Built in 1969, Metsamor, Armenia (then the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic), was intended as a settlement for employees of a nearby nuclear power plant to be completed between 1976 and 1980. But the power plant would never realise the ambitions of its creators. In 1988, an earthquake caused the facility to be shut down and in 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted a complete construction freeze in the city. The symbol of the dream of a technologically advanced nation, Metsamor remained incomplete and fell into decay undiminished by the recommissioning of the power plant in 1995. Utopia & Collapse documents the rise and fall of Metsamor. The book brings together an oral history of Metsamor with essays by Sarhat Petrosyan and a team of contributors and photographic research and visual mapping by Katharina Roters, including more than one hundred images. Among the topics discussed are Armenia’s cultural and and architectural histories; the typology of Soviet atomograds, or atomic cities; and the phenomenon of modern ruins. Although today the power plant’s workers live in a partly built failed utopia, Metsamor stands as an example of the highly idiosyncratic Armenian variety of Soviet Modernism of the 1960s and ’70s, making this a fascinating story for anyone with an interest in Soviet-era buildings and architecture.

This catalogue includes Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s realised and unrealised large-scale projects from 1961 to 2016. Besides the famous wrapped monuments, from the Kunsthalle in Bern (1967-1968) to the Reichstag in Berlin (1971-1995), the publication also includes the barriers made with barrels or with fabric, from Wall of Oil Barrels – The Iron Curtain in Paris (1961-62) to Valley Curtain in Rifle, Colorado (1960-62), the great inflatable objects, from 42,390 Cubic Feet Package of Minneapolis (1966) to 5600 Cubicmeter Package, Project for documenta IV in Kassel (1967-1968), and the fabric pathways, such as Wrapped Walk Ways in Kansas City (1977-1978), or doors, such as The Gates in New York (1979-2005). The seven Water Projects – Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s installations sharing a connection with water – are considered in further depth. In these projects, from Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972-1976) to Over the River, a project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado (1992), the artists worked on establishing a close connection with natural, suburban and urban landscapes that all share a relation with water, be it an ocean, a sea, a lake or a river. The Floating Piers, an installation that allowed visitors to walk across Lake Iseo, is also included here. Among the Water Projects we must mention The Floating Piers, an installation open from June 18 to July 3 2016, which allowed visitors to walk across Lake Iseo and along its shores on a 3-kilometre route. By means of modular floating piers covered in shimmering yellow fabric, the installation linked the town of Sulzano on the lake’s shores, to Monte Isola, also reaching the Island of San Paolo.

Josef Albers (1888-1976) believed firmly in art’s spiritual dimension. Among his several aphorisms on the topic, none reflects the humble, ascetic character of his spiritual disposition better than the following: ‘Easy to know that diamonds are precious. Good to know that rubies have depth. But more to see that pebbles are miraculous’. Conceived by the renowned Albers expert Nicholas Fox Weber, who directed the Albers Foundation for 20 years and knew the artist well, Spirituality and Rigor presents a selection of work by Albers that illustrates his ascetic spirituality and his deeply felt Catholicism. The book stems in part from Fox Weber’s The Sacred Modernist: Josef Albers as a Catholic Artist, and is augmented with additional work by Fabio De Chirico. It includes Albers’ early drawings of country churches and cathedrals; ‘Rosa Mystica’, his stained glass window for St Michael’s Church, and other glass works containing religious imagery; his abstractions of crosses and geometric abstractions with spiritually themed titles, from his ‘Black Mountain’ years; his prints of Mexican gods; photographic interpretations of the theme of angels; and a selection from the ‘Homage to the Square’ series.

Text in English and French.

Another Escape: Designing the Modern Guest House II, features a wide array of guest houses from around the world, highlighting the best of modern hospitality. Its projects offer architecturally interesting designs of predominantly reconstructed and restored buildings, set in beautiful and unique environments. A beautiful location is a vital criterion for a successful guest house. Humans are hardwired to enjoy two types of scenery: the lush and the novel. As cities become the default way of living for large swathes of humanity, we are beginning to place greater value on lush natural beauty. We all feel good in picturesque natural environments, be that walking in a sun-dappled forest, marvelling at snow-capped mountains, or watching waves breaking on pristine beaches. But the novel, the new, also moves us. In this richly photographed book you will find beautiful examples of guest houses that make the most of both the lush and the novel. From houses in Greece that are designed to frame spectacular views of the sea to the loft-style spaces in the heart of wooden alpine area in the ancient heart of Slovenia, the guest houses in this book feature striking architecture, tactile materials, and new typologies in luxuriant settings. Designer solutions extend beyond simple architectural models. This book provides in-depth narratives on refining interiors, such as best spatial layouts, colour palette ideas, unique lighting applications, soft furnishing options, and other design aspects. Each case study draws out detailed references on how to merge practicality with the motifs of nature and art for the perfect design combination: one that offers the user convenience, comfort, and a unique experience.

In the 21st century the architects and designers of urban spaces face great challenges to integrate nature in order to transform ‘cement forests’ into ‘forest cities’. Perhaps the best solution is to go green with vertical landscapes. More than just a decorative trend, this is a means of bringing life and greenery into metropolitan areas by using different framing systems to create compositions of plant life and adapt them to diverse settings, including offices, factories, parking lots, hotels, and installations within larger parks. Enriched by the reflections of the inventive protagonists of this fertile new aesthetic, Going Green with Vertical Landscapes is organised by theme and canvases early experiments conducted by famous design companies such as Vo Trong Nghia Architects (VTN), Fytogreen Australia and RYUICHI ASHIZAWA ARCHITECTS & associates. All of these projects combine man-made materials, recent technologies, and diverse types of vegetation to conquer the vertical dimension.

We recognise Mario Botta’s buildings for their strong presence. His architecture is not ephemeral. It shapes the mass firmly and precisely. It touches the ground with self-reliance. A building by Mario Botta is an autonomous object. It comprises an ordered world of its own make. It is standing in dialogue with the urban tissue, but it establishes its own order as if it aims at differentiation instead of integration. Architectural order represents the core of his personal idiom. It is a well structured, compositional order which organises everything into a whole, as an underlying thread that connects and brings together houses on the mountains to museums and churches, banks and commercial buildings to buildings on the ground and buildings underground, different buildings at different places in time. The themes that underlie Mario Botta’s architecture are ties that connect and spines that support, common threads that bind one building to the next. His architecture is one of mass. It is then of no surprise that mass is the first thing to be defined and ordered, in his creative process. The volume of his buildings is mostly composed by one or more primary solids. Volume is thus an a-priori for Botta. It is conceived beforehand, the starting point to the adventure of architectural design. From the Introduction, Thoughts on architectural creativity By Dr. Irena Sakellaridou

Over nearly three decades, Paczowski & Fritsch Architects has established itself as an impressive studio that spectacularly fuses the complex mysteries of the art of building with technological rationality, contemporary culture, and the expressive requirements of the project’s image. It has been consolidating its experience in the sectors of public buildings, service buildings, as well as collective and individual housing; it also specialises in logistics and transport, supermarkets, and high-end retail. The office has played an important role in carrying out important urban planning studies, and excels in the fields of sustainable development and BIM (Building Information Modeling).

This beautifully presented book serves to highlight the incredible output of this world-leader in architecture and design. Internationally renowned architectural writer Philip Jodidio writes an insightful essay on the variety and intelligence that these architects bring to their work. Jodidio engages with the directorship directly, illuminating on their visionary practice, their unique ethos, and the plans for the future under the new generation at the helm. While remaining true to its original philosophy, the office has been successful in numerous competitions and has won significant prizes and international acclaim.

The opening of celebrated British architect David Chipperfield’s extension building of Kunsthaus Zürich in the fall of 2021 will make this renowned institution Switzerland’s largest art museum. In the run-up to this milestone in the museum’s development, this new book looks back at its architectural history. It tells a lively story that starts in 1847 with the Zurich Artists’ Society’s initial gallery building and had its first culmination in 1910, when distinguished Swiss architect Karl Moser’s Kunsthaus was opened. Over the past century, three major additions were carried out in 1925, 1959, and 1976, and many attempts for a visionary large-scale extension were made. Illustrated with historic images, reproductions of plans and drawings as well as newly drawn floor and site plans, the book documents all stages of constructing Kunsthaus Zürich.

This exhaustive monograph, published on the occasion of the first anthological exhibition dedicated to him, retraces the intensely lived, brief artistic career of Alfonso Leoni (Faenza, 1941-1980).

An extraordinary talent, he was the protagonist of a research constantly against the mainstream, to set ceramics free from the mere technical and functional aspects and elevate it to sculptural matter.

His activity – recognised with numerous prizes in the main national and international events dedicated to ceramics, such as the competitions in Faenza (first prize in 1976), Gualdo Tadino, Cervia, Gubbio, Rimini, Castellamonte, Vallauris, Nagoya-Kanazawa – was a continuous search for new stimuli and experimentation with different  languages: Leoni wrote, argued, drew, painted, reused materials, designed jewels, moulded sculptures, created installations, undertook performances, worked for the ceramic industry.

The text draws the figure of a “rebellious genius”, son of his time, a time of protest and avant-garde movements of the Sixties and Seventies. The result is the portrait of a worried soul, always aiming at going beyond stereotypes.

Text in English and Italian.

Contemporary architect Ralph Johnson, Firmwide Design Director at Perkins&Will, is one of the most prolific and awarded American architects practicing today. Architecture in a Rapidly Changing World is a two-volume monograph commemorating his enduring career, influential legacy, and impressive portfolio of work. Taken together, the volumes explore how individual expression emerges within the context of a larger architectural practice.

Volume 1: Creative Journey encapsulates Johnson’s career from architecture school to the present, with a selection of his built and unbuilt work from 1971 to 2012, including the Contemporaine, an iconic residential high-rise in downtown Chicago. Volume 2: Recent Work explores his latest projects in more depth and includes the Tinkham Veale Student Center at Case Western Reserve University, the Shanghai Natural History Museum, the Northtown Library and Apartments, the Damen Green Line Station, and the Suzhou Science and Technology Museum. While Johnson’s approach has evolved over six decades of practice, his adherence to the core values of humanism, environmentalism, and modernism has never wavered.

World-renowned architectural writer and critic Philip Jodidio delves into his selection of the Top Twenty-six of the most contemporary and current house designs from around the world, showcasing the most innovative and influential designs from Europe, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, South and Central America, India, and Asia. He provides an incisive analysis of the site-specific elements, key environmental factors of the landscape design, the use of spatial visualisations, light, sustainability, and materials, and other critical design features of each home. He expertly articulates and examines the relationships between the architecture and the intentions of the design for the people who live there, taking into account how the architecture affects human behaviour, what enhances the success of the design of each home in this collection, with an overview of current industry trends, and where to next for residential design innovation. This beautifully presented book, filled with stunning photographs and detailed plans and diagrams, celebrates residential luxury, inspirational style and design innovation from around the globe.

Jun wares were made in north China over a period of 400 years, from the 11th to the 15th centuries. These ceramics are unique both for their artistry and the complex techniques required to produce them. Jun wares are subtle yet dramatic — red and purple bursts of colour splash across thick, cloudy blue glazes, containing bubbles and many gradations of tone. To achieve these effects, the production of Jun ware was complex and ingenious, relying on novel techniques.

This book gathers illustrations and descriptions of some of the finest Jun wares in private and public collections around the world. The account starts with ceramics dating to the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties and proceeds to the stunning ‘Official’ Jun wares made in the early Ming dynasty. Copious illustrations are augmented with a scholarly essay. Highlighting over 191 pieces of Jun ware with 425 illustrations from 17 major museums, Dazzling Official Jun Wares will inspire collectors, students and anyone with a love for Chinese ceramics.

This book is an edited record of the papers given at the two-day symposium ‘Italian Maiolica and Europe’ held in Oxford on 22 and 23 September 2017. It is, in effect, a celebration of his long service in the Ashmolean Museum as the Keeper of Western Art. Museum collections develop their great strengths in one of two ways: through gifts of private collections and through the knowledge and enthusiasm of curators. The Ashmolean’s renowned and important collection of Italian Maiolica owes its foundation to the former and the bequest of C.D.E. Fortnum. But it has grown and developed in remarkable ways over the last three decades thanks to the energy and expertise of Professor Timothy Wilson. During his 27 years as Keeper of Western Art, Tim was responsible for a truly extraordinary range and number of important acquisitions across the fine and decorative arts. As one of the world’s leading scholars of Italian Maiolica, it was only natural that he would continue to build on Fortnum’s legacy.

“A standout among the drink books published this year, which ought to be on the Christmas list of every wine lover, even if they don’t think they have much interest in American wine.”  —Victoria Moore, The Telegraph
“This is a book for novices and geeks interested in the significance of California through America’s wine history, from the swashbuckling era of Agoston Haraszthy through modern Napa’s cult cabernets and today’s despair over wildfires and drought.” —David McIntyre, Washington Post

“New York Times picks On California for their “This Year’s Best Wine Books”: “. Its short selections from nearly three dozen writers offer impressionistic, thought-provoking views of the state and its winemaking history.”—New York Times

“There is something for everyone here.” —Sommelier India

On California explores the grapes and the people who have made California wine great. The pioneers, the boffins, the whizz-kids and scientists, many of whom tell their stories on its pages – some in precious archive material, others have set down their thoughts mid-pandemic in 2021: Randall Grahm, Gerald Asher, Steven Spurrier, Paul Draper and Warren Winiarski take a bow….

Includes:

• California wine and the future: where will the ‘California spirit’ lead next?
• The ‘Hollywood Grape’: our authors chart the path of Cabernet Sauvignon, from the wish-list of Thomas Jefferson to the hallowed hillsides of Stag’s Leap and Screaming Eagle
• 1976? Of course it was a competition! Steven Spurrier and Patricia Gallagher look back at the motivations behind the famous Paris wine tasting
• Top New York sommelier Victoria James tells of her near-death introduction to the whacky world of winemaking in Sonoma
• Will the real Zinfandel please stand up? Paul Draper seeks out the true heritage of California’s versatile orphan grape
• Contributions from top California writers: Elaine Chukan Brown, Mary Margaret McCamic MW, Karen MacNeil, Esther Mobley, Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Liz Thach MW, Clare Tooley MW, and Kelli White
• Hugh Johnson, Jane Anson and Fiona Morrison MW introduce California’s intrepid wine pioneers
• Rex Pickett’s Sideways heroes, Jack and Miles, clink glasses over the Central Coast’s finest Pinot Noir
• A–Z: from ‘Bob’ Mondavi to Xylem sap-sensors and pink Zinfandel – California wine in bite-size

Graduated from Ecole Boulle and ENSAD, Henri Quillé (1928-2020), settled on the island of Formentera (Balearic Islands) in 1972. There, he built for a mainly international clientele 30 houses of great consistency and is part of both principles derived from vernacular know-how and in those of the great masters of modernity. He says to “pursue” the local architecture, in particular by making extensive use of the Catalan vault, reducing openings to protect against the heat, covering the exterior walls with a lime plaster and sand. A pioneer of ecological housing, he will build a dozen self-sufficient houses.

With the architects Felix Julbe and Raimon Torres, he collaborated on the regulatory plan and planning work on the island of Formentera from 1973 to 1976. 

Combining plans, period photographs and contemporary shots, this book allows this architect and his houses to be given their rightful place in the history of 20th century architecture.

Text in French and Spanish.

The Strofades: two small, flat, windswept islands rising out of the Ionian Sea, known to the ancient Greeks as the home of the terrible Harpies, and to most modern Greeks simply unknown. On the larger of the two islets, Stamfani, stands a massive fortified monastery, founded as early as the 13th century, for centuries a refuge for honest seafarers and a target for pirates and Turkish raiders. In its heyday, this imposing compound was home to some 40 farmer-monks, who kept the entire island under cultivation; by 1976, it was home to just one, Father Gregory Kladis (1937–2017), who alone tended the monastery until 2014. Today the monastery—badly damaged by an earthquake in 1997—lies empty and in danger of ruin.   This book is intended to tell the world about the Holy Monastery at Strofades, and encourage its preservation. At its core are the words of the last monk himself, Father Gregory, who guides the reader through his historic monastery—its chapels, refectory, mills, bakehouse, and living quarters—and the natural beauties of its island setting, as depicted in Robert McCabe’s superb photographs. The testimonies of the boatman who brought Father Gregory his supplies, as well as the lighthouse keeper who was once his only companion on the island, lend texture and context—as do essays on the history, geology, and architecture of the Strofades, and architectural drawings that reconstruct the monastery’s phases of construction. Nobody who peruses this volume—the result of a yearslong collaboration between more than a dozen researchers and friends of the Strofades—will be able to forget the islands’ last monk, or be unmoved by the plight of his monastery.

Yaozhou ware is one of the finest Chinese celadons, made in north China over a period of 700 years, from the 7th to the 14th centuries. Their style developed and changed over time. In the Tang dynasty (618-906) black, brown, lead glazed and black-on-white painted ceramics were made. During the Five Dynasties period (907-960) a technical peak was achieved, and white-bodied wares with beautiful blue-green glazes appeared. During the Northern Song and Jin dynasties (906-1279) more olive-toned celadon glazes became the norm, their intricate decoration and lustrous surfaces supplying a unique aesthetic. At the end of the Jin dynasty the kilns declined and started to manufacture folk ware.

Yaozhou Wares from Museums and Art Institutes Around the World gathers illustrations and descriptions of some of the finest Yaozhou wares in private and public collections around the globe. The account considers ceramics in sections, according to their form and decoration, and includes the finest-quality ‘official wares’ requisitioned for imperial use. Copious illustrations are augmented by a scholarly essay. Highlighting over 400 pieces of Yaozhou ware, the book contains 711 colour and 3 black-and-white illustrations from 56 major museums and art institutes, and will inspire collectors, students and anyone with a love for Chinese ceramics.

Stripped of their typical narrative and commercial contexts, the fragmented collages of this collection act as visually tantalizing ciphers, reflecting the desires and imaginings of the beholder.’ – Jennie Waldow, Brooklyn Rail

This beautifully illustrated catalogue showcases works by British artist John Stezaker made between 1976 and 2017 and brought together in the 2018 show “Love” at The Approach, London.

Stezaker is celebrated for his distinctive collage works: interruptions of, and interventions into, found images dating mostly from the mid-20th century – products of modernist culture such as film stills, press and publicity photographs, magazines and postcards. His works engage with themes such as psychological archetypes, fragmentation, identity, self and other, desire, inscrutability and enigma, glamour, fantasy, dreams and the gaze.

A sense of romance pervades Stezaker’s imagery. As demonstrated most dramatically by the artist’s ‘Love’ series (2016), his work seduces and ensnares the viewer’s gaze, arresting their perceptual expectations. Disquieting, poetic, compelling, glamorous and strange, the anatomies of love and desire comprising ‘Love’ resemble a visual encyclopaedia of human consciousness. Featuring essays by Michael Bracewell and Craig Burnett.

Throughout its century of existence, every moment of Le Mans has been captured in countless photographs. From black & white to colour, these particularly vivid images bring to life a whole world: that of the cars, naturally, but also of the many human players – drivers, engineers, mechanics – and the public, always numerous and varied.

The authors summarise the moments and actions of the key characters, identifying five major periods:
1923-1929: The time of the pioneers
1930-1967: Reconstruction and globalisation
1968-1981: In search of the right solution
1982-1999: The 21st century in sight
2000-2022: A Modern Race

Text in English and French.

Arboglyphes is the sequel to Jephan de Villiers’ book, Figures of Silence, published in 2021.

Jephan de Villiers’ writings fly from conscience to conscience. They might be Arabic, Indian or African. Ho­rizontal or vertical, over the years they have become a series of musical scores. Scales, even. Not a day goes by without him writing.

“I always write standing up, as if my body was already moving towards something else, the other, as if I was about to move across the paper.”

Every day, this instinctive movement towards the other provides a vital thread, a connection in an existence surrounded by glyphs, whose airy furrows have dug their way into the incandescent humus of memory.

From the Preface by Caroline Lamarche

It was around the age of fourteen that Jephan de Villiers began to make his huge earth villages from the soil, leaves and pieces of bark that he collected in his grandmother’s garden in Chesnay, near Versailles. The circus, theatre and mime were also among his passions. His work as a sculptor and poet has continued ever since. In the 1960s, he encountered Constantin Brancusi’s reconstituted studio. In 1966, his Structures Aquatiales went on show in Paris. A year later, he settled in London where his work was shown regularly. In 1976, he discovered the Forêt de Soignes, the Sonian Forest near Brussels, where his Voyage en Arbonie (Journey into Arbonia) began. Since 2000, he has lived and worked in Charente-Maritime, not far from the River Gironde. His work invites us to set aside our daily lives and discover an imaginary civilisation that seems to have emerged from a past where humans and nature lived as one. A number of exhibitions have been devoted to his work. His sculptures can be seen in the open air in parks and public spaces, as well as in museums and private collections. Des Fragments de mémoires (Fragments of Memory) have been shown in exhibitions across the world.

Text in English and French.