Cultured Life Books
Design: Exterior
Piano: Renzo Piano Building Workshop Complete Works 1966-today Hardcover – September 23, 2021
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Renzo Piano rose to international prominence with his co-design of the Pompidou Center in Paris, described by The New York Times as a building that “turned the architecture world upside down.” Since then, he has continued to craft such iconic cultural spaces as the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago and, more recently, the Whitney Museum of American Art, an asymmetric nine-story structure in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District with both indoor and outdoor galleries. In London, the Piano touch has also transformed the skyline with the Shard.
At the age of 84, the Italian maestro retains all of his enthusiasm and kindness—and his recent roster is more impressive than ever. As he confided to the author, “I think at a certain age, one can discover that there is what the French call the ‘fil rouge,’ a kind of red thread that relates one building to another over time. In my case, I believe it is about lightness and the art of building.” From freshly built museums in Athens and Santander; ongoing works in Lisbon, London, Toronto, and Geneva; to such humanitarian projects as the Emergency Children’s Surgical Hospital in Entebbe, Uganda, and the Children’s Hospice in Bologna, Italy, Piano’s career is a thrilling journey through the beauty and very essence of architecture.
Based on the massive XXL monograph, this widely updated edition brings the architect’s definitive career overview to an accessible format and is illustrated by photographs, sketches, and plans.
John Lautner: 1911-1994: Disappearing Space
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With his geometric structures perched upon the hillsides, beaches, and deserts of California, John Lautner (1911–1994) was behind some of the most striking and innovative architectural designs in mid-20th-century America.This introductory book brings together the most important of Lautner’s projects to explore hishis ingenious use of modern building materials and his bold stylistic repertoire of sweeping rooflines, glass-paneled walls, and steel beams. From commercial buildings to such iconic homes as the Chemosphere, we look at Lautner’s sensitivity to a building’s surroundings and his unique capacity to integrate structures into the Californian landscape. With several of Lautner’s houses now labeled Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments, we’ll also consider the architect’s cultural legacy, as much as his pioneering of a visual paradigm of 1950s optimism, economic growth, and space-age adventure.
Pierre Koenig 1925-2004: Living With Steel Hardcover – November 6, 2017201 20177
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There are few images of 20th-century architecture more iconic than the nighttime view of Case Study House #22. At its eagle’s nest promontory above Los Angeles, the building is a vision of streamlined glass and steel, its slick lines echoing the twinkling city boulevards below. With this and his other equally innovative build for the famous project of the Arts & Architecture magazine, American architect Pierre Koenig (1925–2004) became one of the leading figures of the Modern movement.While still a student of architecture, Koenig designed and built his first exposed steel house in 1950, proving that the use of prefabricated materials could allow for spatial freedom in affordable houses. Throughout his career, he would champion socially responsible design, as well as buildings that responded deftly and directly to the Southern California climate. Through windows, water, terraces, skylights, and glazing, his buildings optimized the rapport between inside and outside, while aiming for a simplistic purity of appearance.Through all of Koenig’s major projects, including the Johnson House (1962) and Oberman House (1962), this book introduces an architect who was pioneering in method and material and iconic of his time, as fueled by experimentalism as the postwar optimism of the age.
Le Corbusier: 1887 - 1965: the Lyricism of Architecture in the Machine Age
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Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887–1965) is widely acclaimed as the most influential architect of the 20th century. From private villas to mass social housing projects, his radical ideas, designs, and writings presented a whole-scale reinvention not only of individual structures, but of entire concepts of modern living.
Le Corbusier’s work made distinct developments over the years, from early vernacular houses in Switzerland through dazzling white, purist villas to dynamic syntheses of art and architecture such as the chapel at Ronchamp and the civic buildings in Chandigarh, India. A hallmark throughout was his ability to combine functionalist aspirations with a strong sense of expressionism, as well as a broader and empathetic understanding of urban planning. He was a founding member of the Congrès international d’architecture moderne (CIAM), which championed “architecture as a social art.”
This book presents some of Le Corbusier’s landmark projects to introduce an architect, thinker, and modern pioneer who, even in his unrealized projects, offered discussion and inspiration for generations to come.
Zaha Hadid: Complete Works 1979-Today Hardcover – August 15, 2020
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Zaha Hadid was a revolutionary architect. For years, she was widely acclaimed and won numerous prizes despite building practically nothing. Some even said her work was simply impossible to build. Yet, during the latter years of her life, Hadid’s daring visions became a reality, bringing a new and unique architectural language to cities and structures such as the Port House in Antwerp, the Al Janoub Stadium near Doha, Qatar, and the spectacular new airport terminal in Beijing.
By her untimely death in 2016, Hadid was firmly established among architecture’s finest elite, working on projects in Europe, China, the Middle East, and the United States. She was the first female architect to win both the Pritzker Prize for architecture and the prestigious RIBA Royal Gold Medal, with her long-time Partner Patrik Schumacher now the leader of Zaha Hadid Architects and in charge of many new projects.
Based on the massive TASCHEN monograph, this book is now available in an extensively updated and accessible edition covering Hadid’s complete works, including ongoing projects. With abundant photographs, in-depth sketches, and Hadid’s own drawings, the volume traces the evolution of her career, spanning not only her most pioneering buildings but also the furniture and interior designs that were integrated into her unique, and distinctly 21st-century, universe.
Renzo Piano Building Workshop: The Poetry of Flight Hardcover – Illustrated, April 25, 2016op: The Poetry of Flight Hardcover – Illustrated, April 25, 2016
While some architects have a signature style, Renzo Piano seeks to apply coherent ideas to extraordinarily different projects. His buildings impress as much for their individual impact as for their diversity of scale, material, and form.Piano rose to international prominence with his codesign of the Pompidou Center in Paris, described by The New York Times as a building that “turned the architecture world upside down.” Since then, he has continued to craft many high-profile cultural spaces, including the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Morgan Library Renovation and Expansion in New York; and, most recently, the Whitney Museum of American Art, an asymmetric nine-story structure in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District with both indoor and outdoor galleries. In New York and London, the Renzo touch has also transformed the skyline with the towers of the New York Times Building and the Shard, the tallest building in the European Union.This essential introduction travels from Osaka, Japan, to Bern, Switzerland, and through many cities, structures, and islands in between, to explore the staggering scope of the Renzo Piano repertoire. From the “inside-out” Pompidou to the airy shells of the Tjibaou Cultural Center in Nouméa, New Caledonia, this is a thrilling journey through the beauty of architecture, where, in Piano’s own words, “each time, it is like life starting all over again.”
Louis I Kahn Hardcover – November 30, 2016
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Louis Isadore Kahn (1901–1974) treated each building like a temple. Across the United States, in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Israel, his designs combined the sleek, utilitarian surfaces of modernism with a devotion to geometric forms and a reverence for natural light that suffused his stuctures with a monumental and breathtaking spirituality.This essential introduction brings together 17 of Kahn’s most important buildings across his cultural, governmental, religious, and residential repertoire. Plans, views, descriptions, and quality photographs trace the context and development of each project, while an introductory essay explores Kahn’s unique architectural ideology and his legacy as one of the most important 20th-century American architects since Frank Lloyd Wright.Through Kahn masterworks, such as the National Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, or Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, we’ll explore Kahn’s his “back to basics” grammar inspired by ancient sites in Italy, Greece, and Egypt; and his unique vocabulary of mass, void, and light that suffused the International Style with a near-celestial luminescence.
Gio Ponti: 1891-1979 Master of Lightness Hardcover – Illustrated, November 10, 2017
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Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti (1891–1979) is difficult to pin down. With an extraordinarily prolific output and eclectic style, his oeuvre remains one of the most diverse and groundbreaking in design history. Trained initially in architecture, Ponti soon moved into industrial and interior design, experimenting with ceramics, silverware, and glass. Ponti’s key works are spread throughout this extensive overview, including structures of all kinds, from small residential dwellings to high-rise buildings, schools, and office blocks.The home was one of Ponti’s recurring interests and central areas of innovation. His talent for total design—a careful consideration of both interior and exterior space—is charted in the glossy reproductions, floor plans, and drawings featured in this edition. Ponti’s colorful, carefree, and elegant spaces blended an expressive neoclassicism with emerging modernist sensibility.The founder and nearly lifelong editor of domus magazine never ceased to develop and reinvent his style. From the Denver Art Museum to his collection of churches, from bespoke homeware to the symbol of modern Milan, the Pirelli Tower, this monograph provides an introduction to Ponti’s exuberant creativity and illustrious career.
Design: Interior
Elements of Style: Designing a Home & a Life (A Guide to Home Design) Hardcover – Illustrated, October 7, 2014
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From the rising-star designer and author of the hit blog, Elements of Style, a full-color, fully illustrated book packed with honest advice, inspiration, ideas, and lessons learned about designing a home that reflects your personality and style.
Elements of Style is a uniquely personal and practical decorating guide that shows how designing a home can be an outlet of personal expression and an exercise in self-discovery. Drawing on her ten years of experience in the interior design industry, Erin combines honest design advice and gorgeous professional photographs and illustrations with personal essays about the lessons she has learned while designing her own home and her own life—the first being: none of our homes or lives is perfect. Like a funny best friend, she reveals the disasters she confronted in her own kitchen renovation, her struggles with anorexia, her epic fight with her husband over a Lucite table, and her secrets for starting a successful blog.
Organized by rooms in the house, Elements of Style invites readers into Erin’s own home as well as homes she has designed for clients. Fresh, modern, and colorful, it is brimming glamour and style as well as advice on practical matters from choosing kitchen counter materials to dressing a bed with pillows, picking a sofa, and decorating a nursery without cartoon characters. You’ll also find a charming foreword by Erin’s husband, Andrew, and an extensive Resource and Shopping Guide that provides an indispensable a roadmap for anyone embarking on their first serious home decorating adventure. With Erin’s help, you can finally make your house your home.
Palm Beach Style: The Architecture and Advocacy of John and Jane Volk Hardcover – September 5, 2023
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Palm Beach style is the expression of elegance and romance everywhere evident in this paradise and epitomized in the lives and work of architect John Volk and artist-preservationist Jane Volk. Together they conjured up much of the magic that now makes the place. The book explores this unique chemistry and the dazzling homes that are the result.
John Volk was one of the “big five” architects of Palm Beach. It was here, during his sixty years of practice, that he was commissioned to design over 2,000 projects, among them the Royal Poinciana Plaza as well as additions and renovations to the Everglades Club. This book is about the Volks, and the part they played in conjuring the spell with which Palm Beach continues to enchant.
Palm Beach, among other things, is its architecture. Red tile roofs and cast stone columns hint of the Mediterranean. Evidence of inspirations from Spain and Morocco abound. After the economic collapse of 1929, the classical architectural orders began to appear on columns and porticos. The Bermuda style and Modernism made an appearance later. Yet there is no one style exclusively associated Volk; here he perfected many styles and his architectural legacy can be found on almost every street.
While this book honors John Volk’s architecture and his enormous impact, it also celebrates Jane Volk’s contribution to Palm Beach and her devotion to protecting the town and its historic character.
French Chateau Style: Inside France's Most Exquisite Private Homes Hardcover – June 7, 2022
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The doors of centuries-old French chateaux are thrown wide open in this sumptuous photographic cross-country tour. Readers will gain entry to a stunning array of stylish private homes within beautiful historic buildings, each one representing very different approaches to décor and preservation.
When she discovered that nearly half of France’s 44,000 heritage sites were chateaux in various states of repair, Catherine Scotto embarked on a journey to find out who, exactly, lived in these medieval fortresses and, more importantly, what they were like on the inside. From Normandy to Provence and everywhere in between the owners of these chateaux–including decorators, antique dealers, artists, and collectors—represent the epitome of French culture and taste. Each chateau is presented in double-page full-color spreads that feature alluring interiors and information about the hosts and their design journeys. There’s something for everyone here—whether it’s homes where simplicity and minimalism reign, rooms as exuberantly busy as a 14th-century tapestry, or interiors transformed by surprising, era-bending feats. Morel’s breathtaking, naturally lit photographs of generous kitchens, cozy drawing rooms, spacious bedrooms, ingeniously imagined bathrooms, and intriguing hallways and stairwells offer endless inspiration, while Scotto’s engaging text gives readers a feel for the kinds of people who take on such a daunting yet satisfying challenge.
Suzanne Rheinstein: A Welcoming Elegance Hardcover – March 14, 2023
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Over the past decade, celebrated style maker Suzanne Rheinstein has achieved an unprecedented level of refinement and clarity. Her love of objects from the past remains a touchstone, but in her newest rooms, stylish modernity and an elegant simplicity hold sway.
Presented are beautifully photographed homes of clients Suzanne Rheinstein has worked with before that reflect a vision of richness tempered by restraint. Her longtime fans will find new inspiration in these pages. Throughout, she shares her ideas of how to live in a relaxed way surrounded by artworks and personal collections. A traditional Georgian library is done in a totally untraditional lacquered green, while a San Francisco town house revamp includes a “California” room filled with Moroccan rugs and rattan chairs, and a serene retreat has a guesthouse evocative of the bohemian 1970s.
McAlpine: Romantic Modernism Hardcover – March 21, 2023
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A celebration of the recent work of McALPINE, the award-winning architectural and interior design firm, with a collection of residences embracing modernism, classicism, and romanticism.
The work of renowned firm McALPINE has always communicated the power of romanticism, speaking directly to the heart through the beauty and poetry of the home. Tapping diverse influences, the residences draw from architectural languages ranging from Elizabethan and Dutch to colonial Caribbean and agrarian American. The book opens with Bobby McAlpine’s own newly designed house, featuring exquisite spaces that are modern in expression but classical in order and balance. Other projects include a white-on-white neoclassical pavilion-by-the-sea in the Bahamas; a masonry dwelling in the rolling hills of Virginia; a quintessential American country house in Tennessee that combines the familiarity of a farmhouse with crisp minimalism; and an exuberant house sited on the edge of a pastoral golf course in Alabama. Freely choosing from architecture’s treasury, the assembly of houses is familiar, bold, and surprising, all at the same time—reflecting the complexity of the human experience.
Coastal Blues: Mrs. Howard's Guide to Decorating with the Colors of the Sea and Sky Hardcover – Illustrated, April 10, 2018
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From design expert—and interior design readers’ favorite—Phoebe Howard, comes a book focused on decorating with beautiful blue color schemes. Coastal Blues is a glorious decor book filled with inspiring images of beach houses, seacoast getaways, vacation cottages, and luxurious seaside manors.
“Known for her stunning Southern style.” —Oprah.com
“The reigning queen of Southern design.” —USA Today
A hardworking how-to-get-the-look book that offers solid interior design and styling advice, Coastal Blues features brand-new, never-before-published projects, with every page reflecting the ease and casual elegance of shoreline living. Chapters include:
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Sea Glass
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Coral Reef
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Deep Ocean Blue
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Clear Water
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Indigo Bay
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Ocean Mist
Phoebe Howard shows design lovers how to make coastal style modern, fresh, and very much their own. She writes, “Blue connects us to nature more than any other color. But it also connects us to worlds of possibility. We gaze out at the sea, fantasizing about exotic lands, and stare up at the sky, contemplating the limitless universe. Just like the universe’s unlimited potential, blue knows no bounds. Its variations and versatility are what make it so attractive to so many. Did you know that, statistically speaking, blue is the world’s favorite color?”
Working in blue, Phoebe helps you choose wallpaper, furniture fabrics, serving ware, window treatments, and much more.
Whether you are decorating or redecorating your beach home, or simply want to bring coastal style to your urban or suburban home, Phoebe’s ideas, beautiful blues, and popular designs will delight you, your family, and your guests. Coastal Blues is the perfect book for a coffee table, but it will be referred to again and again . . . and it makes a great gift book.
Home: The Residential Architecture of D. Stanley Dixon Hardcover – September 12, 2023
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The debut book from award-winning Southern architect Stan Dixon, one of a highly influential group of Atlanta-based architects and designers who are revolutionizing the design world with their work.
Stan Dixon’s edited approach to the classical elements of architecture creates an understated aesthetic that is historically based while embracing influences of modern design. Through contextually sensitive work of appropriate style, scale, and proportion, he crafts buildings of permanence and delight, while providing their occupants with a beautiful place in which to live their lives. Dixon takes risks in blending genres and styles, with results that are creative and original.
In his first book, Dixon shares thirteen projects that vary geographically and stylistically—from a whimsical coastal retreat on Jupiter Island to an elegant English-manor-inspired dwelling on the coast of South Carolina. Each house explores a different component of his aesthetic, instructing the reader in the nature of authentic architecture while simultaneously delighting them with moments large and small—a shadow of garden gate, a striking stairwell, a tiered veranda.
Photographed primarily by Eric Piasecki, featuring the work of Suzanne Kasler, Jackye Lanham, Carolyn Malone, Beth Webb, Tammy Connor, and other talented designers, HOME: The Residential Architecture of D. Stanley Dixon will resonate with and deeply engage readers in search of home.
Alexa Hampton: Design, Style, and Influence Hardcover – October 3, 2023
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From Alexa Hampton, one of today’s greatest interior designers and owner of Mark Hampton LLC, comes a beautifully photographed memoir about her journey into design and the inspirations that shaped her iconic style.
The anatomies of my chosen surrounding are rich with meaning, authentic and borrowed, and are a snapshot (or many snapshots) of a lifetime spent in the world of design.
In her newest book, Alexa Hampton takes you on a journey through her life’s work: her beautifully appointed pre-war apartment on 59th street in Manhattan. She highlights the art, textiles, and objects in her spaces, along with the design and fashion tastemakers who inspired their use. In doing so, she acknowledges some of the big movements, auctions, and people that rocked the world of design and made an indelible mark on her.
An intimate look into Alexa’s personal design process, including the countless updates and redecorations of her own home, this book is a personal history of interior design and a love letter to an iconic home.
New York School of Interior Design: Home: The Foundations of Enduring Spaces Hardcover – March 27, 2018
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"An essential text for all students of design . . . [and] inspiration and intel for those simply interested in the art and practice." --Alexa Hampton, from the foreword
From the nation's top college for interior design comes a definitive design school in a book and a fabulous reference for decorating the home. In the past decade, New York School of Interior Design, which was founded in 1916, has drawn a large crossover audience of passionate decorating enthusiasts and hobbyists--many of them private homeowners who know that thinking like a professional is the surest way to achieve a magnificent home.
This lavishly illustrated and highly detailed interior design bible provides a comprehensive education on home design and decor, from color theory principles to space-specific considerations (choosing furniture for a living room) and collaborating with architects and other professionals for the best results. Built on the Home Study Course that is the foundation of the school's curriculum, this book offers an unparalleled mastery of the key elements of enduring design, rendering it the only book you'll ever need.