The 500 Hidden Secrets of Chicago reveals 500 off-the-beaten- track places and interesting details for anyone who’s keen to explore Chicago’s best-kept secrets, e.g. 5 cafes for sitting a spell, 5 iconic Chicago merchants, 5 ways to enjoy the Chicago river, 5 unlikely art destinations, 5 historic music spots… and much more.
This second edition is fully revised and updated.
Also available: The 500 Hidden Secrets of New York, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Tokyo, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Miami, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Seattle, The 500 Hidden Secrets of San Francisco, and many more. Discover the series at the500hiddensecrets.com
A spectacular poster-sized book that illustrates the family connections between the plants around us, deepening our appreciation of nature.
Much like our own family, plant families share characteristics, often in the arrangement of their flowers, leaves, and stems. In this oversized book, acclaimed botanical artist Wendy Hollender depicts 24 plant families most commonly encountered in the garden and in the wild. Her superb full-page illustrations, featuring subjects rendered from life in colour pencil and watercolour, help us visualise the sometimes surprising connections between different plants—for example, between the zinnia, the dandelion, and romaine lettuce, all members of the sunflower family, Asteraceae. For each family, Hollender’s lively writings aided by additional illustrations highlight the similarities between family members, and describe her adventures in collecting the subjects (from her backyard garden to the Hawaiian wilderness).
Guest essays from a variety of distinguished contributors—including Marta McDowell, the best-selling garden writer; Susan Pell, executive director of the US Botanic Garden; and Dina Falconi, the well-known clinical herbalist—lend fascinating perspectives on the featured plant families.
The Album of Plant Families will be the ultimate gift for all gardeners, foragers, and nature lovers.
From the dramatic cliffs of Positano to the lemon terraces of Amalfi – A Taste of the Amalfi Coast is an invitation to immerse yourself in the spirit of the South. Christine Countess von der Pahlen portrays authentic restaurants, vibrant markets and the people who cook, savour and live here with passion. Accompanied by the award-winning photography of Mayk Wendt, the book opens glimpses into lively kitchens, colourful gardens and fragrant lemon groves. Each chapter captures the magic of the dolce far niente and, through exclusive recipes, stories and travel tips, brings the sunshine, ease and flavour of the Amalfi Coast straight into your home.
Step beyond Old Town Alexandria’s historic brick facades and gas lamps to discover a world of timeless architectural beauty in Old Town Style. This comprehensive volume showcases over 40 extraordinary period homes, from a rustic Colonial Sea Captain’s house to an elegant Federal townhome and a transformed 18th-century bank turned private residence. Many featured homes are published here for the first time, offering an intimate look into Alexandria’s best-preserved historic treasures.
Blending personal renovation stories, decorating insights, and rich historical context, the book provides lasting design inspiration while emphasising architectural preservation. Acclaimed photographer Erik Kvalsvik’s vibrant full-colour images reveal diverse interior styles—from Jacobean and early American to mid-century modern—and highlight intricate exterior details. Intimate glimpses of secret walled gardens add enchantment.
Written by Robert F. Weinhagen, Jr., president of the Historic Alexandria Foundation, and his Book Committee, Old Town Style celebrates one of America’s most beautiful historic towns and the passionate stewards preserving its legacy.
This lavishly illustrated book presents the architectural vision and design of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, a landmark cultural institution dedicated to the past, present, and future of visual storytelling. MAD Architects’ sculptural building, lifted above the ground like a hovering vessel, creating a porous and welcoming public realm beneath it, while the landscape designed by Studio-MLA extends this openness into a sequence of gardens, terraces, and shaded paths that weave the museum into Exposition Park.
The volume traces the evolution of the museum from early concepts to the finished building. Through images by celebrated architectural photographer by Iwan Baan, architectural drawings, a documentation of the construction, and archival material it offers an in-depth look at the design process, material strategies, and spatial concepts shaping the museum’s architecture and its integration into the surrounding landscape. Supplementing essays and brief texts situate the design within a broader discourse on museums in the 21st century and explore how narrative, public engagement, and urban context informed the project’s ambitions. The book captures the museum’s approach to form, landscape, and visitor experience, and highlights how architecture supports the institution’s mission to expand the definition of narrative art.
“So far, there haven’t been many women who have dared to dream on a truly megalomaniac scale—and see those dreams through to completion.” — Niki de Saint Phalle.
The story of the Tarot Garden, created by Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002), unfolds like a fairy tale. For the first time, this book documents the extraordinary adventure of its construction, from 1978 to 1998. It all began when, at the age of twenty-five, Niki de Saint Phalle visited Gaudí’s Park Güell and decided to give form to her lifelong “desire for grandeur.” The result was the creation of twenty-one monumental and esoteric sculptures spread across two hectares in Tuscany’s Maremma region—an artistic interpretation of the Tarot’s major arcana, a system that had long captivated her imagination. The Tarot Garden stands within a visionary lineage of fantastical environments, alongside the Palais Idéal of Ferdinand Cheval, Gaudí’s Park Güell, Alain Bourbonnais’s Fabuloserie, and the Gardens of Bomarzo in Lazio. Enriched with rare archival material, this book reveals the behind-the-scenes story of Niki de Saint Phalle’s magnum opus, shaped by Etruscan heritage, local craftsmanship, and rituals drawn from cultures around the world.
“Seeing the garden Gaudí built in Barcelona changed my life. From that moment on, my path would be a slow apprenticeship—until the day I, too, would be capable of creating a magnificent work like his, a place of joy.” — Niki de Saint Phalle.
Text in English, Italian and French.
How does one emancipate herself when the constrictions of society are too great to bear? A Scheme to Annihilate Magnificent Distances is both a memoir and the reflection of an era of social and political unrest. Thea’s memories of growing up in post-World War II Brooklyn emerge in poetry-like texts that live beside her story of breaking into the male-dominated New York City art scene in the late 1960s. This combined narrative style, which moves between stream-of-consciousness and structured prose, establishes the rhythm and tone of the book. Thea’s art, much of which is exhibited in this volume, received immediate recognition. Her feminism and her role in the women’s rights movement are telling of the times and deeply personal, and understanding this is central to understanding her art. Following the death of her mother, the nature of Thea’s creative output shifts, and she produces critical rhetoric for the art world in which she was so immersed. A Scheme to Annihilate Magnificent Distances is a record of the artist’s memories and experience, of her art and activism, and it is yet another way in which she has expressed her perception of the world she inhabits.
This monograph dedicated to Claude Monet offers a rare and intimately documented perspective on one of the most beloved artists of the public. It is written by Philippe Piguet, an art historian, a recognised specialist of Monet and his great-grandson, custodian of unpublished documents and heir to a family memory shaped from childhood in the gardens of Giverny. The book provides a sensitive reading of the artist’s work, seen from within, which renews the understanding of an artistic journey that has become universal.
This book aims to establish itself as an essential reference for understanding how the artist transformed the perception of light and the history of modern painting.
Alexandre Chemetoff’s urban design draws on decades of designing landscapes, using new methods to reinvigorate older areas of the city and their architecture, while simultaneously proposing new buildings and neighbourhoods—an innovative and unique method. Alexandre Chemetoff’s professional trajectory and practice has veered from small to large as well as large to small. In contrast to much of the verbiage about so-called “landscape urbanism,” his work at city-scale draws on his experience designing landscapes, using new methods to reinvigorate older areas of the city and their architecture, while simultaneously proposing new buildings and neighbourhoods—an innovative and unique method. Early works by his office, the Bureau des paysages, such as the internationally celebrated Garden of Bamboo at the Parc de la Villette in Paris and the Place de la Bourse in Lyon are more easily identified as beautiful landscape architecture; less easily categorised are major renewal projects such as the Île de Nantes and the creation of a new neighbourhood and re-creation of an existing quarter in Nancy. While these works, products of intelligent and thoughtful design, can rightly qualify as either landscape architecture or urban design, there really is no specific term for the process that produced them.
Adopting a mode of operation intending to change everything without changing everything, designs by Chemetoff and the Bureau des paysages have eschewed any singular style. Chemetoff claims that he seeks “to construct a singular aesthetic which draws its sources from the surrounding world,” and in some projects the hand of the designer may not be at all apparent. Some design proposals have challenged governments and governmental policies with an attitude he terms “attentive disobedience,” in reference to naturalist and essayist Henry David Thoreau’s proposal of civil disobedience. The program provided or derived may be provocative, but it only poses the question. The program initiates; the designer questions; the context enriches the intensity of the enquiry and suggests an aesthetic. “There are no places abstracted from their context, places which are not inscribed in a history and a geography,” claims Chemetoff. In all, the environments created over more than forty years of practice are worthy of study and the methods employed by Chemetoff and the Bureau des paysages worthy of consideration and emulation.
Elegant artwork will transport you to the heart of Japan in this colouring book featuring temples, cherry blossoms, and Mount Fuji: a creative journey toward balance and serenity.
Japanese Enchantments takes readers on a visual journey into the heart of Japan, through nature, architecture, and timeless traditions. Each page combines graphic elegance with a contemplative atmosphere, offering a creative and relaxing experience to be brought to life with colour. From silent temples, bamboo forests, and cherry blossom gardens to the majestic Mount Fuji, evocative scenes invite creative minds, mindfulness seekers, and travel enthusiasts to personalise each detail!
Immersive Creative Experience: Intricate, Japan-inspired illustrations encourage mindfulness and imaginative expression.
Celebrate the Beauty of Japan: Each page explores and celebrates Japanese culture.
Perfect for Art Lovers & Travel Enthusiasts: Designed for adults seeking a relaxing and inspiring creative escape.
Mindfulness and Relaxation: Colouring encourages focus, calm, and a sense of renewal.
Great Gift Idea: Ideal for any lover of travel, nature, Japanese culture, or meditative art.
Tradition and precedent inspire invention, architectural drawing, and media practice. This issue presents a series of encounters with printed drawings, leading to their transformation and re-imagination in a series of new works. Archival media from the John Nichols Printmakers Archive, located at the a83 gallery in New York City, is the foundation for these new inventions by contemporary architects.
International contributors extend the discourse on architectural representation and its evolution through print media, offering critical reflections on specific pieces. The project and exhibition from which this issue stems concerns questions of the archive; modes through which archival materials may become activated; situated approaches to intricate material objects that allow them to be read in non-normative ways; media transformations; and issues of disciplinary indebtedness and influence. The writers have been invited to address and/or extend these concerns in their consideration of specific works.
This Architectural Design Journal focuses on how architectural skills are deployed in entertainment to communicate design and form the backdrops for stories to play out. It includes articles on installations, exhibition designs, entertainment architecture, narrative projects, speculations on future human identities, video gaming, and memorial tombs – an international plethora of staged examples of how architectural thinking can bring vitality to situations not usually perceived to be within the realms of traditional practice. The issue engages with popular culture, fictions, art, performance, technology, and architectural history and theory.
Exploring the full spectrum of spatial propositions that architects can bring to staging events, the work featured is theatrical and exuberant, and the product of many collaborative architectural voices including curators, artists, performers, digital intelligences, fabricators, and writers.
Arcadia – a utopian land where man lives in harmony with nature, where war, worry and disease are absent, where tranquillity, solidarity and happiness are everlasting – has a long tradition stretching back to antiquity. Originally a remote landscape in the Peloponnese, said within ancient Greek mythology to be inhabited by the gods and spirits of nature, this earthly paradise was transformed into an imaginary idyll by the Roman poet Virgil in his pastoral poems, and has lived on in Western art, intellectual history, and the imagination ever since.
In Arcadian Sketchbook – photographed between 2020-2021 – Wolfgang Strassl wanders along his nearby river in search of peace of mind, amongst many others who were seeking the same at the time. As he explains, “I looked for Arcadia, simply on my own doorstep, and I found it there.”
Many buildings from the late 20th century no longer meet today’s cultural, economic, and technical requirements. Yet, in times of climate change, global instability, and massive urbanisation, we cannot afford to waste what has already been built. Many of these structures fall outside traditional preservation efforts—they are too new for historic reverence, too unfashionable for contemporary appreciation, and too problematic for straightforward renovation. In short: they are unloved.
It is no longer the act of building new that represents progress. Being truly progressive in the 21st century means to tread as lightly as possible on the planet. Thus, the unloved buildings should be the subject of an urgent discourse on the necessary transformation not only in legislation and technology, but also in the ethos of the architectural profession.
The book Unloved Buildings contributes to the cultivation of a methodology and language that pays significantly more attention to what already exists—both on a material level and in terms of its identity and social value. It offers a comprehensive—though not exhaustive—account of reuse and transformation in recent Western architectural culture. Through eight projects by the Danish–British architectural firm GXN as case studies, conversations with practitioners, and research, the volume outlines a new practice that will become increasingly relevant in the near future: understanding how and by what means we can extend the lifespan of buildings.
Architects have designed some of the most iconic items of furniture. This Architectural Design Journal features ingenious architect-protagonists of this genre, and explores the recent history and chronology of architectural involvement in the discipline.
Furniture augments architect-designed environments, contributing to the holistic ambience of a space and displaying in microcosm architects’ preoccupations with material palettes, haptic sensitivities and structural invention. It can take the form of props for commercial purposes including business meetings and offices, for spaces susceptible to the weather, or for convivial, domestic settings. Whatever the programmatic imperative, architects have contributed in the most aesthetic ways. This issue honours some of the best.
Having stood empty for almost 40 years since being decommissioned in 1983, Battersea Power Station reopened its doors to great fanfare in 2022. Originally designed in the 1930s by renowned architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the Grade II* Listed Power Station’s 30-year neglect had created a modern ruin. It was in a critical state of disrepair when it was purchased in 2012 by an ambitious consortium of Malaysian investors who entrusted architects WilkinsonEyre with the design of its repair and regeneration.
Battersea Power Station – The Architectural Rebirth of a Romantic Ruin charts the practice’s journey and processes to transform the building – one of the largest brick structures in the world and one of the UK’s most recognisable landmarks – from 20th century industrial relic to the sustainable heart of a thriving new London district.
A multitude of colourful and naïve biblical and other religious pottery figures found their way into 19th century Victorian homes in Britain. They were bought by tradesmen, shop-keepers, clerks, teachers and the more skilled working class people. This book tells the story of these Staffordshire pottery figures, which sold in their thousands to stand on the mantelpieces of Christian families, both Protestant and Catholic.
Three chapters provide a social history context: the religious background, an assessment of who purchased the figures, the Victorian home and how it was furnished. The final four chapters review the pottery figures themselves, which are based on the Old Testament, the New Testament, relevant religious themes and portraits of preachers. A catalogue of well over 200 figures in full colour with an assessment of their dating and rarity completes the book.
This is the first comprehensive record of Victorian religious figures placed in the context of their times.
Soho, Streets of Light collects the best of John Ingledew’s pictures of London’s Soho. Since the late 1970s, photographer John Ingledew has documented the changing face of Soho, picturing its people and the nightclubs, music venues, pubs, dives and stores, the market, the restaurants, cafes, clip joints and strip clubs that have made it the capital’s most famous and infamous neighbourhood. These pages present a visual record of Soho, in black-and-white and vivid colour, capturing the highs and lows of this irrepressible locale as it rolled with the punches through the late 20th century and beyond. Following in the footsteps of Frank Norman and Jeffrey Bernard’s legendary book, Soho Night & Day (republished by ACC Art Books in 2024), Soho, Streets of Light strikes a celebratory tone, inviting the reader to immerse themselves in this most boisterous corner of the UK’s historic capital.
Salvage: The title alludes to the reused and recycled content of Jackie Nickerson’s 2020 series of studio portraits that explore the homogeneity of portraiture – balance, similarity, proportions, size – that characterise the genre. With her photographic examination of old masters and modern paintings, Nickerson (* 1960) illuminates the way in which artists over centuries interpret the observed world in their own way by using common visual techniques and means of expression in different media.
Working as a vet in a large zoo is a dream job for many—but for Tim Bouts, it’s reality. As Chief Veterinary Officer, he has spent over 20 years caring for animals in world-renowned parks like London Zoo. Today, he works at the Sheikh of Qatar’s ‘Panda House.’ In this book, he shares remarkable stories from his diverse range of patients: a lion battling Covid, a hippopotamus with tuberculosis, a tigress with dental issues, and a gorilla suffering from chronic pain. Some of his anecdotes are heartwarming, like his first successful surgery, or welcoming baby pandas to Pairi Daiza in Belgium. Others are pulse-pounding, such as the failed anesthesia of an antelope, and the escape of two chimpanzees. And some are deeply moving, like the euthanasia of a herd of herpes-stricken elephants or the heartbreaking loss of a walrus mother and her calf. Through these stories, you’ll get a front-row seat to Tim’s daily work and a rare glimpse into his thoughts. He doesn’t shy away from sensitive topics like euthanasia, contraception in zoos, and the challenges of quarantining animals.
Luis Bustamante has a refined and very sophisticated style, and has been working for over thirty years. This book shows his latest projects from the last five years, in places such as London, Miami, Madrid, Aspen, Cantabria, Marbella, Mexico City, Barcelona, The Hamptons and St Moritz, among others. His passion for art has developed a style that fits perfectly with art collectors around the world.
Luis Bustamante’s fundamental concern has always been to generate relationships. Not only are the spaces he designs intended to achieve this but he himself aspires to it with his clients. Bustamante understands design in the best posible way: as an extraordinary living art.
“It’s very hard for me to accept that Sukita-san has been snapping away at me since 1972, but that really is the case. I suspect that it’s because whenever he’s asked me to do a session, I conjure up in my mind’s eye the sweet, creative and big-hearted man who has always made these potentially tedious affairs so relaxed and painless. May he click into eternity.” – David Bowie
For Sukita, the creative mastermind behind the iconic cover for David Bowie’s album ‘Heroes’, photography is an expression of a ‘fundamental secret’ shared between artists: a spiritual communication that transcends the minutiae of language. Born and raised in Kyushu, Japan, Sukita’s reverence of American and Western counter-culture lured him to New York and London. He immersed himself in the western music scene which he loved, while his relaxed photo sessions endeared him to many celebrity figures, including David Bowie and Iggy Pop (with both of whom Sukita had a 40-year long professional relationship), Marc Bolan, and Japanese musician Hotei, best known for his work on the Kill Bill soundtrack. His work spans the early US and UK seventies rock scene, the London punk-rock era to the present crop of emerging Japanese rock artists.
This photo book is the first time the photographer has collaborated on a major retrospective of his career and includes some of his early documentary work and his rarely-seen travel and street photography. It introduces the artist through two essays that explore his place within the wider context of both Western and Japanese photography, presented alongside the many iconic shots of both Western and Japanese artists that earned him his eternal reputation.
What is assembled here might look like a modern ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’, an assemblage of the exotic and curious from the four quarters of the world. There is an intention behind it, however, that goes beyond presenting a wide variety of curiosities. We are today linked up to all those four quarters, and while a huge amount of information is available to us, unlike to those who awaited the ships in the ports of Amsterdam, Genoa, Lisbon, London, Marseille, Seville or Venice, the horizon of what interests us seems to have shrunk. The art market is an interesting barometer of this shrinkage. The point is, therefore, that we can connect with the whole world on a much more profound level than can be gained from package touring, through the possession of, and study of even the most modest objects of different cultures. The purpose of collecting, as Moliere might have put it, should not be limited to becoming rich through the investment in one’s purchases, but to become enriched through the possession of what one has acquired. Highlights include: the silver libation cup of Mongke Khan, grandson of Genghis and ruler of an empire that stretched from modern Bucharest to Peking, and Karachi to Novgorod; the apple from the Garden of Eden – a silver pomander belonging to the Stuart Kings, with bite marks, opening to reveal a silver skull; a Scythian (6-7th centuries BC) jade pendant of the endangered Saiga antelope, as nely carved as anything by Faberge; a bronze Bacchus head from a tripod table belonging to the Emperor Augustus; a limestone bear carved in 3rd millenium BC Bactria.
“Sarajevo to Paris, fashion or reportage, deciding on the title of a book is mind-boggling. I call myself a documentary photographer that accidentally ended up doing fashion. The end of the 80s was an interesting and intense time in world history, and a particularly creative time in the world of fashion. As a young female photographer I was interested in both worlds. Thirty years later, when looking back, those two worlds — documentary and fashion — still define my work. Both are equally represented in my archives. This book, of my fashion work, is the first to be published. I called it Sarajevo to Paris because sometimes I would travel directly from one to the other. These two cities had a big impact on my life.”
Sarajevo to Paris by Marleen Daniëls captures the set before the fashion show. This robust encyclopaedia is an A-Z of designers preparing for the big moment. Over the course of 30 years she photographed backstage in Paris, London, New York and Milan.