In 1911, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) and his friend August Klipstein (1885-1951), a scholar of art history and later renowned art dealer, undertook a grand tour of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, and Italy. While Klipstein’s interests were more focused on research for his doctoral thesis, Le Corbusier’s impressions were more immediate, his mindset more romantic. They both kept a diary of their journey and produced many sketches, drawings, watercolours, and photographs en route, sometimes capturing the same motif and even copying each other’s work. While Le Corbusier’s record was published in 1966 as Journey to the East and has become a classic, Klipstein’s testimony of the expedition remained largely unknown until today. In this new book, Ivan Zaknic explores the creative symbiosis of this friendship and what the two ambitious young men brought back from their trip. Richly illustrated, including reproductions from both of their diaries, and featuring the complete text of Klipstein’s diary as well as that of the little known correspondence between Le Corbusier and Klipstein, the book offers an entirely new perspective of this seemingly well-known undertaking. It introduces the personality of Klipstein as well as lesser-known facets of the very young Le Corbusier.

Few figures tower over twentieth-century art like Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. Their works were groundbreaking and incalculably influential, yet at the same time both artists were wildly popular in their lifetime and have only become more so in the decades since their deaths. Despite the striking differences in their art and personalities, the two men nonetheless had a lot in common the most obvious being a strong sense of the power of publicity and an affinity for eccentricity and extravagance. They also shared a love of New York, which both men made the heart of their social lives; it was there, in the 1960s, that they met for the first time.

This book offers the first-ever direct juxtaposition of Dalí and Warhol as personalities and artists. Torsten Otte builds his account through perceptive analyses of similarities in their lives and work, and reconstructs their many encounters based on first-hand accounts by some 120 people who knew and worked with the men. Around sixty images, many of them published here for the first time, by eminent photographers such as Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Philippe Halsman, Christopher Makos, Man Ray, or Robert Whitaker, round out the book.

Sonja Sekula (1918-63) was born and educated in Lucerne, but emigrated to the United States in 1936 together with her family. In 1941, she began studying art at the Arts Students League in New York and made the acquaintance of André Breton and his friends among the surrealists. Her automatic paintings and texts soon captured the interest of Peggy Guggenheim and Marcel Duchamp, and in 1943 she was invited to show her work at Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery. In the late 1940s Betty Parsons Gallery featured Sekula’s paintings in a number of group and solo exhibitions. Mental health problems dogged her throughout her life and forced her to return to Switzerland, where she committed suicide in 1963.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Sekula’s art in context of the work of her friends and fellow artists from the period. Richly illustrated, it offers a chance to rediscover an immensely talented artist who has been unjustly neglected.

Marco Graber and Thomas Pulver founded their architectural studio in 1992 after graduating from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) and working with Cruz Ortiz Architects in Seville and Torres & Martinez-Lapeña in Barcelona respectively in 1990-91. Since then Graber Pulver Architects, located in Zurich and Berne, have realised many projects for private and public clients in Switzerland and gained recognition nationally and internationally. Their work has been published in numerous books and magazines in Switzerland and abroad. Marco Graber and Thomas Pulver have been lecturing as visiting professors in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich’s M.A.-program in architecture in 2006-08, maintaining a close interaction between their method of teaching and design research and the practical work in the studio. Spatial Sequences and Urban Infrastructure gives an insight into Graber Pulver’s working methods, focusing on their search for the contextual roots and for the specific space and form. The leading idea is that, besides of its natural properties, the infrastructural reservations and links of a territory are crucial for the physical development of our urban landscape. At the same time the form, which has to meet a multitude of demands, is determined by the fact that the quality of a space can be judged and developed only by moving within that space. A second, lavishly illustrated part of the book presents work by students of Graber Pulver’s course at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. The topics for the four terms determined concrete architectural tasks and resulted in a vast variety of inspiring and radical solutions. Accompanying essays further investigate the topics of the course and provide additional background information on the student’s tasks. Text in English & German.

For some forty years, Susi and Ueli Berger’s work has been guided by the credo that ‘only a new idea justifies a new piece of furniture’. Contrasts between product design and object art, and suitability for everyday use characterise their designs. A playful provocativeness and the combination of rationality and sensuality are additional hallmarks of the Bergers. In 2010, they were awarded Switzerland’s most prestigious national design prize, the Grand Prix Design for their joint lifetime achievements at the interface of art, architecture, and design.

Susi Berger-Wyss, born 1938 in Lucerne, trained as a graphic designer and worked with an advertising agency in Berne before she met and married Ueli Berger in 1962. Apart from their close collaboration in furniture and interior design, Susi continued to work as a freelance graphic designer and also collaborated with architects, developing colour and material concepts for interiors.

Ueli Berger, born 1937 in Berne, trained as a painter and decorator and also attended classes at the city’s school of art and design. 1959-61, he completed his artistic education during extended stays in Paris and Copenhagen and worked with renowned Swiss interior designer Hans Eichenberger. Until his passing in 2008, Ueli worked as an artist – creating a much recognised oeuvre in painting, drawing, and sculpture – and designer, and also held a number of teaching appointments at universities and art schools in Switzerland.

Featuring a wealth of previously unpublished original drawings, plans, photographs, and promotion materials, as well as a catalogue raisonné of Susi and Ueli Berger’s collaborative work and an illustrated biography, this groundbreaking book offers the first-ever survey of their life and oeuvre. It is published in conjunction with a retrospective exhibition at Zurich’s Museum für Gestaltung in summer 2018.

Text in English and German.

This volume, edited by Antonio Aimi and Antonio Guarnotta, offers a new, up-to-date study of the most important cultures of Mesoamerica and of the Peruvian Area, through magnificent artefacts held by the MIC (Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza) and various other Italian museums. The cultures of the Aztecs, Mayas, Incas and other populations of ancient America are analysed in light of the most recent archaeological and ethnohistorical research. Themes of prime importance are examined in depth: the conquest of America as seen from the point of view of the conquered, the status of women, the systems of calculation of ancient Peru, and pre-Columbian art presented as art, not only as archaeology.

Text in English and Italian.

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.

The stories told in the great masterpieces of European opera are, frequently, based on facts relevant for criminal law. Murders, abductions, extortions, kidnappings, massacres, and other types of crimes have filled the stories of opera since its origin. In much of musical theatre, including the masterpieces by Verdi, Donizetti, Bellini, Wagner, and many others, there are, also issues addressed that touch upon the less obvious areas of private law: librettos often talk about contracts, donations, wills, weddings, family relationships, debts and money issues in general. In Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, Nemorino – in love with the beautiful but indifferent Adina – is the victim of a real contract scam perpetrated by Dulcamara. In La sonnambula by Vincenzo Bellini, Elvino snatches the engagement ring given to Amina thinking she was unfaithful: he revokes a donation made in view of marriage, and maybe breaks a rule of law. In Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, one witnesses a sensational case of breach of contract, to be read in the light of the emergence, in the nineteenth century, of a new sensibility for market economy and the increasingly central value of contracts in social relations. In Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart, there is a strange marriage vow, executed in order to guarantee the repayment of a debt.

Who other than Henri Matisse’s daughter Marguerite could describe his engraving in this way? Responsible for validating her father’s press-proofs, she is, along with her son Claude Duthuit, the author of this catalogue raisonné of his engravings. She has devoted a large part of her life to allowing this ‘unknown continent’ to be discovered and which is nevertheless essential in understanding the progression of an artist known above all for his mastery of colour. The Matisse Departmental Museum, with the help of the Matisse family, Barbara Duthuit, and some most prestigious institutions, explores in this catalogue all of the engraving techniques used by Matisse from 1900 up to the end of his life. For him, engraving, drawing, painting, and sculpture all had the same importance, and in this work all the key themes that led him to build his research around the human figure, are represented. For the very first time the matrices (woodcut, lithograph, drypoint, etching, linocut…) accompany the works and help us to understand that high standards and hard work, along with an economy of means, led Matisse to transform black into a colour that he used to serve the purity of line.

Text in English and French.

Considering the activity of the numerous foundations that contributed in spreading new expressive languages, today appears to be a fundamental operation in view of an interpretative widening of art history. Starting from this consideration, this publication – in two volumes – traces the path of the Murray and Isabella Rayburn Foundation, established in New York in 1982 with the aim of promoting Italian art in the United States.

Water belongs to our most profound dreams: it evokes motherhood, cleanliness, purity, sensuality, and death. Naturally, this is true for every civilisation, but in Islam this series of ideas found its most profound meaning, turning water into one of the cornerstones of human existence: a cornerstone that is both spiritual as well as social and aesthetic. Statements in the Koran and subsequent literature illustrate the historic development of the many roles and meanings of water and the incarnation of its significance in Islamic art and craftsmanship. This volume tells a story through images, artefacts, books, and miniatures: technology, everyday life, and art, which for centuries mirrored one another in the many ways of enjoying and using water.

Despite some field research our knowledge of the sacred among the Mumuye is still embryonic. In all these acephalic groups of a binary and antinomic nature, the complex va constitutes an extremely varied semantic field in which certain aspects are accentuated depending on the circumstances. Religious power is linked to the strength contained in sacred objects, of which only the elders are the guardians. Moreover, this gerontocracy relies on a system of initiatory stages which one must pass to have access to the status of ‘religious leader’. Geographically isolated, the Mumuye were able to resist the attacks of the Muslim invaders, the British colonial authority and the activities of the different Christian missions for a long time. As a result the Mumuye practised woodcarving until the beginning of our century. In 1970 Philip Fry published his essay on the statuary of the Mumuye of which the analysis of the endogenous network has so far lost nothing of its value. Basing himself on in situ observations, Jan Strybol attempted to analyse the exogenous network of this woodcarving. Thus he was able to document about forty figures and some masks and additionally to identify more than twenty-five Mumuye artists as well as a specific type of sculpture as being confined to the Mumuye Kpugbong group. During and after the Biafran war, hundreds of Mumuye sculptures were collected. Based on information gathered between 1970 and 1993 the author has demonstrated that a certain number of these works are not Mumuye but must be attributed to relic groups scattered in Mumuye territory.

This book is about a human adventure – that of photographer Julius Mwelu, a gifted and generous Kenyan who was born, lived and survived in Mathare Valley. This part of Nairobi is one of the huge slums that constitute a permanent social blight in Kenya’s capital. There, in the destitution of an overpopulated district, poor and with little to hope for, the photographer and his team went walking among the people, the sheet metal roofs and the jerry-cans. Above all, though, Julius trained and encouraged children and teenagers to see the world around them in a different light. Trained by their mentor in the use of the camera lens, these youngsters in turn took a complicit but distinctly critical look at the state of the place where they live. With this delicate blend of tenderness and realism, Mwelu offers us 112 testimonies to his mission as an artist and an educator.

Text in English, French and Dutch.

Also available in the Africalia series: Grassroots Upgraded ISBN 9789058563910 Sammy Baloji ISBN 9789058563965 Calvin Dondo ISBN 9789058564214 Kiripi Katembo ISBN 9789058565174 Teddy Mazina ISBN: 9789058565167

Architecture and automobiles have been intrinsically linked since the dawn of the internal combustion engine – from the assembly plant to the showroom and on to that ubiquitous fixture of the artificial landscape, the service station. The streamlined forms of automobiles have often inspired architects and some have even ventured into designing their own cars. Features Foster and Partners, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, ONL, Renzo Piano, Populous, Zaha Hadid, UNStudio and Massimiliano Fuksas. Projects presented include the BMW Museum in Munich, the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, the Audi museum in Ingolstadt by 24-H, Manuel Gautrand’s Citroen museum on the Champs Elyssee in Paris, and the Regio Emilia bridge by Santiago Calatrava in Italy.

Country Style and Design beautifully showcases Justin Bishop’s intricate knowledge of country style and design. Blending traditional country style with modern influences, this book is a collection of beautiful images, practical tips, useful styling notes and personal sentiment. Regardless of whether you live in a city apartment or suburban home, if you love all things vintage and rustic, then this exquisite book is sure to delight. The interior architecture and landscaping featured in Country Style and Design encompasses a number of looks – from the French country style of Provence to the more floral country designs of England, and from rustic traditional Americana to Australia’s distinctive rural style.

How do our minds work when we design? How do we organise and assimilate information, create and evaluate options, and make decisions? These questions have fascinated and absorbed architect and sculptor Richard Bertman (FAIA) since his graduate school days. Now, after a 40-year career, Bertman has used the design of a vacation house as an experiment to explore these questions. The result, documented in The Design Process and the Art of the Single Family Home, is a fascinating and revealing insight into the creative process. With detailed notes and sketches, Bertman charts each stage of the design process, questioning and examining why certain decisions are made, how problems are solved, and generally exploring the processes involved in creative thinking.

Industrial heritage is an important part of our built environment and landscape. It provides tangible and intangible links to our past and has great potential to play a significant role in the futures of our cities, towns, and rural environments. The projection and redevelopment of industrial heritage can contribute to the building of social and cultural capital, environmental sustainability, and urban regeneration. This book showcases a selection of works completed since 2010 with a wide global distribution. It highlights an encouraging increase in the practice of the transformation, redevelopment, and adaptive reuse of industrial structures. From under-utilised, disused, or discarded reminders of times past, the latest metamorphoses of buildings and structures have imbued them with new purposes in what could be regarded as one more stage in a continuous process of industrial evolution. The four essays written by authors from a variety of backgrounds and locations offer a rich addition to the selection of case studies and could serve as opportunities for further research. This book provides direct, informational reference to architects, researchers, and decision-makers.

Includes projects located in France, Sweden, China, Spain, Chile, the Netherlands, USA, Germany, Portugal, Denmark, South Africa, Italy, Canada, Thailand, Latvia, Belgium, Estonia, and India.

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.

Walking and cycling are becoming a fashionable lifestyle choice – both as a low-impact exercise and a healthy means of travel. There is ever-growing demand for the construction of pedestrian and cyclist paths internationally, and it’s the rate of growth that highlights new challenges as well as opportunities for landscape designers. This book showcases several exciting design projects of pedestrian and cyclist paths across a range of environments, from cities to local communities, urban to larger national parks. The book includes an informative design guide and a set of criteria that should provide strong reference materials for professionals and students in related design fields.

The term “smart” in reference to homes and communities describes places whose function is related to or affected by information technology. In the wake of the ongoing digital revolutions of the 21st century, designers and planners are paying significant attention to the design of dwellings and neighbourhoods and are considering new economic realities, by integrating innovative digital appliances, which are also helping to foster economic sustainability for future generations. In this important book, Avi Friedman, Professor of Architecture at McGill University in Montreal, examines these concepts and their applications through several revealing essays, which are illustrated with lavish full-colour photography, detailed diagrams, and technological insight through a selection of case studies from around the globe. The text comprehensively investigates several key topics, namely the correlations between the built and the natural environments and their ecological attributes; issues of mobility and transportation; the mixing of amenities and residences; district heating and other energy efficiencies; planning for green open space while considering the residents’ lifestyle; edible landscapes and novel urban agriculture practices and their implementation; reducing a community footprint with regards to the evolution of high-density living; the principles of heritage conservation within communities, where social, economic, and environmental issues are all present, where old is mixed with new; how sustainability is achieved when dwellings are designed for and equipped with advanced “green” technologies, for adaptable homes, multi-generational dwellings, add-in and add-on units, and plug and play, among others.

This book presents sixteen essays exploring the work of two of 17th-century Amsterdam’s most ambitious painters, Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol. Museum curators, academic art historians, and conservation scientists from six different countries come together to investigate form, content, and context from a variety of perspectives. Eric Jan Slujter examines how changing patterns of patronage contributed to both artists’ stylistic evolution. Hilbert Lootsma traces the rise and fall of their critical fortunes from their own time until today. Ann Jensen Adams situates their work in the shifting market for portraiture. Jasper Hillegers explores the origins of Flinck’s career in the Leeuwarden studio of Lambert Jacobsz. Other authors present contextual and technical analyses of individual paintings. Portrait identities are revealed, painterly tricks uncovered, and both artists are shown to be influential teachers and members of an intellectual community in which art and theatre were closely linked. Many of these essays originated at an international conference held in preparation for the exhibition, Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol. Together, they shed new light on the methods and motivations of two artists who began as Rembrandt’s acolytes but soon became his rivals.

Spijkers and Spijkers is part 6 in a series showcasing important Dutch and internationally influential Fashion Designers. Dutch twin sisters Spijkers and Spijkers create flattering womenswear that rebels against society’s stereotypical image of femininity. Known for their Art Deco-inspired striking graphic prints and fluid tailoring, they have been championed for creating both couture and ready-to-wear collections that are accessible to all. This book presents their career history, which so far has spanned 11 years.