An interactive series helping children explore the world and expand their imaginative play. Each box of fun focuses on a famous city and includes: six card board pages of punch-out monuments, characters, and modes of transport, along with pedestals on which to stand them up. Bonus! Each box set also includes a large format poster-map of the city, with a search-and-find game for hidden elements amongst streets to be recognised, as well as a game-of-the-goose style board game that references the city’s most famous attractions. Ages 6+

Make the most of Norwich with this new guide to the sights and secrets of East Anglia’s premier city, from the unknown treasures of its magnificent cathedral to the legends and stories behind its historic pubs. It’s a place of numerous historical layers, with intrigue and interest lurking on every corner, from the black circus proprietor who inspired one of The Beatles’ most famous songs to remnants of England’s most notorious red-light districts. It’s eminently walkable, too, but you can also bike or even canoe your way around the centre, maybe even heading out to explore the natural beauty of Broads National Park which lies just beyond.

Discover Derby like never before with 111 Places in Derby That You Must Not Miss. Nestled along the River Derwent, Derby is a city rich in history, from its Roman roots to its prominence as a railway town, where carriages have been built since the early 19th century. Visit the Museum of Making to explore this industrial legacy and much more.
Beyond railways, Derby boasts stunning Victorian architecture, a magnificent cathedral, and serves as a gateway to the Peak District, with its breathtaking landscapes, grand country houses, and charming villages like Ashford-in-the-Water and Eyam. Learn about local heroes such as Florence Nightingale, football legend Brian Clough, and artist Joseph Wright.
With a mix of quirky history and local humour, this guide is a perfect blend of intrigue, charm, and fun. 111 Places in Derby is a must-read for anyone eager to explore the hidden gems of this unique English city.

Milan – the epicentre of Italian fashion, art, and finance – awaits you at Expo 2015. 142 countries are participating in this modern world’s fair. 20 million visitors are expected, most of whom will storm the city’s famous sights along with the Expo’s pavilions and exhibits. This unconventional guidebook will tell you how to avoid endless crowds and queues, and instead track down the enthralling and little-known places that are hidden throughout this exciting metropolis: Try the best Italian food – in a supermarket! Explore the private studios of famous designers! Discover a flock of flamingos in a backyard garden! Go beyond La Scala and the Duomo, the Navigli and the Golden Triangle of Fashion, to uncover Milan’s best kept secrets.

Shaped by emperors, architects and artists, Paris is a city of splendour, elegance, and romance; cosmopolitan and colourful, its streets pulse with life. This sumptuously illustrated book celebrates its glory on the Grands Boulevards and Champs Elysées, and captures its cultural heartbeat in the artists’ quarter of Montmartre and the Quartier Latin on the Left Bank. To discover Paris is also to experience the finer things in life. The Paris Book dips into superb museums and galleries; visits opulent theatres, grand restaurants and bohemian cafés; browses the city’s flea markets, bookshops and chic boutiques; and cruises along the Seine. As Hemingway said, Paris is “a moveable feast”.

Basil Spence (1907-1976) was one of Britain’s most celebrated architects. This book explores his extraordinary career from the 1930s to the 1970s, focusing particularly on the post-war period. Initially known for his work on national exhibitions such as the Festival of Britain, Spence became a household name in 1951 when he won the competition to design a new cathedral for Coventry. He worked on an unusually wide range of projects from housing in Glasgow’s Gorbals to the University of Sussex and the British Embassy in Rome. Central to his work was a sensitivity towards materials and a commitment to working with artists. Spence’s work is discussed here in a series of essays introduced by a personal memoir specially written by the architect’s close family.

In 1925 a journalist on the Barcelona newspaper El Escándalo used the term Barrio Chino in a somewhat derogatory way to describe part of the older city. While the area in question represented a dystopian underbelly of the city, known for its impoverished living and working conditions together with its ‘red-light’ subcultures, it never existed as a ‘Chinatown’ in either a physical or social sense. However the name of this mythical community stuck from the 1920s onwards, appearing on maps and descriptions of the inner city but devoid of any hint of Chinese inhabitants or their culture. The book takes this as a starting point to chart the development of Barcelona over two hundred years using a series of ‘diaries’ and drawn images. These are set around four generations of a fictional Chinese dynasty and their imagined architectural participation in some of the major events in Barcelona’s modern history. As residents of the Barrio from the mid-nineteenth century, they individually document diverse contributions to the city during periods of dynamic growth. This is set against a backdrop of cataclysmic political change and exemplary forms of urban regeneration which have provided Barcelona with its contemporary ‘World City’ status as it plans for the future.

A disparate but exuberant group of scholars are brought together in Savannah by an eminent professor to explore and debate the history and characteristics of the city and its implications for a twenty-first century urbanism. This narrative represents a forceful and humorous interplay between formal discussion, informal interludes, irreverent comments, and less than academic relationships. Its serious purpose is to identify the urban challenges facing America in terms of containing and consolidating growth within livable communities. However like all such participatory events it is also an opportunity for informal personal agendas set against a backdrop of real life events. The text is interspersed with 90 drawings of Savannah, illustrating its unique and multilayered identity as a potential urban paradigm for the future.

Chris Wilkinson, the founder of the architectural practice WilkinsonEyre, is responsible for beautiful buildings and structures in London and beyond, including the Gasholders at King’s Cross, the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. In this appealing publication, Wilkinson presents the sketches he makes while travelling for business and leisure, usually focusing on inspirational buildings or urban cityscapes. His travels have taken him as far afield as the West Indies, Russia, Egypt, Australia and Japan. Wherever he goes, he finds an hour or two to sit and sketch – whether in a hotel room with a view or on a café terrace with a cappuccino. From the medieval Tuscan town of Lucca to ancient Egyptian architecture, the Sydney Opera House and the skylines of London, Tokyo and New York, Wilkinson introduces each sketch and ruminates on his work, his travels, and the cities and buildings that have most inspired him. Contents: The UK, Italy, France, Spain, Malta, Greece, Morocco, the USA, the West Indies, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, China, Japan, Australia.

2010 marked the 50th anniversary of Brazil’s capital Brasilia. Architects Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer designed what has become the world’s most famous and widely studied urban planning project. Niemeyer’s Cathedral, his building for the National Congress and the city’s 707-ft television tower are icons of modern architecture. The entire city, marked by its cross-shaped layout and vast open spaces, was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987. René Burri, celebrated Magnum photographer, visited Brasilia’s vast building sites for the first time in 1958. He returned many times over the years, documenting with his camera growth and further development of this built Utopia. Besides documenting the buildings in various stages of completion, Burri took portraits of Niemeyer and his workers and photographed Brasilia’s street scenes and people and aerial views of the city’s first slums. His images capture the strong sense of a new era and a vibrant atmosphere of hard work and strain; they reflect the huge dimensions of the landscape and the great scale of this project and its ambition to design and build a new capital. René Burri. Brasilia presents a large selection from hundreds of colour and black-and-white photographs, the majority of them published in this book for the first time. It allows the reader for the first time to look at one of the most extraordinary cities with the eyes of an exceptional photographer. Text in English & German.

Faith Flowers is a guide to arranging flowers in places of worship. The book starts with the fundamentals of flower arranging and works up to advanced designs for festivals. Step-by-step instructions and photographs clearly show how to create many different arrangements. Flower recipes are included describing what is needed for each design. Lots of inspiration for new ideas and colour combinations. Flower designs are provided for regular services, weddings, funerals, Christmas, Easter and much more. Learn how to create a volunteer group to provide flowers for your worship services. Author Laura Larocci shares her knowledge from 16 years as Flower Guild Chair of one of the largest cathedrals in the country. Over the years she has organised, led and taught hundreds of volunteers at the cathedral and churches across the US. She shares the triumphs and struggles of creating beautiful flowers within budget and volunteer flower guilds. The book has good reference guides with photos of flower varieties, greenery and materials needed, sample ordering forms, budgets and tips for saving money. Sources for flowers and materials are also discussed.

“Welcome to the world of ultra-glamorous architecture as featured in new coffee table book Archiphantasy (The Images Publishing Group), penned by prolific architect Alexander Wong. The weighty, lavish tome showcases more than 30 cinemas, private homes, shops and hotels that have been designed by his visionary Hong-Kong-based firm Alexander Wong Architects.” – Daily Mail

In this highly-anticipated monograph, Alexander Wong presents a selection of incisive essays on contemporary architecture and design concepts, along with a wide range of magnificently photographed works, including dynamic retail spaces, glamorous and unique residential interiors, futuristic cinema design, office spaces of the future, and so much more. Each project highlights how Wong combines the best of what Asia-Pacific has to offer in superior design with an abstract aesthetic, yet high attention to detail.

New Orleans, like Venice, is built in a location that at first sight seems curious in the extreme. How could it be that these cities, built so precariously in the face of a watery threat, were to become among the great cities of the world? How could a site below sea level, at a swampy curve in the River Mississippi become one of the most visited cities in the United States, and possess a unique kind of magic that separates it from other cities?

Geoffrey H. Baker’s gem of an architectural guide answers these burning questions. Inside these richly illustrated pages he explains how the urban design works for this city’s plight, which is frequently handicapped by nature’s capacity to destroy in the form of hurricanes. Timothy’s beautiful photography showcases the unique topography and architectural fabric of New Orleans, and Geoffrey’s insight illuminates the city’s inimitable spirit that’s born of its constant battle for survival.

For many years, the artist Bernard Frize has lived in Paris in a bourgeois, typically French apartment with various fanciful elements. But now the Swiss architect Philipp von Matt has built a residence and studio for him right in Berlin’s rough city centre, which is the complete opposite of his other home: von Matt has created a cathedral made of exposed concrete, measuring some 600 square metres (approx. 6450 square feet). It is an austere, massive structure that has huge windows and overlooks smoking chimneys. The use of raw wood throughout the building contrasts with its bare walls. The staircase is designed as an extended living room and reception hall, and it connects the four floors spectacularly.

The exterior gives little hint of what to expect inside. Upon entering, one suddenly realises that the building gets narrower towards the rear and thus seems to be longer than it actually is. The straight lines of the walls, ceilings, and floors form acute angles, creating another dramatic spatial effect.

In addition, the materials are exceptional. The aim was to construct the house in the most environmentally friendly way possible. Clay was used to plaster the walls, the closet doors are made of wicker, and the ceramic tiles come from an old French wine basin.

This book, for the first time, provides a complete overview of the building, presenting a wealth of texts, layouts, models, and architectural photographs.

Text in English and German.

This unusual guidebook invites the inquisitive to head off the beaten track and explore many of the city’s lesser-known places.

This book guides even Mallorca connoisseurs to places that will amaze them. And it tells stories that hardly anyone has ever heard. You think you already know everything and then this picturesque island, and then you find it’s full of big and small surprises – 111 times!

John Ruskin assembled 1470 diverse works of art for use in the Drawing School he founded at Oxford in 1871.  They included drawings by himself and other artists, prints and photographs. This book focuses on highlights of works produced by Ruskin himself. Drawings by John Ruskin are uniquely interesting.  Unlike those of a professional artist they were not made in preparation for finished paintings or as works in their own right.  Every one – and they number several thousand, depending on what can be considered a separate drawing – is a record of something seen, initially as a memorandum of that observation but with the potential to illustrate his writings or for educational purposes, notably to form part of the teaching collection of the Drawing School he established after election as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University. In addition, because of the range of interests of arguably the only true polymath of his time, every drawing touches on some interesting aspect of art and architecture, landscape and travel, botany and natural history, often connected with his writings and lectures.  Ruskin’s life is one of the best documented of any in the 19th century, through letters, diaries and the many autobiographical revelations in his published writings: this allows the opportunity to give almost any drawing a level of context impossible for any other artist.  When there is so much background information, a single drawing reveals much about its creator, and becomes a window into the great sprawling edifice of his life and work.

Michel Buffet is known as a pioneer in the mid-century industrial design movement in France. His work embodies the aesthetics of the ‘Thirty Glorious Years’ of French design from 1945 to 1975, which he expressed elegantly in his signature shapes and colours. His career includes a 30-year association with Raymond Loewy at CEI (Compagnie d’Esthetique Industrelle), the founding of his own company (Vector Industrial Design), a range of elaborate public works and transportation projects, and his signature interior and lighting designs.

His transportation projects include design work for planes (the Dessault Group Falcon and the Concorde) and trains, for the Caracas metro, the Hong Kong subway, the Channel Tunnel, Shell International service stations, and the French Navy.

In the realm of furniture, he notably designed a modular kitchen, DF 2000, hailed by the Italian review Domus. His lighting fixtures from the 1950s – including the floor lamp B211 and wall sconce B206 – were initially issued by Luminalite, and have become popular classics which have been reissued by the company Lignes de démarcation.

Text in English and French.

Athens can be noisy and crowded and confusing, but it’s spontaneous and always surprising. A cable ride up Lykavittos rewards with an incredible panorama but veer off the track to discover the hill’s secret links to Parnitha. The beauty of Kaisariani Monastery’s architecture is matched by the ‘organised wilderness’ of its incredible gardens.

Ancient relics, great and small, mirror a glorious past that remains an example to the world, but they are only the start of what’s great about Athens today. There are the mountains that surround it, busy with climbers, runners and picnic-lovers during the weekends. The ubiquitous graffiti, some admirable, some abhorrent, that reveal what’s bugging the Athenians’ psyche. Bars, cafés and restaurants thronged with broke Greeks who refuse to stay inside. Stores where you can find vendors as venerable as their antiques and others that are up to date with the edgiest demands. And many surprising, sometimes downright dark, dank and mysterious pockets. Athens is changing day by day. This book will take you to places that are beyond touristy or trendy; whether hundreds of years old or contemporary, their tales are timeless.

Ecologies of Prosperity for the Living City is a collection of writings, interviews, and projects exploring themes introduced during the 2016 Woltz Symposium: Novel Synergies, the Instrumental Commons, and Dispersed Concentrations. With new material from speakers Philippe Rahm, Nina-Marie Lister, Marina Alberti, Paola Viganò, Niek Hazendonk, Albert Cuchí, and Jedediah Purdy, the dialogue is framed by a series of seminal texts from the 20th century and reimagines existing urban challenges through exemplary design projects of today. Structured as a reader for students and design practitioners, it promotes urban design as a catalyst for cultural, social, and environmental transformation within cities, towns, and for communities, institutions, and individuals faced with today’s most pressing urban challenges.

The Monochrome of the Sala delle Asse is a portion of wall decoration left at the drawing stage and represents the roots of one of the sixteen mulberry trees that, regularly spaced on the walls of the room, intertwine above to create a polychrome arboreal pavilion on the vault. The decoration of the room, which was never completed, is historically tied to the name of Leonardo da Vinci by a letter written in April 1498 by Gualtiero da Bascapé, the secretary of Ludovico il Moro, to the duke of Milan, explaining that Lunedì si desarmarà la camera grande da le Asse c[i]oè da la tore. Magistro Leonardo promete finirla per tuto Septembre. The room was subjected to radically changing fortunes over the centuries, and was later the object of two complex restoration campaigns, the first carried out between 1893 and 1902 by Luca Beltrami and the second between 1955 and 1956 by Costantino Baroni. This volume provides an account of the result of these restorations. It describes the complex diagnostic research and the technical assessments that form the foundations of a broader project for the conservation of the painted area.

Text in English and Italian.

Graphic artist, painter, sculptor, designer of wall textiles,… the artistic achievements of Herman van Nazareth, alias of Herman van Aerden, are manifold. Van Nazareth’s abstract-expressionist imagery is unpretentious, rough and powerful, faceless but with a distinct voice. His pictorial and sculptural language is restrained and universal and goes back to the basic shapes, sometimes hinting at ethnic art. It is especially his works from the South-African era that are a testimony of the artist’s personal sentiments and engagement in the social and political debate of the time. He sculpts anonymous witnesses, suffering people, numbed and powerless in a society ruled by aggression and exclusion. His pictorial work taps into the same vein, but in his paintings of people with mask like expressions and abstract landscapes, his use of colour is more exuberant, sometimes strangely bizarre. Herman van Nazareth’s work is internationally acclaimed and for the first time his extraordinary output has been collected in a comprehensive catalogue.