A comprehensive volume on Swiss-American architect Albert Frey (1903-1998), Inventive Modernist tracks the scope and significance of Frey’s career, from his early days in Paris working with Le Corbusier to his rise as the iconic architect of Palm Springs. His unique “simple but severe” style of Desert Modernism cemented his legacy as one of the most influential architects, not only in California, but also in the United States and the world. With full access to Frey’s various archives, the book provides many rare and previously unexhibited architectural models, drawings, films, photographs, and furniture, and offers an exceptional visual guide that goes far beyond the mere documentation of finished buildings. New academic research, in-depth essays, and a thorough, illustrated listing of the architect’s projects between 1925 and 1997, serve to contextualize Frey’s relevance today while securing his importance as a twentieth-century architectural master.

The Candelstick Bijou is designed by the internationally successful design studio Claesson Koivisto Rune. ”What is the smallest possible mass for a candlestick to stand stable, what are its smallest possible dimensions?"

The catalog of the newest exhibit at the MAK/Vienna on Josef Hoffmann, the brilliant Viennese Modernist. It is a fine survey of the entire Hoffmann career, spanning six decades. It is in particular a wonderful presentation of the Palais Stoclet, in Brussels, the urban palace that Hoffmann designed in total, from the garden and building to the furniture, porcelain, cutlery, and picture frames. The Palais is still owned by the Stoclet family and is still a private home. palace that it is.

A richly crafted tribute to the pioneering avant-garde artist, designer, and entrepreneur Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979), whose boundary-breaking approach is echoed in the volume’s interdisciplinary and inspired design. This catalogue sets a new standard for the study of Delaunay, eschewing traditional chronological structures to better showcase groundbreaking research unifying the artist’s timeless oeuvre across mediums. This publication demonstrates Delaunay’s innate versatility and willingness to create without material limitation using her unique language of light and color. Textiles, fashion, interiors, book art, and more are highlighted across twenty-six chapters by leading international scholars to give new insight into Delaunay’s strategies of self-promotion, entrepreneurial endeavors, legacy-building efforts, and vast network of collaborators. These in-depth analyses, including previously under-investigated material such as film, mosaics, tapestries, and interior design, offer a comprehensive perspective on Delaunay’s lifelong effort to unite art with life by harnessing the energy of technological advancement and the beauty of artisanal craftsmanship. Finally, an appendix provides a unique personal note—an epilogue by Patrick Raynaud (born 1946), the last living member of Delaunay’s atelier—as a touching firsthand account of the artist’s working practices toward the end of her life. The design, by award-winning book creator Irma Boom, embraces Sonia Delaunay’s own approach to layout and typography, rendering a book that unites past and present.

Jeanne Gang, one of America’s most distinguished contemporary architects, proposes applying the plant cultivation technique of grafting to architecture and urban design as a way of rethinking adaptive reuse and combatting climate change. Grafting is the process of connecting two separate living plants—one old and one new—so they can grow and thrive as one. This ancient practice continues to be performed today in search of more fruitful, palatable, and resilient varieties of plants. Grafting is also a useful paradigm for how architecture can address climate change on a broadly impactful scale by reusing and expanding older structures. Addressing both the environmental and cultural value of reuse, Gang shows how the concept of grafting can inform architecture across many scales, provoking the imagination and shaping tectonic, programmatic, formal, and regenerative adaptations.

The Danish architect Arne Jacobsen (1902–1971) is renowned both within and outside Denmark’s borders. Celebrated for his iconic chairs, Jacobsen was also an avid photographer and painter who was involved in the art world, where he found inspiration and new methods for developing architecture. This is the most comprehensive account of Jacobsen to date, diving into previously unknown aspects of his life and work. It uncovers how art played a seminal role in both his professional and personal life, placing him in the midst of the European postwar avant-garde art scene. Shedding new light on aspects of his creative life, the book challenges previous ideas about Jacobsen as a modernist iconoclast, positioning him instead as a creative innovator who worked closely with materials in transforming existing aesthetics. It also investigates how Jacobsen played a crucial role in defining Danish and Nordic welfare aesthetics. Beautifully designed, the book features famous and lesser-known works by Jacobsen, including chairs, textile designs, watercolour drawings, light fixtures, and architecture models, along with hundreds of previously unseen private photographs of Jacobsen and his many designs.

Originally built for the 1962 World’s Fair, the Space Needle quickly became an international icon of the Pacific Northwest and a symbol of Seattle. At the time of its construction, the tower pointed the way toward the future with a sense of optimism, possibility, and invention. In its 55th year, the Space Needle is again representing an enhanced future with the Century Project, a holistic renovation of the upper levels led by Olson Kundig that repositions the iconic tower for its next fifty years. New Heights: Transforming Seattle’s Iconic Space Needle documents this latest chapter of the Space Needle’s story with an in-depth look at the innovations, challenges, and triumphs realized by the client and project team, as seen through the eyes of the architects.

Irving Penn was among the most esteemed and influential photographers of the twentieth century. This indispensable book features one of the largest selections of Penn's photographs ever compiled—nearly 300 in all—including famous and beloved images as well as works that have never been published. Celebrating the centennial of Penn's birth, this volume spans the entirety of his nearly 70-year career. Lively essays acquaint readers with Penn's primary subjects and campaigns, including early documentary scenes and imagery; portraits of cultural figures and celebrities; fashion; female nudes; peoples of Peru, Dahomey (Benin), New Guinea, and Morocco; and still lifes. Rounding out the book are discussions of Penn's advertising pictures and his painstaking printing processes, as well as an illustrated chronology. Irving Penn: Centennial is essential for any fan of this artists work or of the history of twentieth-century photography.

A hundred miles north of San Francisco, the Sonoma County coast meets the Pacific Ocean in a magnificent display of nature. This is the location of The Sea Ranch, an area covering several thousand acres of large, open meadows and forested natural settings interspersed with award-winning architecture. The ecologically inspired plan drawn up for The Sea Ranch in the mid-1960s caused a quiet revolution in architecture. Renowned landscape designer Lawrence Halprin's master plan incorporated a set of building guidelines that structured the visual as well as physical impact upon the landscape. Subsequent buildings by architects such as Joseph Esherick, Charles Willard Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, and William Turnbull have been recognized worldwide for their remarkable environmental sensitivity. This revised and updated edition of the now-classic monograph, the only one on the Sea Ranch, contains eleven additional projects and an updated account of the ongoing development process and land management issues.

This book addresses a very specific topic within interior architecture, namely that of mountains, where the context of the surrounding landscape is strongly associated with the local identity. The houses published in this volume are all located in the Swiss Alps: in the canton of Ticino and in Engadine. They have been renovated and redeveloped, their interior spaces demolished and rethought. Francesca Neri Antonello is a master of domesticating natural and raw materials, using them to create a warm intimacy that is indispensable for designing the interiors of those who live with the cold alpine temperatures. Her projects center around stone, iron, and above all wood, which is often recovered or burned to obtain the characteristic burnished color. Wood is a living matter, the bearer of memory and, as the architect says, “Memory is a very strong call: it is the set of aspects that forms our personal identities.”

The Grid presents works by renowned artists including Max Bill, François Morellet, Vera Molnár, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Dennis Oppenheim, Esther Ferrer, Gina Pane, Christian Boltanski, Sherrie Levine, Claudia Andujar, Analívia Cordeiro and Anna Bella Geiger

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the open-air playground was a social laboratory. Innovative, wacky, educational, and exciting playground designs emerged in European and American cities, as well as elsewhere around the world: artists, landscape designers, architects, and activists sought to provide children with the best possible place to play, while also reimagining cities and communities. First published in 2018, The Playground Project instantly became a classic. This much-expanded new edition brings back the wealth of ideas of that period to inspire us today. It offers many previously unpublished images, numerous new portraits, especially of female protagonists of the time, as well as findings from the latest research on playground design. An incisive introductory essay places the playground at the intersections of education, architecture, urban politics, design history, and leisure policy. A detailed focus is placed on the forgotten history of playgrounds in the former German Democratic Republic. Moreover, young researchers explore the culture of memory surrounding the Shek Lei Playground in Hong Kong, and the role that playgrounds played in the process of state-building in Mexico. The book is a tribute to play in public spaces and a rich source for architects, designers, students, children, and political actors.