Our contemporary condition, governed by the abstract apparatus of the capitalist market, demands a critical reading of the distribution, ownership, and use of common resources such as land. This is especially true in Britain with its long history of privatisation stemming from land enclosure. The latest research campaign of Laboratory Basel (laba), a satellite studio of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, investigated the English manor house and how it can serve as a testing ground to reassess Britain’s complex and ongoing relationship with the countryside.
The south-west of England, the most rural region of one of the more densely populated countries in Europe, reflects all the absurdities of a globalised country under pressure to develop economically, physically and environmentally. Highly protected landscapes, both natural and composed, form the backdrop to historic seats of political power and wealth, whilst sites of intense modern productivity are neatly concealed behind natural veils.
Manor Lessons: Commons Revisited, the concluding volume of laba’s Teaching and Research in Architecture series, explores the lessons that can be learned from the compound history of the Manorial System, whose forgotten feudalistic origins were once rooted in the idea of the land, not as private property but as common ground.
“Everything’s grand” says decorator extraordinaire, Carleton Varney. After over forty years in the interior design business, Varney opens his archive and brings together his favourite large-scale luxury decorating projects, including an Irish country manor, a sixteenth-century castle, a colonial mansion, a Southern plantation, along with two of his best-loved resorts – the Greenbrier in West Virginia and the “Queen of the Great Lakes”, Michigan’s Grand Hotel. On these pages, he also showcases his most recent private residential project – a 6000 square foot Mediterranean-style home, near the Rio Grande. In Decorating in the Grand Manor, Varney focuses our attention on all the elements of elegant design, from crystal chandeliers to magnificent architectural details and dispenses his time-honoured advice on how to achieve the look at home. Also available: In the Pink: Dorothy Draper: America’s Most Fabulous Decorator ISBN: 9780985225605 Mr. Color ISBN: 9780615450902 Houses in my Heart ISBN: 9780977787555
“I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I cannot wait to visit Upton Grey to see the garden for myself.” Garden Design Journal
Gertrude Jekyll was perhaps the most important British garden designer of the 20th century. She famously argued that gardening ought to be considered a Fine Art, highlighting that it becomes a point of honour to be always striving for the best. This volume examines Jekyll’s work at Manor House, Upton Grey in Hampshire, offering an insight into her eclectic, imaginative, and inspiring art. Designed between 1908 and 1909, and once maintained by as many as nine gardeners, the garden fell into disrepair by the second half of the twentieth century, before a full and accurate restoration was carried out in the early 1980s.
Gertrude Jekyll: Her Art Restored at Upton Grey presents a visual record of the garden’s plants and layout, with original plans and photographs, as well as beautiful images of the garden taken since its restoration. There is also a fascinating chapter about Miss Jekyll’s discovery, admiration and use of Mediterranean plants. The book succeeds in illustrating exactly why Jekyll was so admired in her lifetime and why she continues to inspire and influence gardeners today.
Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: The Garden from 1902 to the Start of its Restoration in 1984 Chapter 2: The Rose Garden Chapter 3: The Dry-Stone Walls Chapter 4: The Main Herbaceous Borders Chapter 5: The Pergola, the Rose Arbour and Surrounding Garden Chapter 6: Miss Gertrude Jekyll’s Mediterranean travels and plant discoveries and their use at Upton Grey Chapter 7: The Wild Garden Chapter 8: The Art Completed Also available: The English Garden Through the Twentieth Century ISBN: 9781870673297
A collectible edition of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved children’s classic, with enchanting illustrations by Charles Robinson.
The Secret Garden tells the story of Mary Lennox, a child who is spoiled, unliked, and tragically orphaned. She is sent to live with her uncle, who resides in a magnificent manor in the Yorkshire countryside. Mary discovers a garden tucked away in the manor’s grounds, and as the dilapidated garden transforms, so does the young girl. This book, which powerfully shows the healing power of nature, has resonated with generations of readers. Now fans of all ages can rediscover The Secret Garden in this beautiful clothbound edition featuring the exquisite colour illustrations by Charles Robinson that appeared in the original British edition of 1911. A new introduction explores how Robinson and other artists have approached the challenge of illustrating Frances Hodgson Burnett’s timeless tale.
A beautifully illustrated and extensively researched collection of 100 of the most famous houses of Britain’s Arts and Crafts Movement.
The Arts and Crafts Movement, founded in the philosophies of John Ruskin and William Morris, produced some of the world’s most enduring architectural masterpieces. Author and architect David Cole presents the 100 great Arts and Crafts houses, each individually described and analysed with insightful detail and floor plans, and illustrated with stunning photography.
Beginning with Morris’s own iconic Red House, the book traces the fifty-year span of the movement, with a short chapter dedicated to each of these extraordinary houses: from the works of the pioneer Arts and Crafts architects, to the great reformer architects of the next generation, to the craftsman architects who took their lives and their work to the countryside, to the movement’s Scottish architects, and finally to the houses of the Garden Cities and suburbs built through the movement’s last decade before the First World War. The book features the great houses of some forty of the movement’s most renowned architects, including Philip Webb, R. Norman Shaw, E.S. Prior, William Lethaby, C.F.A. Voysey, Edgar Wood, Ernest Gimson, the Barnsley brothers, C.R. Ashbee, M.H. Baillie Scott, Edwin Lutyens, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Robert Lorimer, Parker and Unwin, and many others.
As Morris famously said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
A beautifully illustrated and extensively researched collection of 100 exquisite houses of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
The Arts and Crafts Movement produced some of the world’s most charming and enduring architectural masterpieces. Author and architect David Cole presents 100 great houses of Arts and Crafts domestic architecture (1860–1914), each house individually described and analysed with insightful detail and illustrated with stunning photography.
Cole tells the story of the shifts and influences within the Arts and Crafts Movement through the lens of 100 houses, from those by the pioneer and great reformer architects, to the countryside craftsmen and Scottish architects, and finally the houses of the Garden Cities. He dedicates a short chapter to each of the 100 great Arts and Crafts houses, beginning with the iconic Red House, designed and owned by William Morris, a pioneer and key proponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. In addition to Morris, the book features houses created by some forty of the movement’s renowned architects, including Philip Webb, Richard Norman Shaw, Wiliam Lethaby, C.F.A. Voysey, Edwin Lutyens.
This extensively researched and exquisitely produced large-volume book presents the Arts and Crafts Movement’s 100 most important houses, illustrated with more than 900 full-colour photographs. As Morris famously said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
Bears All Things (from the Finnish “Kaiken se kestää”) is a lifelong art project by the artist couple Mammu and Pasi Rauhala. The project, which has taken place every year since 2013, comprises photographs of the artists going about their daily lives, from renovating their home, to gardening – always in the same getup: their wedding attire. Their gestures and appearance, always very serious, are a nod to the tradition of the family portrait. With a generous dose of humour, the works encourage the audience to reflect on the institution of marriage and issues of interpersonal relationships, both on the individual and the societal level.
“A charming, entertaining, and illuminating read – not only for all those in or around the wine trade, but also for all those outside who want to see in to what makes it so special. “ – Neil Beckett, Editor, World of Fine Wine
The memoirs of a wine trade insider, from the heady days of 1960s to today. Quickly discovering that a knowledge of wine opened doors that were closed to lesser mortals, Ben had a front row seat as the wine trade grew from an elitist and rather amateurish profession into a multi-million dollar global business. This is the story of how it happened, and of the many remarkable characters he befriended along the way – people whose marketing genius was matched only by their desire to put a smile on everyone’s faces. In true vinous style, Ben’s book is sure to do the same.
Plumbing the depths: – Ben’s valiant attempts to sell wine to beer-loving miners, which involved actually joining them at the coal face.
– Englishman abroad: a jolly jaunt through French châteaux, Spanish bodegas and Portuguese quintas, where Ben forged many of the friendships that would last a lifetime.
– Serious business: Ben’s career takes off during the golden age of wine and spirits marketing, when he played a part bringing many of the world-famous brands we know and love today into being.
Architecture Stuff
is about a way of looking at architecture. It examines 7 seminal projects and shows how they might have been conceived with or without the design architect’s awareness. More a working method than a theory, the book deals with questions pertinent to designers as well as to critics of buildings. More Stuff then illustrates how the same sensibility and working method can be used in the design of buildings as a tool for creating architecture.
The 7 buildings featured are chosen for their breadth of styles and approaches to architecture, demonstrating that this approach to architecture can be applied to any building. Presented in reverse chronological order, the first project, Grace Farms, is a building by SANAA. Noted for its meandering river form and minimalist detailing, it is seen to be – among other things – a juxtaposition of orthogonal and sinuous forms. The second project is Villa Dall Ava by Rem Koolhaas/OMA. Located in the suburbs, the house is a transition from city to country. The third project is the Neue Staatsgalerie by James Stirling. The analysis shows how the ‘bad boy’ of architecture subverts conventional architectural tropes. Robert Venturi’s Mother’s House is shown to be a compressed stately manor and an architect’s conceit. The Kimbell Art Museum by Louis Kahn can be understood as simple repetitive forms with elaborated elements that organize a diverse collection of spaces. Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre is much more than types of transparency and mechanisation. One of its major themes is the use of ‘L’ shaped spaces. Finally, St George’s Bloomsbury by Nicholas Hawksmoor is a parish church swallowed by a classical temple. The critique exposes how the architect used that idea to juxtapose the clerical and the civic to develop all of the details in the building.
These are not singular idea buildings and, as a way of seeing architecture, there are overlapping themes in this collection. The history of architecture of specific periods is a common theme, as is architecture’s stasis with spaces expanding or contracting. A dry sense of humour is always appreciated. What separates these buildings from any other building is the density of ideas presented.
More Stuff accounts for the same working methods as a way to make architecture. Here the author illustrates eleven projects across the span of his career. Though often done in collaboration with others, in all cases the author generated the design ideas. One of the key aspects of architecture stuff is that it is unpretentious and accessible and these projects are meant to illustrate that quality. Architecture can be serious and playful at the same time.