Naar's The Faith of Graffiti, the first and most celebrated book about this controversial new art form. Now the forty or so photographs in that book and more than one hundred additional never-before-published pictures from that landmark body of work are brought together in a book destined to become a classic in its own right. Presented full-frame, at high resolution, and with meticulous attention to the original color, this book brings to life the gritty, exciting New York of the early 1970s and the raw visual power of early graffiti. While today graffiti is an accepted reality of city life--by turns condemned and embraced--these early photographs recall a time when subway cars and tenement walls seemed to explode overnight into bursts of color and energy. In most cases these ephemeral works survive only in Naar's masterful photographs. Sacha Jenkins, an authority on graffiti's history, puts these photographs in a broad historical context of an emerging youth culture that now reaches into every corner of art, fashion, and entertainment. At once nostalgic and inspirational, The Birth of Graffiti opens the way to a deeper appreciation of graffiti's historical and artistic significance.
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15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and six years after the end of the war in Kosovo, Eastern Europeans still have astoundingly little understanding of the everyday life of their neighbors. Leap into the City counters this sad reality with intelligence from artists, theoreticians, journalists and other cultural actors, all of whom start from the conviction that art(...)
Leap into the city : cultural positions, political conditions. Seven scenes from Europe
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15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and six years after the end of the war in Kosovo, Eastern Europeans still have astoundingly little understanding of the everyday life of their neighbors. Leap into the City counters this sad reality with intelligence from artists, theoreticians, journalists and other cultural actors, all of whom start from the conviction that art and culture form the vital center of a society. In essays and reportage, in literary texts and artistic contributions, they take positions on current issues, pose new questions, and so portray a subjective tableau of their cities, the cultural scenes, and the public realms.~Seven cities are presented in as many chapters. Each begins with a specific artistic work, and each concludes with an essay whose theme points beyond the local context. How are the new elites facing up to the wars of the recent past and their consequences? Who is bringing the Communist era to the museum? How is the European Union securing its external borders, and who is the Protectorate in the former Yugoslavia actually protecting? The publication provides insights into a European present that is determined by numerous factors and yet has at least three things in common: a Socialist past, the experience of radical social reconstruction and the task of establishing a democratic political culture.
Urban Theory
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The sketch is a window into the architects mind. As creative designers, architects are interested in how other architects, particularly successful ones, think through the use of drawings to approach their work. Historically designers have sought inspiration for their own work through an insight into the minds and workings of people they often regard as geniuses. This(...)
Architects' drawings: a selection of sketches by world famous archittects through history
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The sketch is a window into the architects mind. As creative designers, architects are interested in how other architects, particularly successful ones, think through the use of drawings to approach their work. Historically designers have sought inspiration for their own work through an insight into the minds and workings of people they often regard as geniuses. This collection of sketches aims to provide this insight. Here for the first time, a wide range of world famous architects' sketches from the Renaissance to the present day can be seen in a single volume. The sketches have been selected to represent the concepts or philosophies of the key movements in architecture in order to develop an overall picture of the role of the sketch in the development of architecture. The book illustrates the work of designers as diverse as Andrea Palladio, Erich Mendelsohn, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Le Corbusier, Michelangelo, Alvar Aalto, Sir John Soane, Francesco Borromini, Walter Gropius, and contemporary architects Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry to name but a few. Each chronologically placed sketch is accompanied by text providing details about the architect’s life, a look at the sketch in context, and the connection to specific buildings where appropriate. Style, media and meaning are also discussed, developing an explanation of the architect’s thinking and intentions.
Architectural Drawing
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Modelling Time: The Permanent Collection 1925–2014 chronicles the exhibition Model as Ruin at the House of Artists in Oslo, November 1 – December 15, 2013. Together with master students from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Mari Hvattum and Mari Lending brought a unique, modernist model collection out of the archives, re-exhibiting it at the venue that once(...)
Modelling time: the permanent collection 1925-2014
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Modelling Time: The Permanent Collection 1925–2014 chronicles the exhibition Model as Ruin at the House of Artists in Oslo, November 1 – December 15, 2013. Together with master students from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Mari Hvattum and Mari Lending brought a unique, modernist model collection out of the archives, re-exhibiting it at the venue that once hosted its biggest ever display in 1931. The collection testifies to a different modernism; not white and austere but colourful, diverse, and full of detail. Modelling Time gives an in-depth portrayal of the so-called ‘Permanent Collection’ of Norwegian scale models, photographs and drawings, tracing its international trajectory of exhibitions from Brussels in 1927 to its last appearance at the World’s Fair in New York in 1939. The book documents the collection’s heydays as part of a vivid international modernist culture, as well as its archival diaspora as it falls into oblivion after WWII. In an extensive, archive-based essay editors Lending and Hvattum give the full context of the collection, while Juliane Derry and Jorge Otero-Pailos look into the models’ materiality and issues of decay. Model scholars and architecture curators Barry Bergdoll, Carson Chan, Pippo Ciorra, Oliver Elser, Juliet Koss, Andres Lepik, Adam Lowe, Wallis Miller, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Léa-Catherine Szacka, and Victor Plathe Tschudi presents a variety of perspectives inspired by the Oslo collection.
Models
Atelier Deshaus 2001-2020
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Shanghai-based Atelier Deshaus, founded in 2001 as one of the first private architectural firms in China, is also one of the country’s most distinguished and innovative design studios. The firm made its name worldwide in 2014 with the much-acclaimed West Bund site for Shanghai’s Long Museum, which has since been followed by a series of further museum and other art-related(...)
Atelier Deshaus 2001-2020
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Shanghai-based Atelier Deshaus, founded in 2001 as one of the first private architectural firms in China, is also one of the country’s most distinguished and innovative design studios. The firm made its name worldwide in 2014 with the much-acclaimed West Bund site for Shanghai’s Long Museum, which has since been followed by a series of further museum and other art-related projects. Such cultural and community buildings of various scales are the main focus of Atelier Deshaus, who deliberately eschew the usual commercial construction tasks in China. Their strong buildings are developed from reading the sites with special attention paid to the preservation of Shanghai’s industrial heritage after decades of a tabula rasa policy in the city’s urban development. At the core of this book are Atelier Deshaus’s twenty most important designs from 2001 to 2020. They are documented in detail through plans and images as well as concise explanatory texts by the architects. In an extensive conversation with Hubertus Adam, the firm’s principals Liu Yichun and Chen Yifeng offer insights into their way of thinking, their understanding of Chinese tradition, their relation to art, and the challenges of working as a nongovernmental office in China. Additional essays place Atelier Deshaus in the context of contemporary international architecture and discuss their key projects with regards to constructive qualities and atmosphere.
Architecture Monographs