Up until about a century ago, wood had always been the only available material for the construction of the first bicycles, and it was as recently as the 1950s that wood was the only material used for bike wheels in all competitive cycling realms. These days, in opposition to the great industrialisation of steel manufacturing, wood and bamboo are increasingly being used to create a niche space in design within the industries of transportation, sport, art, culture and indeed modern lives in general. With the significant advances in technological research and application, wood and bamboo are increasingly being promoted as materials suitable for the construction of bicycle frames and individual bicycle components.

Showcasing more than 250 designers from around the world, including craftspeople (many of them renowned bicycle makers), manufacturers and associated organisations, this book dedicates hundreds of pages to beautiful bike designs, illuminating the latest modern trends in specialist bicycle craftmanship. Set out with detailed, distinctive design dialogues from each craftsperson or manufacturer, we learn how wood and bamboo are being enhanced and developed as extremely durable, aesthetically appealing materials, and which are considered sustainable, ecologically viable, user friendly and dynamic across each application. Beautifully illustrated, with historical references and texts by experts in the trade, and backed up with technical engineering knowledge,

 The Grid examines the multiple uses of the grid in contemporary art. Textile weaves, graphic grids, framework for materials, typological systems, spatio-temporal frameworks, computer matrix, narratives and documentary devices. The Grid presents works by renowned artists including Max Bill, François Morellet, Vera Molnár, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Dennis Oppenheim, Esther Ferrer, Gina Pane, Christian Boltanski, Sherrie Levine, Claudia Andujar, Analívia Cordeiro and Anna Bella Geiger.
“Each grid has its own texture, uniqueness, individuating features, capacities for creative enactment, and relationship to other grids, as much as each person combines and utilises a grid for him- or herself.’ Hannah B. Higgins

Jan Verlinden refers to himself as a “Scenery Sculptor,” specialising in the creation and design of green spaces for exceptional country homes and castles in Belgium and France. His work emphasises a harmonious balance between humanity and nature through intuitive design. In this first monograph, he showcases his eight favourite garden and landscape designs from recent years, richly illustrated with his stunning drawings and accompanying texts. Jan is introduced by three prominent figures in the field: architect Bart Moors, “Solitair” owner Dirk Cools, and the Pas-Partoe architecture and interior design studio.

World-renowned photographer Thomas De Bruyne (Cafeine, with over 140,000 followers on Instagram) has taken on the challenge of capturing the landscape and garden poetry of Jan Verlinden in stunning photographs.

Text in English and Dutch.

A voyage in discovery of the wonders of the human body, to reveal in front of the eyes of the little readers how our body moves, eats, sees, and hears. A new way of learning while having fun even thanking the scientific yet easy to understand and funny texts. Lifting the flaps the readers could see the structure of the organs, of the bones, of the teeth and of all the other parts of the human body. A new title from our best-selling series of lift the flap books. Scientific, very accurate texts that are, at the same time, also very funny and tailored for children. Ages: 5 plus

Anyone that has a cat will recognise the truth of this tender biography by The Gentle Author.
“I was always disparaging of those who doted over their pets, as if this apparent sentimentality were an indicator of some character flaw. That changed when I bought a cat, just a couple of weeks after the death of my father.”
Filled with sentiment yet never sentimental, The Life & Times of Mr Pussy is a literary hymn to the intimate relationship between humans and animals.

The story of Chanel begins with the visionary Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who revolutionised fashion in the 1920s by freeing women from the strict dress codes of the time. Her timeless designs are symbols of style and status. But not only her iconic handbags, such as the 2.55 or 11.12, are presented in The Ultimate Guide to Chanel Bags, but also street style favorites such as the Boy bag, and special models like the minaudières.

The new Brand Bible series of books is for handbag collectors, and those that dream of their first designer purchase, as well as fashion fans everywhere. Featuring the most iconic bags from the major luxury maisons, the series reveals each house’s history, explores the creation of their unique It bags and presents the pop culture moments that made them famous. With in-depth information, beautiful imagery and entertaining anecdotes, the Brand Bible series is an essential addition to any well-dressed coffee table, this season and beyond.

The best-selling guide to the first year of fatherhood, trusted by hundreds of thousands of new dads and their partners.

This indispensable handbook, from the author of the million-selling Expectant Father, provides a reassuring month-by-month overview of your baby’s first year. It covers the milestones in your child’s development; ways you can bond with your child and support your partner; and what’s going on with you, as a new dad.

The fourth edition of The New Father features a user-friendly new design and is updated from cover to cover with the latest information about healthcare, financial planning, parental leave and work-life balance, and much more. It incorporates the expertise of leading pediatricians and researchers, and the real-life experiences of hundreds of dads and mums.

Illustrated with stress-relieving cartoons, The New Father is a friendly, readable, and inclusive companion for all new dads. (Mums will love it, too!).

A captivating journey through the collages of the legendary Antwerp-Six fashion designer, Walter Van Beirendonck. Dive into a selection of original and inspiring collages, tracing Van Beirendonck’s creative journey from his early days at the Antwerp Fashion Academy right up to the present. Cut the World Awake is a wild ride through Van Beirendonck’s imaginative evolution, showcasing his bold and boundary-pushing style like never before. Whether you’re a fashion fanatic or just love a good visual feast, this collection offers a vibrant glimpse into the mind of a true mastermind in fashion design.

The Lake District delights its visitors with a series of superlatives: England’s largest national park, highest mountain, deepest lakes and now a new World Heritage status. One of Britain’s best-loved and most visited locations unveils its secrets. This unusual guidebook explores 111 of the area’s most interesting places, it leaves the well-trodden paths to find the unknown: marvel at a stained glass window which inspired the American flag, let others flock to Hill Top while you explore Beatrix Potter’s holiday home, walk through ancient forest to talk to fairies and swim with immortal fish. Pause to wonder at a stunning lake where a President proposed, view a constellation of stars like nowhere else, find out why exotic spices are used in local cuisine.

“It’s a great way to spark interesting conversations with friends and perfect entertainment if you’re coffee-ing solo.” — Real Homes

“Fascinating new book reveals homes in vertigo-inducing locations, from a house clinging to a cliff to a gravity-defying mountain hideout.”  — Daily Mail
In Living on the Edge, the author goes in search of the most amazing and seemingly unfeasible buildings which are situated at the edge of deep chasms and on steep cliffs. These houses are the work of architects who approach complexity and difficult conditions with imagination and a talent for thinking outside of the box. This book shows how, with the help of innovative techniques, fear of heights-inducing homes have been built at the most challenging locations all over the world. Living on the Edge is a book for architecture lovers without fear of heights!

“If you really want to get under the skin of a city, the 500 Hidden Secrets series, which covers a number of cities from Chicago to Ghent, all written by people who know the cities inside out, is ideal. It’s an innovative and refreshing take on the traditional travel guide.”- The Independent

What are the 5 restaurants for new Flemish cooking? Where would you find the 5 best antique shops? Where can you find the most unexpected view of Ghent? Where are the cool coffee bars that play the best music? And if you wanted to find the most mysterious places in the Citadelpark, where are they? The 500 Hidden Secrets of Ghent is a wonderfully eclectic guide to this multifaceted city. An insider’s view of Ghent featuring little known facts and snippets of useful information, presenting the quirky and the off-beat, and sharing the whereabouts of some of the city’s wonderful hidden gems like the Hotel d’Hane-Steenhuyse and the Gruut City Brewery.

The 500 Hidden Secrets of Ghent offers a practical guide to Ghent’s finest places, and Derek Blyth covers all bases to ensure no visitor to the city is ever anything short of captivated. Packed with accessible, easy-to-read information summarised in handy lists, maps, itineraries, sections on food & drink, accommodation, green spaces, museums, galleries and shops; this guide is an essential resource for the inquisitive traveller.

Also available: The 500 Hidden Secrets of London, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Dublin, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Paris, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Lisbon, and many more. Discover the series at the500hiddensecrets.com

“I had seen the photographs and the drawings of this great work. And yet, until about ten minutes ago I had no conception of its magnitude, its permanent beauty and its importance.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, upon first viewing Mount Rushmore, August 30, 1936. Now in paperback, The Carving of Mount Rushmore tells the complete story of the largest and certainly the most spectacular sculpture in existence. More than 60 black-and-white photographs offer unique views of this gargantuan effort, and author Rex Alan Smith-a man born and raised within sight of Rushmore-recounts with the sensitivity of a native son the ongoing struggles of sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his workers.

“The quality of the reprint is nearly perfect, with a good selection of papers for the three sequential parts of the book: the texts, the drawings, and the black-and-white photographs. Text and drawings are on matte heavyweight pages, while the photos are on glossy paper. The inks make everything read well; in particular, the drawing reproductions are exquisite.” — Archidose
Edwin Lutyens, one of the most famous architectural names of the 20th century, died in 1944. As a memorial, three large volumes of his drawings and photographs were commissioned from the thousands found in his office, and were published by Country Life. 

All three volumes will be republished in 2023. The first volume contains his own plans, elevations and copious details of the finest examples of his domestic buildings, on which his huge reputation principally rests. The book embodies the quintessence of the man and his work; the variety of style and design seen in the houses brings together in one volume the many strands of Lutyen’s fertile mind. Two further volumes will include his corporate and public buildings.

The genius of Lutyens is now universally recognised. In the work featured in this book, we can now see not just the professionalism of a great architect, but also the loving care with which he set down the most minute detail, with the result that this is one of the few books in existence that can be used to provide working drawings.

Tracing human interactions with the world’s most famous tropical timber species, The Social Life of Teak maps worlds revolving around teak forests, trees and wood.

What gives Tectona grandis such a powerful aura, stoking desires and capturing imaginations? How has teak shaped people’s lives, driving fortunes and impacting futures? What has happened to the teak forests and what is their destiny?

In this illustrated anthology of oral histories, people connected personally or professionally to teak speak of survival, change and learning, creativity and destruction, growth and demise. Woven together, these experiences bring to light the ways that teak has been sought, crafted, cultivated, traded and prized over time.

Animist beliefs, creative expression, scientific invention, economic viability, imperialist expansion, peak luxury, violent repression, ecological disaster and the regenerative power of nature all find a home in this global intergenerational tale.

Charting the domestication of wilderness and exposing the era of extinction of a feted natural resource, this book seeks to stimulate conversations about our role as nature’s most troublesome offspring.

For The World’s Best Nature & Design Hotels, author Corynne Pless went on a search for hotels all around the world that are defined by the nature that surrounds them, and focus on eye-catching design. This journey leads the reader to unique locations, from unspoilt jungle to grand mountains and even desert landscapes. The hotels in the book let nature speak for itself. The architecture offers a window onto forests, rivers, and mountains. In addition, the hotels are respectful of the natural environment in their policies. Guests can immerse themselves in total tranquillity, while indulging in the design elements that surround them. Dream away with this book full of fantastic photos that will take you to places you didn’t even know existed.

“This book is a fascinating look at a history rarely told.” —The Guardian

“a fascinating look at a history rarely told” — The Observer

“In his new book “Around the World in 200 Globes” (Luster), he spot-lights some of the most significant and interesting, shpwing that a globe is more than a map on a ball.” — Wall Street Journal

“…a superb illustrator of changing boundaries and national self-regard” — Strong Words

“…exquisite examples that speak to our species’ ever-shifting ideas of who we are and where we live” — National Geographic Traveler

“…beautifully put together – and the photographs of the globes are straightforward but show off the magnificence of the collection admirably” — Amateur Photographer

The Dutch architect Willem Jan Neutelings (co-founder of Neutelings Riedijk Architects) is known as the architect of, among other things, the MAS in Antwerp and the Gare Maritime in Brussels’ Tour & Taxis district. Few people know, however, that Neutelings is also an avid collector who, over the years, has built up a very extensive and also very specific collection of hundreds of globes, made between 1900 and 2000. In this book, he presents his collection to the public for the first time. He selected 200 globes, each telling a very individual and interesting story about the time and place when and where they were created. Some globes bear witness to technological innovations by the way they were made, some show how advanced people’s knowledge of space was at the time, some were intended as navigational aids. Neutelings’ collection includes globes in cast iron, steel, wood and even paper; some look very old and fragile, others are very colourful, and some even give off light. Each one is a beautiful and intriguing object that teaches us a lot about the ever-changing world view of mankind. This beautiful and skillfully crafted book is an ode to these stories, to the unique objects often anonymous craftsmen produced in the last century, and to the special dedication of collectors.

The Swiss artist Otto Künzli has revolutionised modern art jewellery. In the 45-odd years in which he has been addressing the topic of jewellery, Künzli has carved out for himself a unique position of far-reaching international influence, not only as an artist and a pioneer but also as an author and mentor. Otto Künzli’s works are based on complex reflection, conceptual and visual imagination. The result: objects with a clear, minimalist appearance, captivatingly crafted to perfection and highly visible – jewellery that adorns and at the same time possesses an autonomous aesthetic status of its own. The publication presents for the first time Otto Künzli’s highly diverse oeuvre. It includes hundreds of jewellery objects as well as interdisciplinary conceptual works from the artist’s various creative phases. An extraordinary artist’s book designed in close collaboration with Otto Künzli and Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich.

Otto Künzli was born in 1948 in Zurich, Switzerland. Since 1991 Künzli has held the Chair of Art Jewellery at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich – as the successor of Prof. Hermann Jünger. Otto Künzli’s work is represented in numerous international museums and collections. Alongside numerous awards, in 2010 Otto Künzli was awarded the Swiss Grand Prix Design, and in 2011 the Goldener Ehrenring der Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst, the golden ring of honour conferred by the German Association for Goldsmiths’ Art.

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.

This catalogue presents masterpieces of calligraphy, painting, sculpture, ceramics, lacquers, and textiles from two of America’s greatest Japanese art collections, which are featured in a landmark exhibition at the Asia Society in New York, from February to April, 2020. Impermanence is a pervasive subject in Japanese philosophy and art, and recognising the role of ephemerality is key to appreciating much of Japan’s artistic production. The dazzling range of art and objects in this beautifully photographed exhibition catalogue show the broad, yet nuanced, ways that the notion of the ephemeral manifests itself in the arts of Japan throughout history. Insightful contributions from noted scholars explore the aesthetics of impermanence in religion, literature, artefacts, the tea ceremony, and popular culture in objects dating from the late Jomon period (ca. 1000-300 B.C.E.) to the 20th century.

Contents:
The Art of the Ephemeral;
Works in the Exhibition:
I. Retrieving Lost Worlds; II. Buddhism: Perpetual Impermanence; III. Tea: Choreographed Ephemerality; IV. Transforming Impermanence into Art.

Published to accompany an exhibition at the Asia Society Museum, New York, between 11 February and 26 April 2020.

Fifteen years ago, Eduardo Mencos (farmer, landscape designer and photographer) and Charles Quest-Ritson (historian, writer, journalist and editor) conceived the idea of going on a trip around the world, like Jules Verne, but with the olive tree playing the leading role. The outcome of that adventure through 26 countries is this book, which tells the story of humankind through the olive tree and its fruit. In the book, the authors take an in-depth look at a tree that is so familiar to us all and yet still remains so much of a mystery in terms of its many different guises.

With over 200 spectacular photographs taken by Eduardo Mencos, accompanied by an erudite text written by Charles Quest-Ritson, the book sweeps through the manifold manifestations of the olive tree and its distinguishing traits. It covers the origin and later domestication of the tree, all of the different roles it has played and the significance it has had at different times throughout history, its importance in the Bible, right through to the most innovative contemporary methods used today for growing and cloning olive trees, together with the prominent place it holds in the Mediterranean diet and its different uses.

The intention of this long journey is to awaken a vision of the olive tree that is imbued with beauty, poetry and curiosity.

The dishwasher has robbed the good old kitchen towel of some of its practical significance. Nevertheless, it remains present in many households, hand-woven or industrially produced, lint-free or absorbent, dirty or clean, inherited or replaceable. In some kitchens, special attention is also required, as there is one for the hands and one for the dishes.

For a long time, specially made kitchen towels were a luxury and reserved for the upper classes. Industrial mass production has changed this, and today two developments can be observed: while kitchen towels are displayed as design objects in museum stores and craft stores, they are also standardised cheap goods.

In The Tea Towel: Perspectives on an Everyday Item, 13 authors, artists, and designers enter into a dialogue with the object and examine it from a literary, journalistic, artistic, technical, and socio-political perspective. The contributions of very different tones complement each other and create new references. In text and images, the book encourages a rediscovery of the everyday kitchen towel as a sensual object with which many socially relevant topics are associated.

With the exhibition catalogue Back into the Light: Four Women Artists – Their Works, Their Paths, the Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt has dedicated itself to four rediscovered women artists. Erna Pinner (1890–1987), Rosy Lilienfeld (1896–1942), Amalie Seckbach (1870–1944), and Ruth Cahn (1875–1966) shaped the artistic life of the 1920s in Frankfurt am Main and were also noticed supra-regionally. National Socialist rule brought an end not only to the cosmopolitan way of life that they cultivated, but also threatened their work and their lives. Renowned art historians examine the works of the four artists in essays for the catalogue. Numerous illustrations and hitherto unpublished documents and letters accompany these texts. The various historical contexts of their individual lives and fate are also presented in cultural studies essays by international experts.

A humorous analysis of facadism in London – why it is happening and what it means – accompanied by a gallery of the most notorious examples guaranteed to induce laughter and horror in equal degree.