Over the last 10 years, the Faculty of Art and Design at West University of Timișoara has developed into one of the most important driving forces for culture in Romania. The vibrant arts scene around the campus helped the city establish itself as a hot spot for art and was instrumental in Timișoara being named European City of Culture in 2023.

In 2025, the faculty is celebrating its 35th anniversary. Chasing Light traces the footsteps of some of its outstanding and internationally successful graduates—including Olah Gyarfas, Laurian Popa, Dinu Bodiciu, Diana Marincu and Bogdan Rața—and provides fascinating insights into the creative epicentre of this western Romanian city.

Text in English and Romanian.  

During the three decades following the Second World War, and before the advent of personal computers, government investment in university research in North America and the UK funded multidisciplinary projects to investigate the use of computers for manufacturing and design. Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design explores this period of remarkable inventiveness, and traces its repercussions on architecture and other creative fields through a selection of computational designers working today.

Situating contemporary expressions of design in relation to broader historical, disciplinary, and technical frames, the book showcases the confluence, during the second half of the 20th century, of publicly funded technical innovations in software, geometry, and hardware with a cultural imaginary of design endowing computer-generated images with both geometric plasticity and a new type of agency as operative design artifacts.

Glass is a threshold material, serving as both a divider and an opening, for one can always see what is behind it. This is a unique phenomenon and it is confounding, as well as being alluring and enhancing, making the space breathe. Florian Lechner (b. 1938) has dedicated himself to this unique material. He explores its substance and formal possibilities through architectural works and sculptural objects. He also experiments with it in combination with the media of light, sound and movement. For him it is essential to forge his work single-handedly, because only unrestricted personal creative input and the development of one’s own, often innovative ways of working can ensure an authentic result. However, the concepts behind his works and their spiritual roots are always more important to him than the process of their creation. Intellectual significance defines Florian Lechner as an artist. He takes an intellectual and philosophically motivated approach, but the result is always a sensory experience and never dominated by dry theory.

Text in English & German.

“Forget the rural idylls. This sublime show recasts John Constable as the godfather of the Avant Garde, producing explosive, nightmarish paintings of a vanishing world.” – Jonathan Jones, Guardian

One of Britain’s greatest landscape painters, John Constable (1776–1837) was brought up in Dedham Vale, the valley of the River Stour in Suffolk. The eldest son of a wealthy mill owner, he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1800 at the age of 24, and thereafter committed himself to painting nature out of doors. His ‘six-footers’, such as The Hay Wain and The Leaping Horse, were designed to promote landscape as a subject and to stand out in the Academy’s Annual Exhibition. Despite this, he sold few paintings in his lifetime and was elected a Royal Academician late in his career.

With texts by leading authorities on the artist, this handsome book looks at the freedom of Constable’s late works and records his enormous contribution to the English landscape tradition.

The Padua School originated from the Istituto Pietro Selvatico in Padua. The distinctive features of this jewelry are the use of gold reminiscent of the goldsmith’s art in antiquity and a modern and abstract formal expression within the group. Mario Pinton, who brought the goldsmith movement international recognition and acclaim in the 1950s and ’60s, is credited with founding the experimental goldsmith movement in Padua. Francesco Pavan has enlarged the scope of the Padua School with his kinetic and geometric formal idiom.

The breakthrough on the international jewelry scene took place in the late 1960s with Giampaolo Babetto, under whose support the geometric and Minimalist tendency was most pronounced. Other distinguished artists in jewelry such as Graziano Visintin, Renzo Pasquale, Annamaria Zanella, Stefano Marchetti and Giovanni Corvaya continued along these lines or went their own highly individual ways by experimenting with the use of new materials including plastic. The work of these creative artists is beautifully displayed through color photographs, which serve to highlight their great talent.

Finn Geipel is the founder of two architecture and urban design firms: LABFAC, based in Paris and operating between 1987 and 2001, and Berlin- and Paris-based LIN, operating since 2001. Geipel focuses on finding adaptable and integrative solutions for architecture and urban development. LABFAC’s and LIN’s designs of varied scale always consider the ever-changing urban and ecological conditions. Both firms did and continue to collaborate with experts from other disciplines, such as climate and circular design, economics, mobility, ecology, as well as philosophy, art, and cultural studies.

This first monograph on Finn Geipel and his work with LABFAC and LIN features their key built and unrealised designs and research projects since 1985. The evolution of their working methods and thematic and research focuses is explained, supported by rich visual material. Contributions by fellow architects and teachers as well as personal friends, such as Hashim Sarkis, Joseph Hanimann, Riken Yamamoto, and Bénédicte Savoy, offer a critical perspective on Finn Geipel’s achievements in the context of current debates on architecture and urban design.

The Active House B10 is situated in the heart of the famous Weissenhof estate in Stuttgart. It is a research project exploring how innovative materials, constructions and technologies can sustainably improve our built environment. Owing to an ingenious energy concept and self-learning home automation the building produces twice its energy requirement. The surplus thus gained powers two electric cars and an adjacent building designed by the architect Le Corbusier (home to the Weissenhof museum since 2006). Prof. Werner Sobek is the founder of a globally active association of planning agencies for architecture, support structure planning, facade planning, sustainability consulting and design. Based on award-winning experimental buildings such as R128, H16, F87 and now B10 he analyses how new materials, structures and technologies can radically change our built environment.

Text in English and German.

Also available: Residentials by Werner Sobek ISBN: 9783899862355 Werner Sobek: Light Works ISBN: 9783899862218

Slow Wine Guide USA is a new and revolutionary guide to the wines of California, Oregon, New York, and Washington. Thanks to the help of a handful of expert contributors, we’ve selected the best wineries from each state and reviewed their most outstanding bottles.

The idea behind Slow Wine is simple: it acknowledges the unique stories of people and vineyards, of grape varieties and landscapes, and of their wines. The awareness that wine is more than just liquid in a glass helps wine lovers make better, more conscious choices and enhances the very enjoyment of this beverage. Since its beginnings in Italy twelve years ago, Slow Wine has combined its tasting sessions with equally important moments of exchange and debate with producers. The direct contact with winegrowers and winemakers allows for a genuine, authentic, and always up-to-date report on what’s happening in America’s vineyards and cellars. Each winery receives a review divided in three sections: the first one is dedicated to the people who live and work at the winery, the second to the vineyards and the way they’re farmed, and the third to the finest wines currently available on the market.

The very best wines are awarded the Top Wine accolade. Among these we have the Slow Wines — which beyond their outstanding sensory quality are of particular interest for their sense of place, environmental sustainability or historical value — and the Everyday Wines, representing excellent value at prices within $30. The most interesting wineries on the other hand are awarded the Snail, for the way they interpret Slow Food values (sensory perceptions, territory, environment, identity) while offering good value for money; the Bottle, to wineries whose wines are of outstanding sensory quality throughout the range; the Coin to those estates offering excellent value for money.

“It is a rare species, but it exists,” as ’60s art critic Pascal Renous pointed out on the subject of artistic couples. This designer-decorator duo of Janine Abraham and Dirk-Jan Rol met at Jacques Dumond’s studio in 1955. The couple shares the same love of precision, line and plain colours. Their earliest joint creations were first exhibited at the Salon des artistes décorateurs, in Paris. Their furniture, made of wicker, wood and aluminium, twice won prizes at the Salon des artistes décorateurs (a sideboard in 1956 and an armchair in 1958), garnering notice from the public and professionals alike. Jean Royère did not hesitate to use their emblematic Soleil armchair (gold medal at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair) in the decoration of the palace of the Shah of Iran, in Teheran. Their light and functional designs are available today, re-edited by Yota Design. Abraham & Rol were also interior designers and intervened in this capacity for both individual clients and large corporate clients, such as Yves Rocher and Saint-Gobain, with the same precision and sense of composition that define their furniture pieces. Finally, the couple also expressed their creativity through architecture, their mastery of this discipline enabling them to design some twenty houses from the 1960s through the 2000s in the Île-de-France region. Their homes are genuine inhabited sculptures, of which certain have become truly emblematic. Text in English and French

Born into the American aristocracy, Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux abandoned high society to pursue an artistic career. Starting her training with Constantin Brancusi, she then arrived in Paris in 1919, following her marriage to French diplomat and writer Pierre de Lanux. She soon met the designer Eileen Gray. Eyre took over Gray’s research on laquer and continued experimenting with innovative materials not previously used in furniture, namely cork, amber and linoleum. With Evelyn Wyld, she created a literary universe in which the poetry of her rugs, blended with furniture and lamps in totally new ways, all in an environment of muted shades and modern comfort.

An ambitious artist in the Surrealist Paris of the interwar years, she wanted to believe in a peaceful future. But the crash of 1929 and World War II sounded the death knell for the career of this fresh new talent, ensuring that her creations became the rarest of objects. A bridge between the pioneering Eileen Gray and the rational Charlotte Perriand, like them, Eyre de Lanux drew inspiration from Japonism. Neither poor, nor stripped bare, her rare architectured interiors have remained secret until now.

Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux is a recognised name but a forgotten talent. With Eileen Gray, Eyre de Lanux, Charlotte Perriand and Maria Pergay, the four cardinal points have now been identified.

Finn Geipel is the founder of two architecture and urban design firms: LABFAC, based in Paris and operating between 1987 and 2001, and Berlin- and Paris-based LIN, operating since 2001. Geipel focuses on finding adaptable and integrative solutions for architecture and urban development. LABFAC’s and LIN’s designs of varied scale always consider the ever-changing urban and ecological conditions. Both firms did and continue to collaborate with experts from other disciplines, such as climate and circular design, economics, mobility, ecology, as well as philosophy, art, and cultural studies.

This first monograph on Finn Geipel and his work with LABFAC and LIN features their key built and unrealised designs and research projects since 1985. The evolution of their working methods and thematic and research focuses is explained, supported by rich visual material. Contributions by fellow architects and teachers as well as personal friends, such as Hashim Sarkis, Joseph Hanimann, Riken Yamamoto, and Bénédicte Savoy, offer a critical perspective on Finn Geipel’s achievements in the context of current debates on architecture and urban design.

Text in French.

In a 2021 study, McKinsey describes Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) within the watch market as ‘the industry’s fastest-growing segment’. The trade in pre-owned watches is expected to overtake that in new watches by the middle of the decade. ‘Certified Pre-Owned’ is thus a booming trend. Pre-owned watches are becoming increasingly popular for various reasons: CPO makes classic watches and exclusive rarities accessible to connoisseurs, but also to new customers. Since the fine pieces are authenticated by experts, the market offers security. Above all, however, the CPO business enables an emotional approach: buyers get watches with a history that they can perpetuate themselves and then pass on to the next generation. Dive into the fascinating world of watches and watch collecting with Timeless Treasures.

Does a good watch really have to be expensive? What factors determine the condition of a watch? What should I look for when buying? Are CPO watches a good investment? These and many other questions are answered here by leading experts in the field.

But you will not only find useful information for building your own high-quality collection. You will feel the passion for elegant timepieces on every page of this book. Discover first-class photographs of classic and current watch models from the major brands, of celebrities professing their passion for this accessory, or of legendary film scenes in which special watch models play supporting and leading roles.

The reading is rounded off with a ‘style guide’, which offers watch lovers inspiration on how to perfectly stage their favourite pieces in every situation or also answers the question: What type of watch am I?

The result is an emotional all-round portrait of the impressive world of CPO watches, perfectly attuned to an ever larger and more diverse fan community. It’s time to let a little luxury into your life with this book!

Text in English and German.

Anthologin is the product of a fortuitous encounter that brought together Samuele Ambrosi, an internationally renowned, multi-award-winning barman with a stellar résumé, Maurizio Maestrelli, esteemed journalist and author of several books on beer and spirits, and Serena Conti, fine illustrator and designer whose collaborations have extended far beyond Italy’s borders. It tells the fascinating story of gin, that most popular of spirits whose long, seductive history transcends aromas and flavour, technical traits and production systems. It’s a story brimming with fascinating anecdotes on gin’s origins and evolution, political and economic influences, and episodes involving famous figures. And it is this “behind the scenes” knowledge that renders every sip of gin so special, realisations that help us better appreciate the rebirth of mixology and the revived interest in gin. Today you hold the definitive gin guide in your hands.  

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum houses an extraordinary collection of ‘prisoners’ objects’. These were made by prison inmates and presented to the ICRC delegates who visited them, as provided for by the Geneva Conventions. For over a century, these objects have borne mute witness to the numerous violent episodes that continue to ravage our planet, from Chile, Vietnam, Algeria and Yugoslavia, to Rwanda and Afghanistan. Made from simple materials – whatever comes to hand in a prison – these objects express the need to escape the world of the jailbird. As a Lebanese inmate puts it, ‘Creating is a way of acquiring freedom of expression, it gives us a means to say what we think while everything we see around urges us to keep quiet and to forget who we are.’ While some of these works touch us through their simplicity, others astonish us with their beauty or ingeniousness. Each bears the imprint of a personal story loaded with emotion, inviting us on a journey through time and collective history.

Now in its 22nd edition, Italian Wines 2019 is the English-language version of Gambero Rosso’s Vini d’Italia 2019. More complete than ever, the guide reviews 2,530 wineries and a total of 22,100 wines, awarding the classic scores ranging from 0 to 3 Glasses according to the quality of the label. 447 wines received our experts’ highest rating this year. This is a fundamental and essential volume for all those who work in the sector or are interested in quality Italian wines.

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 in France, which wineries you can visit, how to read a Rhône wine list, Rhône winemakers’ favourite restaurants and more.

This volume presents a comprehensive catalogue raisonné of the documented production of NewLamp, a Roman company that, in the relatively brief period between 1969 and 1973, created no fewer than 55 lamp models, veritable masterpieces of lighting art. Characterised by their innovative and highly original geometries and forms, these objects have left an indelible mark on the history of design.

Over the course of more than 15 years, Paolo Borromeo has conducted extensive research, engaging in an intriguing investigation. He has meticulously traced the complex history of NewLamp, overcoming numerous challenges along the way to reveal the secrets that for 50 years has surrounded the work of the company, founded by the visionary entrepreneur and designer Mario Vento. From humble beginnings, in just two years the small company managed to win the Europremio for furniture (1971), a prestigious and internationally recognised award.

Contributing to the success of this entrepreneurial project were some of the greatest Italian designers and architects of the time, including Gianfranco Fini, Fabrizio Cocchia, Gianni Colombo, and Giuseppe Ravasio.

Text in English and Italian.

The Art of Ferrari is a delightfully opulent book that celebrates the fascination and essence of the Ferrari brand, its formative history and stories as well as its iconic products in a way that is both substantial and desirable.

Immediate, authentic, intense, journalistically and creatively sophisticated. This is where professional expertise meets interdisciplinary perspectives. With fresh approaches and a confident love of experimentation. 

The Art of Ferrari convinces as a style-defining high-end project. With a look at the entire field of tension between sports cars, lifestyle, design, art and pop culture, this book will not only inspire car enthusiasts. With more than 300 illustrations and pictures, exclusive interviews and insights as well as a sophisticated design, The Art of Ferrari is a truly exceptional book.

Architects must play an important role if American society is to survive climate change and immigration. Defining ourselves as artists limits that role. This book argues for a redefinition of architects as the experts on the relationships between humans and built environments. Architects must come to the public rather than asking the public to come to them. Consequently, the book attempts through “straight talk” to avoid the poetic language prevalent among architects writing about architecture.

The author’s position arises from principles developed during 50 years of practice, including: “Radical Functionalism,” practicing towards tight fit based on comprehensive programming; “Extreme Programming,” inspired by the writings of Ian McHarg and Louis Kahn’s conversations with bricks, a belief that there are many right answers and definitively wrong answers; “Legitimate Individuation,” searching for right answers based on a wide-ranging discovery of specifics of the project, including site characteristics, client wishes, current architect enthusiasms, community concerns and locally available skills and materials; and “Everything for a Reason, Artfully Done,” a goal that we and the client understand every move’s purpose and that every move contributes to the art of the project.

Drawing from diverse disciplines including philosophy, history, cultural criticism, visceral geography, urban studies, gender studies, and racial aesthetics, the 18th Issue of LA+ explores the elusive and enigmatic theme BEAUTY in relation to landscape architecture and the constructed environment. Rather than arrive at any one singular definition of beauty, within its pages, contributors challenge readers with alternative views through deep and critical reflection. What is a “beautiful” landscape today? Is there such a thing as “natural beauty”? Why do humans across the cultural spectrum concern themselves so much with the beautification of themselves, their objects, and their surroundings? Is beautification benevolent or nefarious? Is there value — economic or otherwise — in beauty, and whose interests do ideals of beauty serve? In the end, why does beauty matter at all?

LA+ BEAUTY is guest-edited by Colin Curley, a New York-based landscape architect and architect whose work navigates the complex environmental and socio-political dimensions of disturbed, contaminated industrial landscapes, and seeks to expand the range of their aesthetic and experiential potential.

Team 10—also known as Team X and Team Ten—was an international group of young and strident architects that emerged from the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and existed from 1953 to 1981. The group criticised the dogmatism of Le Corbusier and other proponents of classical modernism. Its most notable members included Alison and Peter Smithson (Britain), Georges Candilis and Shadrach Woods (USA), Jacob Bakema and Aldo van Eyck (Netherlands), Giancarlo De Carlo (Italy), and Stefan Wewerka (Germany).

In this book, architectural historian Pedro Baía examines the influence of Team 10 on Portugal’s architectural culture. At the time, the country was largely cut off from Europe’s architecture hotspots. Using projects, completed buildings, images, texts, and statements by members of Team X, he illustrates how the group’s ideas and work were interpreted, disseminated, and appropriated in the critical discourse of the Portuguese architectural scene.

LA+ Botanic explores our evolving relationship with plants with contributions that reflect on the many natures and relations that are being materialised in plant conservation, botanic gardens, and botanic art today. A wide range of topics is covered, including plant conservation efforts and the challenges posed by global heating and extinction, the limited plant choices imposed by the horticultural industry, and the many representations of plants found in visual, material, textual, and architectural works. Edited by Karen M’Closkey, contributors include Giovanni Aloi, Irus Braverman, Patrick Blanc, Xan Sarah Chacko, Sonja Dümpelmann, Jared Farmer, Annette Fierro, Matthew Gandy, Ursula K. Heise, Andrea Ling, Janet Marinelli, Beronda L. Montgomery, Catherine Mosbach, Katja Grötzner Neves and Bonnie-Kate Walker.

What do the Great Wall of China, Georgia’s polyphonic singing, the Mediterranean diet and the Vanuatu sand drawings have in common? Despite their evident dissimilarity, they are all protected by UNESCO, the supranational organisation that is responsible for preserving the common cultural heritage of humanity, protecting it from disappearance and ensuring its conservation for future generations. The Great Wall of China is one of the natural and cultural sites that comprise the famous list of World Heritage Sites, compiled by UNESCO while the other three are part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage list that includes immaterial goods. In fact, in 2003, the UNESCO General Conference adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage with the intent to safeguard the traditional cultures and folklore of our planet. Today, over 400 practices and expressions from more than 100 countries represent the riches and demonstrate the cultural diversity of the populations in the world. Appearing on this variegated list of traditions are the art of the ‘pizzaiuoli’ – the pizza makers of Naples, the Carnival of Basel, the Rebetiko music of Greece, Japanese kabuki theatre, Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebration, the Brazilian capoeira, Chinese shadow puppetry and the mass Hindu pilgrimage of faith, Kumbh Mela. This book of photographs and splendid illustrations will guide you on your discovery of the Intangible Cultural Heritage list; a journey that will open your eyes to the cultural riches of our planet and to the importance of preserving them for future generations.