Search results for ""Lars Muller Publishers""

The OfficeUS Agenda, the catalogue for the U.S. Pavilion, serves simultaneously as a guide and counterpoint to the exhibition. Organized into stories of expertise, exchange, and export, the Agenda frames the narratives that have projected the organizational structures and branded identity of U.S. architecture firms internationally from 1914-2014. The Agenda includes thirteen essays of original scholarship, including Barry Bergdoll, Beatriz Colomina, Jorge Otero-Pailos and Keller Easterling. OfficeUS, the U.S. Pavilion for the 2014 International Architecture Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia, reframes the history of U.S. architecture through the lens of export in two interrelated constructs: "The Office" and "The Repository." The Repository presents 1000 projects designed by 200 US offices working abroad in a chronological archive of the last 100 years. Collectively these projects tell multiple, imbricated stories of U.S. firms, typologies, and technologies, as well as a broader narrative of modernization and its global reach. The Office engages these projects, revisiting their premises and conclusions over the course of the Biennale. It functions as a laboratory staffed by a diverse group of resident design partners collaborating with outpost offices and a rotating cast of visiting experts. Together, these two halves of OfficeUS create both an historical record of the U.S. contribution to global architectural thought, and a petri dish in which that record is submitted to contemporary agents of disruption and critique.

Read more less

British architect Nicholas Hawksmoor (approx.1661 - 1736) is recognized as one of the major contributors to the traditions of British and European architectural culture. Nevertheless, there is insufficient visual documentation and analysis of his work. Nicholas Hawksmoor: Seven Churches for London reconsiders his architecture in relation to urbanism. The publication focuses on a series of important London churches the architect designed during the early part of the eighteenth century. The key distinguishing features of these churches are their spires, each designed with different qualities and motifs. While Hawksmoor was inspired by the ancient history of architecture, his work was considered radical and contemporary in its day. Photographer Helene Binet was specially commissioned to document the various aspects of the seven remaining London churches. Her immaculate black and white photographs demonstrate the beauty of Hawksmoor's architecture with special attention to the variety of scales, sites, interiors, textures, and materials

Read more less

Torre David is an incomplete skyscraper in the center of the Venezuelan capital Caracas that has been occupied and reconstructed by local residents. Work on the building, named after the financial investor David Brillembourg, who died in 1993, was suspended during the Venezuelan financial crisis of 1994. After the office tower - the third highest in Venezuela - had stood empty for many years, it was taken over by the local population in 2008. The occupants made the building their own with improvisation and skill - it is a "vertical favela," now containing not just housing but also other everyday facilities such as an improvised doctor's office, shops, and more. Photographer Iwan Baan has documented Torre David and its occupants, creating a portrait that captures the contradictions of the place while at the same time revealing urban structures that have emerged dynamically and without planning.

Read more less

As health becomes a central focus of political debate, are architects, urban designers, and landscape architects seeking a new moral and political agenda to address these concerns? Imperfect Health looks at the complexity of today's health problems juxtaposed with a variety of proposed architectural and urban solutions. Essays by Margaret Campbell, David Gissen, Carla C. Keirns, and Sarah Schrank deal with different aspects of the topic of health in the context of architecture such as: "An Architectural Theory of Pollution" and "Strange Bedfellows: Tuberculosis and Modern Architecture - How 'The Cure' Influenced Modernist Architecture and Design."

Read more less

Like few others, Louis Kahn cultivated the craft of drawing as a means to architecture. His personal design drawings - seen either as a method of discovery or for themselves - are unique in the twentieth century. Over two hundred - mostly unpublished - drawings by Kahn and his associates are woven together with a lively and informed commentary into an intimate biography of an architectural idea. Unfolding around the iconic project for the Dominican Motherhouse (1965 - 69) the drawings form a narrative which not only reveals the richness and hidden dimensions of this unbuilt masterpiece, but provides compelling insights into Louis Kahn's mature culture of designing. Kahn - long considered an architects' architectA" - emerges as a vivid and instructive guide, provoking reflection on questions which continue to remain relevant: on how works are conceived, on how they might be perceived, on how they become part of human experience. Fascinating not only in their beauty, the drawings open a new and stimulating perspective on one of the past century's great architects.

Read more less

Inescapably controversial, its very existence challenged by German intellectuals like Günter Grass, the Holocaust Memorial Berlin (or, as it's formally known, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) is now finished, some 16 years after it was first proposed. Architect Peter Eisenman's design, which filled a four-football-field-size parcel of land in the middle of Berlin with more than 2,700 concrete slabs, or stelae, was itself hotly debated, with some complaining that its abstractness, Eisenman's trademark, made it a monument that evoked no memories. As the debates give way to accounts of the experience of the space, the readers of this book, produced with Eisenman's cooperation, will be able to compare how successfully the architect's conception matches the reality. The intent is that the visitor, who finds himself winding his way through the concrete forest of varying heights, will be struck by how distant the busy city center seems, and how quiet and reflective--but not graveyard-like--the atmosphere is. Since the monument does not have a specific entrance or exit, visitors will be able to choose their own way in and out of the complex. Passing through the rows of slabs that lean almost imperceptibly and stand on seemingly unstable ground, visitors may experience a sensation of insecurity, and while that is mitigated in much of the site where the whole area is in view, at the center the surrounding slabs are 15 feet high. In this, one can sense the work of Richard Serra, who initally collaborated on the project but left when changes were called for. This volume offers a full picture of the process from conceptual and architectural drawings and digital plans to photographs of construction. It holds the narrative of a difficult task, turning "the place of no meaning," as Eisenman once referred to the site in the hopes of dispelling fears that he was trying to symbolize the deaths that took place during the Holocaust, into a confrontation with the past. The enormity and scale of the horror of the Holocaust is such that any attempt to represent it by traditional means is inevitably inadequate . . . Our memorial attempts to present a new idea of memory as distinct from nostalgia . . . We can only know the past today through a manifestation in the present. 65 illustrations

Read more less

The third volume of the series 'The Architect’s Studio' focuses on Tatiana Bilbao’s exploration of the landscape: from the territory of Mexico over the urban to the interior landscape of the individual building, always taking social conditions into account. This is also demonstrated in Bilbao’s various projects such as the architectural design of a pilgrimage route, a botanical garden in the Mexican main trading center Culiacán, and not least the Light of Line, which is intended to enable women in particular to move more safely in remote districts of the city. In constant collaboration with experts from various disciplines, Bilbao wants to create architecture that has a direct impact on its users. The publication also provides insights into the Mexican cultural, artistic, and building traditions that Bilbao incorporates into her projects. The volume addresses the question of the use of collages in architecture and embeds Bilbao’s work in a contemporary as well as a historical context. TATIANA BILBAO, born in 1972, is a Mexican architect. She developed the architectural project along the Ruta del Peregrino and is a recipient of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture by the LOCUS Foundation, Cité de l’Architecture in Paris, and the patronage of UNESCO.

Read more less

The way things flow: exploring the movement of bodies, data and goods. Mobility shapes society in countless ways. Looking at society from the perspective of mobility reveals that its key moments of development coincide with the removal of obstacles to human flow-in the physical movement of people, goods, ideas, and spoken and written language. This book explores mobility in various essayistic modes, from visual essays to scientific essay to broad cultural speculations. Mobility Society addresses, among other topics, energy politics and oil's grip on everyday life; urban transportation policy; the restrictions placed upon differently abled bodies; patterns of data flow; human mobility and Blackness; the politics of speed; concepts of "freedom" in relation to mobility; the appearance and experience of permanence in architectural and other objects; geological movement; and the politics of mobile phones. The design of the book encourages the reader to discover and explore unsuspected relations between mobilities and aspects of our evolving society. AUTHORS: . Adrian Bejan is a Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University. . Peter Adey is a Professor of Human Geography at the University of London, UK, and the author of Mobility (Routledge, 2017). . Kader Abdolah left Iran as a political refugee and now lives in Holland. He leapt to literary fame with House of the Mosque (New Directions, 2005). . Caspar Chorus, Elmer van Grondelle and Matthijs van Dijk are professors in Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University. SELLING POINTS: . Collection of essays and visual graphics about mobility. Mobility here is NOT about physically getting around, nor is it about accessibility. Mobility here is about the movement of everything like digital information, sea freight, etc., and how that movement shapes culture at large. 101 illustrations

Read more less

After lengthy planning, the new public library in Oslo was completed and opened in summer 2020. Located opposite the Opera House and the Munch Museum, the imposing building fits into the ensemble in the new cultural quarter of the Norwegian capital. The project by Lund Hagem Architects and Studio Oslo emerged from an international architectural competition and is characterized by a radical interpretation of the library as a vivid place to meet and spend time with an impressive multimedia offering in an unobtrusive inviting environment. The publication documents in detail the planning and building process from the first draft to the opening. Essays by the novelist Elif Shafak and the library’s long-time director Liv Sæteren explain the significance of the institution as an integrative social force. Nikolaus Hirsch pays tribute to the building from the perspective of architectural criticism. Iwan Baan and Hélène Binet capture the architecture and atmosphere of the shining crystal in their photographs.

Read more less

Following the worldwide success of his Poemotion trilogy, Takahiro Kurashima presents a title that is in no way inferior to the previous ones in terms of surprise and viewing pleasure. On the contrary: here, the motifs are combined to form a visual narrative that is revealed when the static basic image is set in motion by means of the striped foil. Then an astonishing panorama of unseen moirés and patterns unfolds. The artist uses the digital tools for his creations in a virtuoso manner. At the same time he continues to catch up with the great models of kinetic art. Moirémotion is a school of vision and offers contemplative recreation for our eyes.

Read more less

The medium of the poster is distinguished by displaying messages combining images and text on a static, two-dimensional surface. Designers have, however, always toyed with extending the plane by adding a third dimension, whether spatial or temporal, in order to fool the eye. Stop Motion examines the myriad creative approaches to suggesting movement, recession into depth, dynamics, and rhythm. Perspectival narrowing and plastically rendered motifs are among the traditional stylistic means used in painterly and illustrative posters. Borrowings from Op Art or psychedelic art perplex the eye. In photographic posters, techniques such as blurring or time exposure are used to cause an image to vibrate. But sophisticated printing techniques can also broaden the possibilities of visual expression. In contemporary posters, it is the strictly graphic means of writing, abstract pictograms, or geometric forms that stretch out nested spaces, through which the gaze wanders restlessly. Stop Motion reveals that poster designers have in fact traditionally sought to incorporate the aspect of movement. Moreover, the works assembled in the publication show that—with the exception of the current animated poster trend—the simulation of movement and three dimensions is always the result of a conscious design decision motivated by the respective content.

Read more less

Just what is it that catches the eye, and why? What's the significance of a broken flowerpot, a pair of identical tables side by side, a garden hose wrapped around an old car wheel? In this collection of photo essays, the famous designer Jasper Morrison examines and imagines the life behind a series of seemingly ordinary situations. AUTHOR: Jasper Morrison was born in London in 1959, and graduated in Design at Kingston Polytechnic Design School and the Royal College of Art in London, with a year at Berlin's HdK. In 1986 he set up an Office for Design in London. 1994, began a consultancy with Ustra, the Hanover transport authority, designing a bus shelter, and in 1995 the new Hanover tram. In 2001 elected as a Royal Designer for Industry. In 2003 a branch office was opened in Paris. Jasper Morrison Ltd. design for a wide-ranging customers base including: Alessi (Italy), Cappellini (Italy) Flos (Italy), Magis (Italy), Rowenta (France), Vitra, (Switzerland). 2004, began consultancies with Samsung (Korea), Muji (Japan), Ideal Standard (UK) and Olivetti (Italy). 2005, founding of Super Normal with Naoto Fukasawa. In June 2006, first Super Normal exhibition in Tokyo. 2009 opening of the Jasper Morrison Limited Shop in London. 37 illustrations

Read more less

Using a typological structure (landscape, park, square, garden, promenade, etc.), Gunther Vogt describes the theoretical foundation on which the successful projects of Vogt Landscape Architects are based. In recent years they have realized international projects in Europe and the United States, including a new type of city park for the Tate Modern in London (with Herzog & de Meuron); an "all-weather garden" with great poetic power at the Hyatt Hotel in Zurich (with Meili, Peter Architekten);an indoor tropical garden for the Novartis Campus in Basel (with Diener & Diener); and the exterior spaces of the Allianz Arena in Munich (with Herzog & de Meuron). The updated edition shows the finished projects that were presented as plans in the previous edition.

Read more less

It was not by chance that Louis Kahn's move into his profession's spotlight coincided with the crisis of modern architecture: representing, as his work increasingly did, those aspects of space which modernism had so ambitiously removed from its program. Kahn's rethinking of modern architecture's paradigm of space belongs to his most important contributions to the metier. In tracing the genesis of the unbuilt project for the Dominican Motherhouse (1965-69), we are given a close-up view of Kahn at work on a few fundamental questions of architectural space: seeking the sources of its meaning in its social, morphological, landscape and contextual dimensions. This rich and multivalent project opens the way to a second section, which sheds new light on several of major works in a timely reappraisal of Kahn's work. The result of extensive research, illustrated with unpublished archival material and new analytic drawings, this affordable volume is an indispensible companion to 'Louis Kahn: Drawing to Find Out.'

Read more less

The latest publication by designer Kenya Hara following his acclaimed Designing Design. White is not a book about color. It is rather the author's attempt to explore the essence of “white,” which he sees as being closely related to the origin of Japanese aesthetics-symbolizing simplicity and subtlety. The central concepts discussed are emptiness and the absolute void. Kenya Hara also sees his work as a designer as a pure form of communication. Good communication has the distinction of being able to listen to each other, rather than to press one's opinion onto the opponent. Kenya Hara compares this form of communication with an “empty container.” In visual communication, there are equally signals whose signification is limited, as well as signals or symbols such as the cross or the red circle on the Japanese flag, which-like an “empty container”-permit every signification and do not limit imagination. It is not only the fact that the Japanese character for white forms a radical of the character for emptiness that has prompted him to closely associate the color white with the state of emptiness. This book offers a personal insight into the philosophy of the successful designer and author of Designing Design. 4 illustrations

Read more less

Architecture is increasingly understood as a field of practice that is inextricably embedded in ecologies and energy systems, and yet embodied energy-the various forms of energy required to ex- tract raw matter, to produce and transport building materials, and to assemble a given building- remains largely under-explored in its ramifications for both design and environment. As operational energy has declined as a proportion of buildings' total energy consumption, embodied energy has become an essential site for further speculation and innovation. Embodied Energy and Design: Making Architecture between Metrics and Narratives asks questions about the varying scales, methods of analysis, and opportunities through which we might reconsider the making of architecture in the context of global flows of energy and resources.

Read more less

How does light transform the objects it shines upon? What are the consequences of such meta- morphoses on architectural thought? Book of Hours seeks to answer these questions. To this end, it presents the architect Frida Escobedo's research on the transformative effect of light on matter. Time lapses show the process in action and translucent paper mimics the permeable barrier between light sources and objects and enacts the mutability of matter.

Read more less

Wolfgang Laib (born 1950 in Germany) is considered to be one of the most important artists of today. His work is characterized by a profound relationship with nature and a declared belief in simplicity. Eastern philosophies from India have also shaped his life and his artistic practice since the 1970s. The artist continues today to concentrate on just a few cyclical groups of work. Ever since his journeys to India as a young man, Wolfgang Laib has been inspired by the idea of seeing humans as part of a larger whole. He also follows this way of life in his art: he tracks down the universal, the eternal, and works with natural materials such as pollen, rice, milk or bees wax. At the Bündner Kunstmuseum, he presents an extensive, room-sized installation made up of thousands of tiny rice mountains. An important foodstuff, rice symbolizes vitality and is fundamental for our earthly existence. The process of creating this work of art is revealed in the book and is related to a conversation between Wolfgang Laib and the internationally renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. With this book, Wolfgang Laib reveals the spiritual dimension of art and leads us directly to the sources of his poetics.

Read more less

A doomed painter on his last walk, a barefoot girl in front of a school blackboard, a charismatic politician as an advocate for the simple life: 99 Photographs presents images that touch, seduce or confuse. Since 1971 the Fotostiftung Schweiz has been collecting archives of photographers and outstanding works of photographic history. Now its 50th anniversary gives rise to a curated look at this collection – an invitation to discover the rich language of photography and to see the world through different eyes. Well-known icons stand next to unknown trouvailles, pioneers of color photography next to Netcam photographers. The short accompanying texts point to a reality that lies behind the facts and beneath the surface. Ninety-nine times, editor Peter Pfrunder stops time to look inward and outward at once – until the invisible emerges in the visible and images turn out to be a wondrous mixture of facts and fantasies.

Read more less

The Alpine region is characterized by a great diversity in all spatial dimensions and qualities. This circumstance is not to be read primarily as the result of administrative drawing of borders, but first of all as an expression of the alpine topography, determined at the same time by intensive cultivation by humankind. However, the assumption that this configuration, seen against a background of massive rocks and steep ridges, is a steady formation would be misleading. For the Alps are not a stable structure, but a dynamic and sensitive organism. Here, boundaries are ceaselessly overcome and continuously shifted. This goes hand in hand with a change in perception and is conditioned by natural dynamics, transforming cultural practices and the bridging of topographical obstacles, whereby the Alps are not only opened up internally, but at the same time integrated into an overall European context. Thus, over a long period of time, a space was created in which the most diverse things came together and were interwoven with the local. However, this principle of interaction is increasingly giving way to a one-sided claim from the outside. At the same time, the nature and manner of human access have themselves taken on geological dimensions. In the context of the 17th Venice architecture biennial, contributions by Vogt Landscape Architects and the Chair of Günther Vogt at ETH Zurich, Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies illuminate individual manifestations of this dynamic landscape with a view to hydrological, biological and geological aspects. Moving Borders documents the contributions at the Biennale and complements them with scientific essays, artistic works and comprehensive photographs taken during fi eld trips to the Alps.

Read more less

Dutch architect and designer J. J. P. Oud participated in the Bauhaus Week and the International Architecture Exhibition. His writing, beginning with a personal confession, is a summary of theoretical and practical findings in the field of architecture, specifically using the example of Dutch architecture. He thus looks to the future and reflects on the potential of architecture without forgetting to reveal his relationship with the past.

Read more less

The Swiss population is called upon to participate actively in political decision-making processes through regular campaigns. These campaigns are often concerned with issues that heat up the emotions and lead to ideological battles. Swiss campaign posters, which have influenced opinion making since the beginning of the 20th century, bear testimony to direct democracy. This special form of political propaganda—prominently associated with Switzerland—is a sensitive indicator of socio-political moods and reflects both national mentalities and global tendencies. Yes! No! Posters for Democracy reveals the visual argumentation strategies and rhetorical approaches that have shaped the Swiss campaign poster from 1918 to the present. Clichéd exaggerations, undifferentiated simplifications, a repertoire of drastic motifs and abridged slo- gans correspond to the laws of the medium, which is oriented towards a manipulative appeal to the masses. Appeals to a sense of unity focus primarily on emotionalization, hardly on rational enlightenment. Subtly condensed messages or a graphically innovative language are hardly to be found in Swiss campaign posters. And yet many renowned designers created works that have inscribed themselves in the collective visual memory of the Swiss population and became icons of Swiss poster design.

Read more less

In The Intimacy of Making Swiss French photographer Hélène Binet takes us on a visual journey through a world of stone, walls and gardens that define and celebrate the Korean art of making. In pure and calm photographs we discover traditional Korean architecture through a Western lens. The purity of the motifs sharpens one’s eye for the often-overlooked beauty and harmony in our own environment and history, as well as for the care of craft and composition. This book is a reminder against our often fleeting and careless perceptions. In her photographs, which were taken over the course of the last three years, Binet looks at three typologies of traditional architecture in Korea: the Confucian school and sacred place Byeong- san Sewon; garden and tea house Soswaewon; and the Jongmyo Shrine. Her camera combines both the nature and the built structures and reveals the soul of the three sites. The photographic essays are accompanied by two texts: Korean architect, Byoung Soo Cho, offers insight into the cultural and architectural history, while art and design critic and teacher, Eugénie Shinkle, focuses on the “making.”

Read more less

Under the direction of Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao, thirteen architecture studios and students across the United States and Mexico undertook the monumental task of attempting to capture the complex and dynamic region of the US/Mexican border. 'Two Sides of the Border' envisions the borderland through five themes: migration, housing and cities, creative industries, local production, tourism, and territorial economies. Building on a long shared history in the region, the projects covered in this volume use design and architecture to address social, political, and ecological concerns along the shared border. Featuring essays, student projects, interviews, special research, and a large photo project by Iwan Baan, 'Two Sides of the Border' highlights the distinct qualities of this place. Altogether the book uses the tools of architecture, research, and photography to articulate an alternate reality within a contested region.

Read more less

Interdisciplinary and intercultural experience coupled with sophisticated knowledge and skills are required for devising appropriate, differentiated design solutions for the global context. Ruedi Baur and his research team investigate and analyse visual graphics from different cultures and identify their specific principles of depiction. The research was preceded by a comprehensive case study on the coexistence of Chinese and Latin as well as Arabic and Latin writing. The study culminates in an examination of the conditions under which the coexistence of diverse writing systems can enhance intercultural visual communication. This theme occupies designers in all cultures whose goal it is to promote global understanding while preserving the diversity of languages and writing systems.

Read more less

The ELEMENTAL studio, headed by artistic director Alejandro Aravena and based in the capital of Chile, Santiago, is untraditionally composed of people with a variety of skills and abilities. Their analytical approach to architecture and urban planning has led them towards original solutions to social challenges, such as the housing shortage in Santiago’s economically disadvantaged neigh- bourhoods. Instead of designing cheap housing, ELEMENTAL builds “half houses” at the same cost and enables buyers to build the other halves themselves. The combination of good design and the engagement of the buyers creates more sustainable housing areas. In the series The Architect’s Studio the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art presents an exhibition on the ELEMENTAL studio, curated by Mette Marie Kallehauge and Kjeld Kjeldsen. The richly illustrated publication will portray ELEMENTAL’s working methods and work philosophy, as well as showing examples of their most important projects.

Read more less

This book explores the impact of medical discourse and diagnostic technologies on the formation, representation, and reception of modern architecture. It challenges the normal understanding of modern architecture by proposing that the architecture of the early twentieth century was shaped by the dominant medical obsession of its time: tuberculosis and its primary diagnostic tool, the X-ray.If architectural discourse has from its beginning associated building and body, the body that it describes is the medical body, reconstructed by each new theory of health. Modern architects pre- sented their architecture as a kind of medical instrument for protecting and enhancing the body. X-ray technology and modern architecture were born around the same time and evolved in parallel. While the X-ray exposed the inside of the body to the public eye, the modern building unveiled its interior, inverting the relationship between private and public.Colomina suggests that if we want to talk about the state of the art in buildings, we should look to the dominant obsessions about illness and the latest techniques of imaging the body-and ask what effects they may have on the way we conceive architecture.

Read more less

In Le Corbusier: Secret Photographer Tim Benton reflects on the famous architect's use of photography, starting with the young Charles-Edouard Jeanneret's attempts to take professional photographs during his travels in central Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. While Le Corbusier always claimed that he saw no virtue in taking photographs, he actually bought three cameras and took several hundred photographs between 1907 and 1917, many of them of publishable quality. In 1936 he acquired a 16mm movie camera and took 120 sequences of film and nearly 6,000 photographs with it. This completely unknown body of material is the basis for the publication. It reveals Le Corbusier to be a sensitive and brilliant manipulator of a range of photographic styles. Le Corbusier: Secret Photographer provides dramatically new insights into Le Corbusier's visual imagination, his changing attitudes towards nature and materials in the 1930s, and his distrust of progress.

Read more less

The famous Italian designer Massimo Vignelli allows us a glimpse of his understanding of good design in this book, its rules and criteria. He uses numerous examples to convey applications in practice - from product design via signaletics and graphic design to Corporate Design. By doing this he is making an important manual available to young designers that in its clarity both in terms of subject matter and visually is entirely committed to Vignelli's modern design.

Read more less

What feeds the inspiration of the designer? Observation. In Jasper Morrison's collection of pictures, the icons of design history meet up with the unassuming projects of everyday life, and curious findings with the archetypes of modernism. Every picture tells a story nad creates a new one in juxtaposition with its neighbour - without words, in the language of form. Morrison responds to the arbitrariness of form with simplicity and complexity, poetry and humour in a repetoire of compelling designs "a world without words" is a school of seeing that addresses designers and consumers alike, who wish to explore the universe of goods.

Read more less

This reprint of the notebook Album Punjab Simla. Chandigarh, Mars 1951 kept by Le Corbusier from his two-week visit in the area that would become Chandigarh, the new capital city of the Indian state of Punjab, presents his written or sketched memos and personal reflections as well as notes and schematic solutions elaborated during meetings. The Album Punjab constitutes a primary source for reconstructing the topics addressed by the small team of architects and governmental officials who in only a few days developed the outlines of the Chandigarh plan. The spiralbound notebook facsimile is accompanied by a paperback volume featuring previously unpublished photographs taken by Le Corbusier’s cousin Pierre Jeanneret during this early expedition. Jeanneret documented the landscape and people that the architects encountered upon their arrival – a scenario destined to totally change with the birth of the great city. A detailed commentary by architectural historian Maristella Casciato is also included. It reflects on the variety of topics assem- bled in the notebook and traces the story of these days in which the new capital city was planned.

Read more less

Kasimir Malevich’s treatise on Suprematism was included in the Bauhausbücher series in 1927, as was Piet Mondrian’s reflections on Russian Constructivism in 1925 (New Design, Bauhausbücher 5). Like Mondrian, who was never an official member of the Bauhaus, Malevich nevertheless had a close connection to the ideas of the school in terms of content. This volume 11 laid the foundation for the Russian avant-garde artist’s late work: to wrest the mask of life from the true face of art.

Read more less

Ornaments are omnipresent – they can be found on buildings, fabrics, jewelry, tiles, ceramics and wallpaper. Scorned at the beginning of the modern age, ornament has long since returned to art and architecture and influences design drafts as much as tattoo motifs. In New Grammar of Ornament, Thomas Weil compares current ornamental objects with the results of archaeological research on ornamental artifacts and concludes that there is an anthropological constant. From the recurring arrangements of stripes, rectangles, triangles and dots and the frequency of the forms of floral ornaments used, he derives a new “grammar of ornament.” More than 160 years after Owen Jones’s publication Grammar of Ornament, by publishing his New Grammar of Ornament Thomas Weil is offering a new reference work. It categorizes the variety of ornamental forms used worldwide and for the first time places them in a major art and cultural historical context.

Read more less

Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994) remains one of the most important landscape architects in the history of the field. His distinctive and widely acclaimed work has been featured and referenced in numerous sources, yet few of Burle Marx’s own words have been published. This collection of a dozen of Burle Marx’s lectures, most of which have never before been available in English, fills that void. Delivered on international speaking tours, they address topics such as Concepts in Landscape Composition, Gardens and Ecology, and The Problem of Garden Lighting. Their publi- cation sheds light on Burle Marx’s distinctive ethic and aesthetic of landscape, as “the real art of living.” The lectures paint a picture of Burle Marx not just as a gardener, artist, and botanist, but as a land- scape architect whose ambition was to bring radical change to cities and society. The lectures are framed by photographs, by Leonardo Finotti, of a selection of Burle Marx’s realized projects.

Read more less

Anyone viewing what we call a “landscape” from a distance will recognise that it is an artefact, a habitat created by humans as part of our built environment. Designing this realm carefully is a discipline that is taking on increasing importance today. Günter Vogt, with his practice in VOGT Landscape Architects and as a professor at ETH Zürich, has developed a set of tools and a working method that incorporate all the different dimensions of the human-designed environment, from the large-scale landscape to the small-scale urban public space. 'Mutation and Morphosis' looks at all the many aspects involved in the collective process of designing and shaping landscapes, from planning to implementation. The model as a tool and the collection as a driving force are illustrated on the basis of an astonishing variety of topics. In theoretical discussions and the examination of detailed dossiers of facts on the ground, a trajectory is traced: from the emergence of new landscapes as a result of climate change to the migration of the wolf to Central Europe, from the impact of invasive plants to the study of geological formation processes. The panorama that unfolds gives us insights into the broad context that landscape architects must consider in their work, exemplified by the outstanding projects realized by VOGT.

Read more less

Moholy-Nagy’s efforts to have photography and filmmaking recognized as means of artistic design on the same level as painting are propounded and explained at length. The use of artistic instruments is thus radically reformed. The Hungarian artist makes the case for a functional transformation within the visual arts and for the further development of photographic design options. Alongside theoretical and technical approaches as well as detailed forays into the broad field of the medium of photography, Moholy-Nagy uses an extensive appendix of illustrations to provide a thorough survey of the numerous possibilities that photographic and cinematic work had in store as early as 1925. This English edition appears in original design and with separate commentary.

Read more less

Two Journeys is the firsat comprehensive monograph on the work of Michael Webb, an artist who is also a trained architect and who operates at the intersection of the two disciplines. He is widely known for creatively exploring the boundaries of drawing techniques, specifically perspectival projection. Webb's aspirations for and re-conceptions of both built and natural environments are revealed between a twenty-year study on perspective projection that utilizes as its subjects the Regatta Course at Henley-on-Thames in England, and early work, some of which was done in conjunction with Archigram, an avant-garde group concerned with theorizing and critiquing architecture which formed during the 1960s at the Architectural Association in London. The publication connects nearly sixty years of the artist's work into a continuously evolving narrative about the relationship between architecture, the automobile, and landscape. Webb's work investigates these relationships using notions of time, space, and speed, and analogue drawing tools such as pencil and collage, which are often rendered later in oil paint. The book features over 150 drawings: artistic works rooted in analytical thinking and structured around architectural elements and notational systems.

Read more less

Shizuko Yoshikawa (born 1934 in Japan, based in Switzerland) was one of the first and few Japanese students at the Ulm Hochschule für Gestaltung, known as the postwar “Bauhaus.” She later married the renowned designer Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914–1996), a pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design, and moved to Switzerland, where she became an artist and a member of the second generation of concrete art. Amongst the very few women belonging to this art movement, she takes a special position due to her Japanese origins and education. Her work combines the rational concepts of European modern art with the poetry and ease of the intuitional Japanese Zen tradition.

Read more less

Everybody is a designer! But why? Why do we color, organize, and form the world around us - and why do we call that a profession? In this book, Thonik, an Amsterdam-based studio led by lauded designers Nikki Gonnissen and Thomas Widdershoven, researches eleven personal reasons why they design - from the need to create impact to a constant search for independence; from the benefits of systems to the urgency of play. Why We Design looks back on twenty-five years of design practice and speculates on the future of graphic design.

Read more less

One of the greatest and most in uential architects of Japan's postwar generation, Shinohara Kazuo (1925-2006) has remained virtually unknown outside the small community of devoted followers. As one of the leaders of architectural movement Metabolism, Shinohara achieved cult- gure stature with sublimely beautiful, purist houses that break away from Japan's postwar suburban architecture.Perhaps the most iconic of Shinohara's works, House of White (1964-66), rearranges a familiar design palette-a square plan, a pointed roof, white walls, and a symbolic heart pillar-to give the almost oceanic spaciousness through abstraction. The underlying formalism in Shinohara's architecture-its basic explorations of geometry and color-lends his work a poetic quality that fuses simplicity and surprise, the ordered and the unexpected.This volume brings together new scholarship from the foremost specialists on Shinohara and Japan's modern architecture. New perspectives and historical frameworks range from the develop- ment of the small house as a building type in postwar Japan to Shinohara's engagement with French critical theory. Hitherto unpublished archival drawings and personal travel photographsby Shinohara complement the essays.

Read more less

A new edition showing the work of one of the most famous Swiss designers: a comprehensive overview of his oeuvre. This illustrated essay traces the history of one of the leading exponents of "Swiss Graphic Design" in the 1950s and 1960s. Josef Mu ller- Brockmann's posters have become world famous for their ability to convey information with great visual tension, a sense of drama, and an extreme economy of means. He created a body of work in which timeless principles of visual communication are inscribed. In addition to the posters, the image part presents examples of logotypes, appearances, and exhibitions as well as numerous lesser-known works in chronological order.

Read more less

Since the 1970s Wolfgang Weingart has exerted a decisive influence on the international development of typography. In the late 1960s he instilled creativity and a desire for experimentation into the ossified Swiss typographical industry and reflected this renewal in his own work. Countless designers have been inspired by his teaching at the Basle School of Design and by his lectures. In Typography Weingart gives an unusual and frank narrative of his early life and development as a designer. For the first time he gives a comprehensive survey of his works over the past forty years, most of which are unknown.

Read more less

Hannes Wettstein was one of the most innovative and influential designers in Switzerland. His products, furniture, and interior designs not only influence our everyday life, but also the way we understand design in the present day. In 2008 Wettstein died aged 50. For the first time his life's work will now be celebrated and documented in a monograph. The publication presents images from Wettstein's world-works, sketches, and personal objects. The essence of his work is palpable in their diversity and illustrates his design philosophy. The comprehensive catalog of works transforms the monograph into a reference work. Complemented by quotations and anecdotes from Wettstein's life, and statements from personalities from the worlds of design and architecture, Seeking Archetypes forms a multi-layered portrait of an extraordinary designer.

Read more less

Josef Muller-Brockmann's graphics left a lasting mark on Swiss visual communication from the 1950s onward. His posters demonstrate how a sober, formally reduced language works best for conveying a universal, timeless message. Poster campaigns for longtime clients such as the Tonhalle concert hall in Zurich or the Automobile Club of Switzerland follow strict functional criteria - and yet exhibit a variety of design solutions and exciting, dynamic compositions. This book presents selected posters by Muller-Brockmann and places them in the context of their own time while also examining the validity of his solutions from today's point of view.

Read more less