Best Design Books

Book review: Richard Meier Artist’s Edition

December 18, 2015

Limited edition of 100 copies worldwide, clothbound in a clamshell box, each numbered and signed by Richard Meier. The artwork is a silkscreen print (20 x 30 cm / 8 x 12 inches) on mould made paper. The trademark of celebrated architect Richard Meier (born 1934) is his use of white structures. He began his career building numerous private homes, and then moved on to administrative buildings, museums and residential complexes notable for their complex groundplans and axial twists – features that have had a decisive influence on contemporary architecture. The Getty Center in Los Angeles, scheduled for completion in 1996, gave Meier the opportunity to tackle the most ambitious project of the decade. This limited edition monograph traces the development of Richard Meier, one of the foremost architects of our times, and affords a generous overview of his projects to date, including: Smith House, Darien (CT), 1965-1967 Bronx Development Center, New York (NY), 1970-1977 Douglas House, Harbor Springs (MI), 1971-1973 The Atheneum, New Harmony (IN), 1975-1979 Hartford Seminary, Hartford (CT), 1978-1981 Museum for Decorative Ars, Frankfurt/ Main, 1979-1985 Giovanitti House, Pittsburgh (PA), 1979-1983 High Museum of Art, Atlanta (GA), 1980-1983 Des Moines Art Center Adddition, Des Moines (IA), 1982-1984…

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Book Review: Jean Nouvel Complete Works

December 18, 2015

The work of France’s most unique and internationally celebrated contemporary architect in a book designed by the master himself. Limited to 1,000 signed and numbered copies packaged in a translucent plexiglass slipcase especially designed by Jean Nouvel for this edition: Jean Nouvel. Complete Works 1970-2008. Recipient of the 2008 Pritzker Prize, Jean Nouvel is without any doubt France’s most original and important contemporary architect. From 1967 to 1970, he was an assistant of the influential architects Claude Parent and Paul Virilio, then creating his own office in Paris. His first widely acclaimed project was the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris (1981–87, with Architecture Studio). Since then he has completed the Lyon Opera House (1986–93), the Euralille Shopping Center, Lille (1991–94), and the Fondation Cartier, Paris (1991–94). His major completed projects since 2000 include the Culture and Convention Center in Lucerne, Switzerland (1998–2000), the spectacular Agbar Tower on Barcelona’s Diagonal Avenue (2001–03), the extension of the Reina Sofia Museum, (Madrid, 1999–2005), the Quai Branly Museum on the Seine in Paris (2001–06), and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Apart from receiving this year’s Pritzker Prize, Jean Nouvel won the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Gold Medal in 2001. Jean Nouvel…

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Top 50 Most Amazing Libraries in the World

December 17, 2015

Top 50 Most Amazing Libraries in the World – Libraries are some of the most complete and incredible tributes to human knowledge imaginable, and with their range of resources, they’re invaluable when it comes to studying. However, reading up on a topic of choice needn’t be done in a bland and boring building, as the following institutions demonstrate. And while it’s the books and facilities that make a library, being in lovely surroundings may provide inspiration and help you to work that little bit harder. Whether they feature sleek, eye-catching architecture or extravagant interiors, the 50 libraries on this list are the most beautiful in the world. Best Design Books shows you the Top 50 Most Amazing Libraries in the World: 50. MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY – SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Image Source The library at Macquarie University in Northern Sydney, Australia has pioneering technology to match its cutting-edge design. It is home to the first Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) in any college in the country; this uses robot cranes to pick up books and convey them to the front desk. For the building’s eye-catching look, architecture firm Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp, which has offices in Australia and England, took its cues from…

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Best Design Books: 100 Masterpieces of Design

December 10, 2015

Best Design Books: 100 Masterpieces of Design showcases one of the world’s largest design collections. This extraordinary Design book published by Centre Pompidou. Founded in the early 1990s, the Pompidou’s collection includes more than 200 designers and houses over 8,000 international pieces. You may also like: Interior Design Books: Kaleidoscope, Living in Color and Patterns Book Review: Get to know Issey Miyake, the Japanese Designer Among its wide-ranging holdings are milestone pieces–the prototype of the Grand Confort Chair by Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret (1928) and Pierre Chareau’s desk for Robert Mallet-Stevens (1927), for example–and practical, everyday triumphs of design, like the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen (1950). You may also like: Book Presentation: Piet Boon Styling by Karin Meyn with Video These works are celebrated in this volume alongside pieces by some of the most influential designers of modern furniture– Alvar Aalto, Gae Aulenti, Harry Bertoia, Marcel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames, Eileen Gray, Arne Jacobsen, Carlo Mollino, Isamu Noguchi, Giò Ponti, Gerrit Rietveld and Mies van der Rohe, to name just a few. See also: Book Review: LEE, a Signed Copy By Lee Radziwill See also: Book review: Carrier and Company – Positively Chic Keep following Best Design Books for the lattest book…

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Book Review: The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes

November 25, 2015

This Monocle book tells us how to turn a house into a home. Both a practical guide and a great source of inspiration, The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes presents the interiors, furniture, and locations you need to know about along with portraits of the people who can make it happen. The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes celebrates the durable and the meaningful through a collection of homes that tell a story. Most architecture and interior books show houses polished to perfection, manicured to the extent that it is hard to imagine anybody actually lives there: they seem to miss the point that homes are meant to be inhabited. They should be able to take scuffs and knocks and to be part of a community, whether in a Chicago skyscraper or on Australia’s sunshine coast. Keep following Best Design Books for the best book reviews! See also: Book review: Atelier Ten Invisible Architecture Book review: Calatrava Book gets an Updated Version Source: gestalten.com How to Create a Reading Nook:

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Book review: Atelier Ten Invisible Architecture

November 23, 2015

Atelier Ten is a London-based engineering practice with offices around the world. For twenty-five years they have specialized in sustainable design, collaborating with such architects as Grimshaw, Hopkins, Wilkinson Eyre and Robert A. M. Stern. Among their most famous projects are Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, Tour Carpe Diem near Paris, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Federation Square in Melbourne. A wealth of photographs, drawings and diagrams, combined with explanatory text, provide a fascinating insight into Atelier Ten’s pioneering green engineering. This book gives a detailed overview of the practice through a series of highly illustrated, thematic essays and covers all their major works since their foundation. It will appeal to engineers and architects alike. About the Author Peter and Charlotte Fiell are the authors of over 20 books on design and the visual arts, including Scandinavian Design, The Story of Design, Designing the 21st Century and the bestselling 1000 Chairs. Keep following Best Design Books for the best books reviews! See also: Book review: Calatrava Book gets an Updated Version Source: laurenceking.com

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Book review: Zaha Hadid Complete Works

November 16, 2015

Book review: Zaha Hadid Complete Works – Limited to 200 numbered copies, delivered in a clamshell box and each signed by the architect, this Art Edition features a special cover custom-made by Zaha Hadid, a cast and high gloss polished black acrylic plate inspired by the design of the new MAXXI in Rome. Zaha Hadid is a wildly controversial architect, who for many years built almost nothing, despite her designs winning prizes and critical acclaim. Some even said her work was unbuildable. Yet over the past decade she has completed numerous structures including the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (which the New York Times called “the most important new building in America since the Cold War’’), thePhaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany, and the Central Building of the newBMW Assembly Plant in Leipzig. Today, Hadid is firmly established among the élite of world architecture, her audacious and futuristic designs having catapulted her to international fame. Born in Baghdad and educated in London, where her practice is based, Hadid has designed radical architecture for over 30 years and is now the subject of this massive TASCHEN monograph. Covering her complete works to date, from Dubai to Guangzhou, this tome demonstrates…

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Book review: Calatrava Book gets an Updated Version

November 11, 2015

Book review: Calatrava Book gets an Updated Version – Santiago Calatrava is renowned around the world as an architect, structural engineer, sculptor, and artist. From the Athens 2004 Olympic sports complex to the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in Manhattan, he exhibits a remarkable aesthetic and engineering prowess with a simultaneous sensitivity for both the appearance and the anatomy of a structure. With influences ranging from NASA space design to da Vinci’s nature studies, Calatrava’s creations are at once aerodynamic and organic in their associations. Natural forms and human movements inform a number of his projects, with a particular interest in the meeting point of equilibrium and dynamism. This updated monograph includes all of Calatrava’s original collaborative input, as well as a number of new projects including the Peace Bridge in Calgary, Canada; the Conference and Exhibition Center in Oviedo, Spain; and the Mediopadana Station in Reggio Emilia, Italy. See also: BOOK REVIEW: SANTIAGO CALATRAVA – COMPLETE WORKS The author Philip Jodidio (born 1954) studied art history and economics at Harvard, and editedConnaissance des Arts for over 20 years. His books include TASCHEN’s Architecture Now! series, and monographs on Tadao Ando, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, and Zaha Hadid. He…

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Book Review – One Way: Peter Marino

August 27, 2015

This catalog documents the exhibition titled One Way: Peter Marino, opening December 4, 2014, at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach. Through a selection of paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, and architectural works, One Way: Peter Marino celebrates internationally acclaimed architect Peter Marino’s connoisseurship of art and his influence on it, exploring the unique interplay of disciplines that inform his oeuvre. See also: Book Review: 100 contemporary concrete buildings The exhibition, curated by Jérôme Sans, takes the viewer on a journey of influences, from Marino’s personal collection of contemporary art to his architecture and design to his relationships with some of the most acclaimed international contemporary artists. Peter Marino, FAIA, is the principal of Peter Marino Architect PLLC, the New York–based architecture firm he founded in 1978. Widely known for his residential and retail work for the most iconic names in the fashion and art worlds, Marino’s award-winning architecture, which also includes large-scale commercial, cultural, and hospitality projects, maintains a constant dialogue between the interior and exterior and has redefined modern luxury worldwide. Peter Marino is the principal of Peter Marino Architect PLLC, an internationally acclaimed architecture, planning and design firm founded in 1978 and based in New…

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Book Review: 100 contemporary concrete buildings

August 5, 2015

Best Design Books brings something unexpected and sober in this book review: concrete. Concrete? That characterless stuff of parking lots or Communist tower blocks, right? Well, yes. And no. Concrete is actually a name applied to a remarkably wide range of building substances, and, when properly handled, is one of the noble materials of contemporary architecture. A kind of “liquid stone” at the outset, it is malleable, durable, and capable of prodigious feats of engineering. See also: BOOK REVIEW: PIRELLI THE CALENDAR – 50 YEARS AND MORE This two-volume book highlights the best work done in concrete of recent years. It includes such stars as Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, and Steven Holl, but also surprising new architects like the Russians SPEECH, and rising stars of the international scene like Rudy Ricciotti from France, as well as artists such as James Turrell, who turned the famous concrete spiral of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in New York into the setting of one of his most remarkable pieces. The author Philip Jodidio (born 1954) studied art history and economics at Harvard, and editedConnaissance des Arts for over 20 years. His books include TASCHEN’s Architecture Now! series, and monographs on Tadao Ando,…

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Book Review: The Book Cover in the Weimar Republic

July 28, 2015

The years between the First and Second World Wars in Germany are famed for their cultural boom and that was the time that inpired the book that we’re going to review today! With Berlin as its epicenter, the Weimar republic was replete with ground-breaking literature, philosophy, and art. At the heart of this intellectual and creative hub were some of the most outstanding and forward-thinking book designs in history. Book Covers in the Weimar Republic assembles 1,000 of the most striking examples from this hub of publishing activity and innovation. Based on the remarkable collection of Jürgen Holstein and his rare collectible Blickfang, it combines anunparalleled catalog of dust jackets and bindings with Holstein’s introduction to the spirit and leading figures of Weimar publishing. See also: BOOK REVIEW: COCA-COLA DELUXE ICE SLIPCASE Expert essays discuss the aesthetic and cultural context of these precious fourteen years, in which a freewheeling spirit would flourish, only to be trampled, burned, or driven out of the country with the rise of National Socialism. From children’s books to novels in translation, bold designs for political literature to minimalist artist monographs, this is a dazzling line-up of typography, illustration, and graphic design at its most energetic and…

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