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In the wake of recent failures in America's urban infrastructure, an emerging group of activist designers are calling on architects to rethink their relationship to the city. For them, the future of the American city lies not in modernism's large-scale master plans or new urbanism's nostalgic community planning. Instead, they favor working with the realities of urban(...)
Fast-forward urbanism: Rethinking architecture's engagement with the city
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In the wake of recent failures in America's urban infrastructure, an emerging group of activist designers are calling on architects to rethink their relationship to the city. For them, the future of the American city lies not in modernism's large-scale master plans or new urbanism's nostalgic community planning. Instead, they favor working with the realities of urban space, finding hidden opportunities in what already exists in our cities; they eschew monolithic, top-down approaches. Fast-Forward Urbanism presents a mixture of essays, opinions, and design projects by well-known architects and theorists including Stan Allen, Will Alsop, Lars Lerup, and Keller Easterling. Equal parts theory and practice, their ideas lay the groundwork for the next American metropolis.
Urban Theory
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Andre Le Notre (1613-1700) was the greatest landscape architect in France, and his work for Louis XIV (the Sun King) laid the groundwork for the baroque style in landscaping. He also defined the essence of French landscape design -scientific, rationalist-in counterpoint to the more romantic, naturalistic English tradition and based his work on the then state-of-the-art(...)
The Baroque landscape : André Le Nôtre & Vaux le Vicomte
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Andre Le Notre (1613-1700) was the greatest landscape architect in France, and his work for Louis XIV (the Sun King) laid the groundwork for the baroque style in landscaping. He also defined the essence of French landscape design -scientific, rationalist-in counterpoint to the more romantic, naturalistic English tradition and based his work on the then state-of-the-art science of optics and perspective. The castle and gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte (approximately 50 km south of Paris) were begun in 1653. They are the first great landscape designed by Andre Le Notre and mark the beginning of the baroque tradition in gardening. Many of the principles Le Notre tried and tested at Vaux were later employed to great acclaim at Versailles, which he designed at the height of his career.
The rise of fashion
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In The Rise of Fashion, Daniel Leonhard Purdy brings together key writings from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century that explore fashion as the ultimate expression of modernity. Making available many previously untranslated or otherwise unfamiliar works from French, German, and English, Purdy establishes an extraordinary lineage of fashion commentary dating back to(...)
The rise of fashion
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In The Rise of Fashion, Daniel Leonhard Purdy brings together key writings from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century that explore fashion as the ultimate expression of modernity. Making available many previously untranslated or otherwise unfamiliar works from French, German, and English, Purdy establishes an extraordinary lineage of fashion commentary dating back to Mandeville and Voltaire, which laid the groundwork for the writings on commodity culture of Adorno, Benjamin, and the Frankfurt School. From critiques of aristocratic excess to accounts of fashion’s influence on our ideals of masculinity or femininity, from the figure of the dandy and the eroticism of clothing to the class politics of fashion, this landmark reader includes works by philosophers (Carlyle, Rousseau, Georg Simmel) and social theorists (Herbert Spencer, Veblen), as well as writers (Goethe, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Wilde) and critics (Karl Kraus, Adolf Loos, Simone de Beauvoir).
Fashion Design
Ernst Haas: Abstract
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Three decades after its completion, Haas’ most personal and least-known project is now available for the first time in this exquisitely produced book. Presented in a clean and spare design, this volume features reproductions of superb quality that allow readers to appreciate his mastery of color, light, and composition, and his ability to capture the mystery of daily(...)
Ernst Haas: Abstract
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Three decades after its completion, Haas’ most personal and least-known project is now available for the first time in this exquisitely produced book. Presented in a clean and spare design, this volume features reproductions of superb quality that allow readers to appreciate his mastery of color, light, and composition, and his ability to capture the mystery of daily life. For this collection Haas drew on images made in all phases of his career from 1952 to 1984, and, despite the title, most of these photographs are not abstract but rather clear, focused, well-exposed images of recognizable surfaces from the observable world around him: crumbling paint, graphic road markings, fabric, liquids, detritus, decay, and torn posters. David Campany’s eloquent introductory essay lays the groundwork for a deep appreciation of the slideshow which, in book form, can be savored and understood in an entirely new way.
Photography monographs
Mãe Luíza: Building optimism
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Over the past 30 years, the district of Mãe Luíza in Brazil's northeastern city of Natal developed from a desolate favela into a functioning community. From the first humanitarian aid to construction of a gymnasium, this persistent process is outlined in short articles and essays in the second part of this illustrated volume. The documentation demonstrates how(...)
Collective Housing
March 2022
Mãe Luíza: Building optimism
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Over the past 30 years, the district of Mãe Luíza in Brazil's northeastern city of Natal developed from a desolate favela into a functioning community. From the first humanitarian aid to construction of a gymnasium, this persistent process is outlined in short articles and essays in the second part of this illustrated volume. The documentation demonstrates how transformation was achieved step by step with the help of many, laying the groundwork for ongoing progress. Less crime, better education, and a fairer society – much has been accomplished and even more is possible for the future. A story by author Paulo Lins (“City of God”) tells the stirring tale of the establishment of the Brazilian favela Mãe Luíza. Fleeing drought and deadly heat, the people there fought for a piece of land to call their own, hoping for a better life. Thanks to their optimism and solidarity, their vision gradually took shape.
Collective Housing
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After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the(...)
Kingdom of characters: The language revolution that made China modern
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After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology. 'Kingdom of characters' follows the bold innovators who reinvented the Chinese language, among them an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao’s phonetic writing system, and a computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup from the floor of a jail cell. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today.
Graphic Design and Typography
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Vanessa R. Schwartz engagingly presents the jet plane’s power to define a new age at a critical moment in the mid-20th century, arguing that the craft’s speed and smooth ride allowed people to imagine themselves living in the future. Exploring realms as diverse as airport architecture, theme park design, film, and photography, Schwartz argues that the jet created an(...)
Jet age aesthetic: the glamour of media in motion
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Vanessa R. Schwartz engagingly presents the jet plane’s power to define a new age at a critical moment in the mid-20th century, arguing that the craft’s speed and smooth ride allowed people to imagine themselves living in the future. Exploring realms as diverse as airport architecture, theme park design, film, and photography, Schwartz argues that the jet created an aesthetic that circulated on the ground below. Visual and media culture, including Eero Saarinen’s airports, David Bailey’s photographs of the jet set, and Ernst Haas’s experiments in color photojournalism glamorized the imagery of motion. Drawing on unprecedented access to the archives of The Walt Disney Studios, Schwartz also examines the period’s most successful example of fluid motion meeting media culture: Disneyland. The park’s dedication to “people-moving” defined Walt Disney’s vision, shaping the very identity of the place. The jet age aesthetic laid the groundwork for our contemporary media culture, in which motion is so fluid that we can surf the internet while going nowhere at all.
Design, Periods and Styles
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A room’s acoustic character seems at once the most technical and the most mystical of concerns. Since the early Enlightenment, European architects have systematically endeavored to represent and control the propagation of sound in large interior spaces. Their work has been informed by the science of sound but has also been entangled with debates on style, visualization(...)
Echo's chambers: architecture and the idea of acoustic space
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A room’s acoustic character seems at once the most technical and the most mystical of concerns. Since the early Enlightenment, European architects have systematically endeavored to represent and control the propagation of sound in large interior spaces. Their work has been informed by the science of sound but has also been entangled with debates on style, visualization techniques, performance practices, and the expansion of the listening public. Echo’s Chambers explores how architectural experimentation from the seventeenth through the mid-twentieth centuries laid the groundwork for concepts of acoustic space that are widely embraced in contemporary culture. It focuses on the role of echo and reverberation in the architecture of Pierre Patte, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Carl Ferdinand Langhans, and Le Corbusier, as well as the influential acoustic ideas of Athanasius Kircher, Richard Wagner, and Marshall McLuhan. Drawing on interdisciplinary theories of media and auditory culture, Joseph L. Clarke reveals how architecture has impacted the ways we continue to listen to, talk about, and creatively manipulate sound in the physical environment.
Architectural Theory
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Frank Lloyd Wright’s wife, Olgivanna, is famously quoted as saying that "My husband seemed to thrive on hardships." From the years 1920 to 1932 Wright’s fortunes were at a low ebb; he was plagued by financial, personal, and professional setbacks, but saw the time as one of challenges instead of one of defeat. Unable to find patrons, his imagination led to visionary, often(...)
Frank Lloyd Wright: the heroic years: 1920-1932
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Frank Lloyd Wright’s wife, Olgivanna, is famously quoted as saying that "My husband seemed to thrive on hardships." From the years 1920 to 1932 Wright’s fortunes were at a low ebb; he was plagued by financial, personal, and professional setbacks, but saw the time as one of challenges instead of one of defeat. Unable to find patrons, his imagination led to visionary, often splendid, architectural conceptions that laid the groundwork for the revolutionary architecture he would build in the decades to follow. During this period he designed almost fifty projects, of which only a few were realized, but those few are seen today as among his most important creations. They include the majestic Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, four exquisite textured concrete block houses in Los Angeles, renovations and additions to his beloved home, Taliesin, in Wisconsin, the Octillo Desert Camp in Chandler, Arizona, and his work as design consultant for the lavish Arizona Biltmore Hotel and Cottages in the desert in Phoenix. Rare and unseen photos as well as little-known drawings from this period are on lavish display in this important work on the master architect.
Architecture Monographs
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This book celebrates, by way of a dual narrative, the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm, designed and furnished by Gio Ponti to a commission from Carlo Maurilio Lerici. The essays aim to examine the events linked to the commission of the project itself, and to the planning and realization of the building together with its interior design. The volume contains a(...)
Enchanting architecture: Gio Ponti's Italian Cultural institute in Stockholm
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This book celebrates, by way of a dual narrative, the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm, designed and furnished by Gio Ponti to a commission from Carlo Maurilio Lerici. The essays aim to examine the events linked to the commission of the project itself, and to the planning and realization of the building together with its interior design. The volume contains a selection of images taken from the Institute's historical archive, as well as a new photographic reportage on the architectural and design elements featured in this building. It is well-known that Ponti took a great interest in Sweden (suffice it to think of all the space that was devoted to Swedish design in the pages of the magazine Domus from the early 1950s), yet it is fascinating to learn more and find answers regarding the dynamics that lay behind the making of this structure. Indeed, Gio Ponti managed to surpass the Swedish architect Ture Wennerholm's original idea, to breathe life into a project where the spaces, albeit organized according to function, succeed one another in a harmonious play of broken lines and different hues. Assisting him in the task were Pier Luigi Nervi and Ferruccio Rossetti. Gio Ponti gave life to a "classical modern" project in which art and architecture merge, proof that he had overcome the limits that were set by the trends characterizing that day and age. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for a new course in the cultural relations between Italy and Sweden.
Architecture Monographs