Petra Rephotographed represents an exploration of time and change across the iconic archaeological city of Petra, Jordan, through repeat photography––meticulously replicating historic images of the landscape and monuments a century later.

In the early 1920s, retired civil engineer Sir Alexander Kennedy set out to explore and photograph the archaeological wonder of Petra, an ancient city of ruins nestled in the striking Jordanian Highlands. Armed only with a field camera of the day, Sir Kennedy captured the Rose Red City’s magnificent features: dramatic stone façades, sweeping vistas, and hewn carvings—shedding light on what was then a mostly untouristed region. One hundred years later, Dr. Kaelin Groom, a noted heritage scientist and geographer with over a decade of experience in Petra, retraces Sir Kennedy’s footsteps with a modern field camera, meticulously rephotographing his 100-year-old images in the contemporary landscape. Studying Petra a century later, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, Dr. Groom visualises the profound resiliency of the indomitable Rose Red City through modern imagery and observes the influence humans have had on the landscape for generations. Petra Rephotographed takes the reader on a historic photographic journey, incorporating meticulously replicated images of the past which help the reader visualise changes and evolution of the archaeological city’s iconic monuments and timeless landscapes.

Jean-Michel Wilmotte and his collaborators are leading more than 100 projects in 27 different countries, from the biggest to the smallest, from the most spectacular to the most ordinary, with the same fervour from the initial sketch to completion. This practice has recently completed the Russian Orthodox Spiritual and Cultural Center in Paris (France), the headquarters of L’Oréal Group in Clichy (France), the headquarters of Unilever group in Rueil-Malmaison (France), the Center for Arts of the International School of Geneva (Switzerland), the Allées Richaud & Allées Foch high-end residential buildings in Versailles (France), the Cultural Center of Daejeon (South Korea), the 36,200-seat Allianz Riviera Stadium in Nice (France), the London headquarters of Google and JCDecaux (United Kingdom), the Ferrari Sporting Management Center (Formula 1) in Maranello (Italy), a Convention and Exhibition Center in São Paulo (Brazil), and an ecological park in Baku (Azerbaijan) for the 2015 European Games. In these projects, which are both innovative and sustainable, the design always takes into account landscaping, lighting, materials, and finishes, while being respectful of the local and historic context of the site. This new title, as part of IMAGES’ renowned Leading Architects series, delves into the extraordinary work of this firm and the process of its innovative and creative team. Showcasing projects throughout the book with rich, full-colour images, detailed plans, and informative texts, this monograph is a must-have for any professional design collection.

Pure Luxury: World’s Best Houses is a celebration of residential living at its finest, and best. Satisfying our natural and abiding curiosity about how other people live, and our endless quest to add a special something to our own homes, this latest volume in IMAGES’ 100 Houses series showcases contemporary architectural trends. The beauty of residential architecture lies in its infinite scope for innovation and the comfort of it inhabitants, be they at rest, at play, or hosting guests. Among the awe-inspiring projects in this book are an opulent villa set in the Hollywood Hills with an infinity pool projecting over LA, an idyllic rural retreat set in luxurious valleys and stunning beach houses around the coast. The diversity of the locations extend from Mexico and Brazil to Thailand and Italy. Featured architects include: Damien Murtagh, Lockyer Architects, ISJ Architects, Saucier + Perrotte, SAOTA, Okada Architects, Original Vision, Koutsoftides Architects, Drozdov Partners and Carlos Bratke Architect.

“Tashiding is one of the oldest and most venerated monasteries in the historic Himalyan Kingdom of Sikkim. Loosely translated, the word means ‘a very auspicious place.’ We appropriated the name for our auspicious place” – Douglas & Tsongie Hamilton

Tashiding: Beyond Earth and Sky presents a sumptuous portrait of a 100-acre rural landscape and stunning residence, in Maryland, USA, developed in connection with the land and the environment. Stunning photographs and the book’s elegant design take readers on an exquisite visual tour of the property and its development, including the origins and culture of its owners—Douglas Hamilton former president and chairman of The Walters Museum in Maryland and Tsognie Wangmo, the eldest child of the last king of Sikkim, shortly before the Himalayan royal kingdom was taken over by India. This is the poignant and inspirational story of the origins and creation of Tashiding, which was developed by Douglas and Tsognie without plans, a design on paper, or a professional landscape architect or garden designer, personify their intuitive sensibility and innate knowledge—approaches that every gardener can use, and every designer will appreciate.

Tashiding showcases the joining of two distinct cultures, and how their Western and Eastern backgrounds are manifest in the landscapes, garden themes, sculpture, ornament, and the house’s interiors. Everyone who has visited Tashiding is moved by the experiential sensation of the landscape’s different places. In developing Tashiding’s four-seasons gardens, Douglas and Tsognie envisioned an environment that invites a sense of harmony and well-being—part arboretum, part park, and part Xanadu. It is a garden for both walking and quiet contemplation, for feeling the thrill of the wind on a cool March day or for sitting in the tea house on a rainy afternoon, watching the wind form abstract ripples on the surface of the lake. Collecting and arranging the extraordinary quantity of rocks, boulders, trees and shrubs, they see their hands in all they did. Yet as the years have passed, each tree and plant grows in its own unique way, knitting together to form a new and perhaps more naturalistic landscape.

Women Photographers are Dangerous celebrates more than 60 women photographers who have long deserved greater recognition for their extraordinary work.

Many of these pioneers, innovators and artists have ventured into war zones, politics, feminist activism and more. All have taken risks and freed themselves from established frameworks, simply by being who they are and doing what they do.

Ever since Louis Daguerre introduced the first camera to the world in 1838, women photographers have been present and excelled in every field, from art and the sciences to journalism and advertising. Yet all too often, they are denied the spotlight they deserve. Written and compiled by renowned historians Laure Adler and Clara Bouveresse, these pages set the record straight.

Featuring over 100 outstanding photographic works by women photographers including Eve Arnold with her famous Marilyn Monroe portraits; Vivian Maier, whose photos were discovered only after death; and Anne Atkins, who is believed by some to have created the first ever photographic image.

Photographers include: Anna Atkins, Julia Margaret Cameron, Virginia De Castiglione, Christina Broom, Frances Benjamin Johnston, Alice Austen, Olive Edis, Laure Albin Guillot, Imogen Cunningham, Claude Cahun, Dorothea Lange, Tina Modotti, Berenice Abbott, Anita Conti, Lisette Model, Margaret Bourke-White, Grete Stern, Dora Maar, Julia Pirotte, Lee Miller, Edith Tudor-Hart, Gerda Taro, Eve Arnold, Helen Levitt, Janine Niépce, Diane Arbus, Lisetta Carmi, Vivian Maier, Agnès Varda, Claudia Andujar, Claude Batho, Letizia Battaglia, Marianne Wex, Martine Franck, Sarah Moon, Sandra Eleta, Abigail Heyman, Graciela Iturbide, Paz Errázuriz, Catherine Leroy, Christine Spengler, Paola Agosti, Ishiuchi Miyako, Susan Meiselas, Sophie Ristelhueber, Erica Lennard, Donna Gottschalk, Alix Cléo Roubaud, Sophie Calle, Nan Goldin, Anne Noble, Cindy Sherman, Pushpamala N., Ouka Leele, Shirin Neshat, Francesca Woodman, Lorna Simpson, Angèle Etoundi, Essamba, Désirée Dolron, Géraldine Lay, Zanele Muholi, Sara Bennett, Shadi Ghadirian, Tarrah Krajnak, Gohar Dashti, Laia Abril, Bieke Depoorter, Maya Inès Touam.

“As with stocks, education is the way to begin. There are many excellent books on the jewelry market, but start with Understanding Jewellery, the industry bible by two former Sotheby’s jewelry executives, David Bennett, and Daniela Mascetti.” — Kristen Shirley, Bloomberg

Understanding Jewellery is a comprehensive guide to 19th and 20th Century jewellery. From the methods used to identify and date pieces, to the factors that can affect their value, this volume contains an abundance of expertise relating to precious stones and metals. With almost 1000 magnificent colour illustrations accompanied by straightforward but thorough explanations, this publication offers a richer and more accessible reading experience than traditional text-dominated books.

Including introductions to precious and semi-precious stones, and details of the stylistic developments of jewellery over the last 200 years, this volume is a standard work of reference and aninvaluable tool for collectors and dealers alike.

“… a delightful and presentation worthy coffee table book, Understanding Jewellery also, in the truest sense, serves as an inviting educational tool with exhaustive encyclopedic explanations of jewelry starting in the late 18th century to the present.” – New York Journal of Books

James Wilson Morrice: Paintings and Drawings of Venice is the first comprehensive overview of the artist’s images of Venice, Italy. Living in Paris for most of his life, Morrice (1865–1924) was the first Canadian painter to make regular trips to Venice from the mid 1890s to about 1908. This book situates Morrice within the history of Venice and Venetian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by looking carefully at his more than 100 modernist paintings and numerous drawings of “La Serenissima.” During his lifetime, Morrice’s Venetian pictures appeared in art exhibitions in Paris, London and other European countries, as well as in Montreal and the United States. Constantly cited in exhibition reviews, Morrice was praised for his modernity, and his Venice works have ensured his fame and importance for years to come.

In The 500 Hidden Secrets of Madrid, Anna-Carin Nordin presents 500 must-know addresses in the Spanish capital, such as the 5 trendiest but affordable restaurants, 5 shops with the coolest sunglasses, 5 places that are decorated by the new generation of Madrid’s designers, 5 buzzing after-work bars or the 5 most curious street names… Madrid has so much to offer, and this guide helps you to choose where to start discovering this beautiful city. It is the perfect book for those who wish to discover the city, but avoid all the usual tourist haunts, as well as for residents who are keen to track down the city’s best-kept secrets.

The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide series is written in collaboration with Club Oenologique, with comprehensive listings of restaurants, hotels, cafés and bars, points of wider cultural interest such as art galleries and museums, which wineries you can visit, how to read a Swiss wine list, Swiss winemakers’ favourite restaurants and more.

Master printmaker Liu Chunjie is renowned for his beautiful woodcut art. Born to land reclamation workers in Heilongjiang Province’s 856 Farm, Lui began life in a remote part of China that was deemed to be a place of cultural exile. But it is here that a vibrant chapter in the history of contemporary Chinese printmaking, known as Beidahuang Prints, was born.

Living and breathing woodcut art, Liu takes the reader on a personal journey through his life’s work. Written in beautiful poetic prose, Liu describes how his art and the techniques he uses have developed over time, culminating in a stunning body of work that has made him the celebrated artist he is today.

Having experimented with coloured ink, installation art and mixed-media painting, it is the spirit of woodcut that remains the foundation of Liu’s art. Using ancient tools and materials, he creates works that embody modern concepts, elevating the essence of woodcut art to a new level.

Did you know that jewellery predates clothes? The oldest known piece is a set of 100, 000-year-old beads, made from Nassarius shells.

Liza Urla advises us not to look at the eyes when meeting a new person, but instead to look at their jewellery. She describes it as the ultimate means of self-expression, essential to our identification as humans. “Jewellery is our armour,” she says, “and precious stones our amulets”. In this book, she journeys from continent to continent, chronicling the pieces that capture her imagination and her heart.

Although many of the pictures are from the street, defining the wearer’s style on the day they were taken, Urla has been lucky enough to access people’s personal jewellery boxes. As she says, the best pieces are always in private collections. Urla’s favourite finds are presented alongside her own jewellery styling, in collaboration with various designers from the jungles of Brazil, the beaches of Mexico, or the streets of London, NYC, Paris or Moscow.

Whether buying gem-set jewellery or loose stones, you will be faced with a colourful array of beauty and value. With such a wide choice – from amethyst to zircon which should you choose? What is it worth, and how do you even know it is real? All that glitters is not gold, as they say, and all that sparkles is not diamond. Gemstones helps to answer these questions in simple and easy to understand terms. As well as diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires, over 100 gems are featured, with full descriptions, technical details, and tips on how to check for fakes; illustrated throughout with fabulous colour photographs to make identification easier. Technical terms such as refraction and fluorescence are explained and some basic identification tests are introduced. A helpful tour around the world details where gems are best available. Informative appendices include a glossary of terms, tables of specific gravity and refractive index, and the comparative value of different stones.

The clear, uncomplicated presentation makes this book a must for anyone interested in gemstones, whether as an investment or simply as a hobby.

Building a Museum is a comprehensive guide designed to assist museum professionals in navigating the complex process of planning, designing, and constructing a museum. In it, seasoned design professionals from the award-winning integrated design firm SmithGroup condense their decades of experience guiding numerous cultural institutions through successful projects, emphasising best practices in organising a capital project and offering suggestions to keep projects moving toward completion. Building a Museum is a user-friendly tool for museum leaders to easily understand every aspect of the building process and includes intuitive graphics and a handy glossary for common terms. It encourages readers to rethink the traditional approaches and embrace forward-thinking and collegial strategies that could revolutionise their projects. Collaboration and inclusivity in the process is encouraged, with an emphasis on the importance of building a strong network and leveraging professional connections. Building a Museum draws on the authors’ decade of conducting workshops on the museum capital project process, refining their content based on feedback from over 300 museum leaders, board members, administrators, curators, and facilities professionals. The book aims to demystify the planning and design process, making it accessible and practical for museum professionals at any stage of their project.

Investigations by Sara Penco stem from the insightful finding of the absence of a key figure in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement fresco. Prior to this illuminating research, Mary Magdalene was not unequivocally identified within Michelangelo’s masterpiece. Father Pfeiffer, with whom Penco establishes an inescapable dialectic, had already hypothesised the presence of Mary Magdalene in the fresco, but it is the scholar, for the first time in these pages, who convincingly justifies her identification. Mary Magdalene is closely connected to the salient episodes in the life of Jesus. The author rightly wonders, therefore, how it is possible that a figure so central to the biblical narrative and the Christian imagination could have been excluded from the depiction of the Parousia. This observation gives rise to an accurate reflection on the iconography of the saint and the Judgement, in relation to the sacred texts and in relation to Michelangelo’s poetics and production. Sara Penco traces Mary Magdalene in the tangle of figures on the wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel, contributing to characterise the fresco – one of the best known and most appreciated works in the world – with an unprecedented theological message.

Text in English and Italian.

The architect Paul Tissier (1886-1926) turned his short life into a multi-faceted artistic adventure. A student at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, where he founded the Association symphonique, he became president of the famous Quat’z’Arts ball. His talent as a watercolourist and draughtsman made him a witness to the ruins of the 1914-1918 war. Whether in the devastated regions or on the Côte d’Azur, he developed a unique catalogue of modular houses inspired by the region, combining traditional architecture with modern design. In 1923, Tissier was entrusted by the Société des grands hôtels de Nice with the organisation of exceptional festivities based on themes such as Russia, the Far East, Ancient Rome and Latin America, as well as underwater kingdoms and many other fantasies revolving around childhood, fashion and cubism. With his wife Gisèle, he was responsible for both the scenography and the staging: splendidly coloured painted canvases, extravagant costumes, spectacular dances, processions, naval jousts, fireworks and illuminations… A shooting star, Paul Tissier created almost 100 festivities across Europe in three years, before suddenly passing away. This first monograph draws on the 400 set elements and 2,000 graphic documents that survive in his archive, taking us to the heart of the excesses of the Roaring Twenties.

Text in French.

Back-lit in the morning, the olive tree differs greatly in appearance from in the afternoon or at sunset, each time offering new perspectives as well as new photographic collections. Jacques Berthet has long been interested in the olive tree. The idea of studying them came to him during a photography project which took Berthet all around the Mediterranean: from the Alentejo region in Portugal to the Pleistos Valley at Delphi, passing through Kabylia, Tunisia, to the Middle East, in Israel and the West Bank. In his photography, Berthet opts for black and white to distance himself from botany and move closer towards sculpture or drawing, opting for backlighting to single out the chosen tree against the backdrop of the olive grove which remains bathed in light.

The olive tree has remained a significant influence in the everyday life of cultures around the Mediterranean. In ancient poetry and writing, it is the most venerated of trees. The Greeks made it a sacred tree (particularly for its oil, used in lamps), and so have the people of Tunisia and Algeria in more recent times. In Islamic cultures, it is the cosmic tree, the centre and the pillar of the world, symbolising universal man. What sets the olive tree apart from many other species is that no two trees look alike, and its fate is closely linked with that of man.

Text in English and French.

The Jaguar Book is more than just a book about cars; it is a tribute to the heritage of one of the most important brands in automotive history. Under the direction of renowned photographer René Staud, you will experience an exquisite compilation of iconic Jaguar models, including the immortal E-Type and the stylish XK 140, but this carefully crafted coffee table book goes beyond technical perfection. It combines automotive elegance with impressive art and motorsport history.

This book will not only make the hearts of automobile enthusiasts race but will also appeal to design lovers and those interested in culture. At teNeues, we are proud to bring you a work that reflects the exquisite clarity and artistic values of the Jaguar brand. Discover the future of motoring through the lens of the past – an essential object for anyone who appreciates the world of fine cars and contemporary art.

Text in English and German.

For many flower lovers, the orchid is the epitome of luxury, grace and beauty. In the new book in the Floramour series Floramour: Orchids, author Anja Klaffenbach pays tribute to this queen of the flower world. She not only illuminates the filigree flower wonder with spectacular photographs and sketches, but also presents exciting background information, packed into and entertaining texts.
Orchid breeding has a long tradition and by now more than 28,000 species and more than 100,000 hybrids and varieties are known. And perhaps the diversity of these ornamental plants can also be explained from a historical perspective. In this colourful coffee-table book, Klaffenbach explores this question and paints a portrait of the orchid through the ages. The aesthetics of the flower were already highly valued in ancient China. It served as a symbol of purity and luxury. In Japan, it was the distinguishing mark of the noble warrior caste of the samurai and was found on the clothing and weapons of the fighters. In Hinduism, the lovely orchid is a representative of wealth and prosperity and a coveted offering at numerous religious festivals.
Europe has also become addicted to the tropical beauty. In Victorian England, there was a veritable run on the colourful flower. The flower was regarded as an unmistakable testimony to exquisite taste and classical elegance. The plants quickly advanced to become a high-class gift that expressed the high esteem of the bearer in perfect form.
Even today, the orchid enjoys a large fan community. For them, the coffee table book Floramour: Orchids is the perfect inspiring read to learn even more about their own favourite flower.

Text in English and German.

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.