The Royal Academy’s legendary Summer Exhibition has been an annual event since 1769 and is always an occasion for innovation, experiment and debate. But 2020 may prove to be its most extraordinary year yet: prevented from opening in May by the closure of the Royal Academy during the Covid-19 pandemic, the exhibition this year opens in the autumn. A committee of artists and architects, led by the artistic duo Jane and Louise Wilson RA, will hang over 1,000 works in the galleries of Burlington House, all while navigating the challenges of social distancing, travel restrictions and shielding. The Summer Exhibition Illustrated was first published in the 1870s and presents the highlights of the show, which this year include works by Korakrit Arunanondchai, Karen Kilimnik and Chris Ofili. In their conversation that opens the book, the Wilsons expand on the experience of opening the exhibition in such exceptional circumstances and celebrate the resilience of artistic practice and its power to bring people together. The Summer Exhibition 2020 will run from the 6 October 2020 to 3 January 2021.
From Ischia to Capri, Amalfi and Sicily, Italy’s most iconic coastal travel destinations are poetically explored through the lens of fine arts photographer Natalie Obradovich who captures the soul of each location with affection and nuance. Each image is a postcard from the shores of the Italian beach clubs and towns that define summer.
From Cannes to St Tropez the French Riviera’s most iconic hot spots are artfully explored through the lens of fine arts photographer Natalie Obradovich, who captures the soul of each location with affection and nuance. Each image is a postcard from the shores of the French beach clubs and towns that define summer.
Summer Blue is a field exploration. The setting is summer, the feeling is blue. Peter H. Waterschoot works his way around romantic scenery using l’heure bleue and blue neon, turning the real into the unreal. More and more exotics pop up, the aesthetic becomes uncanny, and the garden becomes unkempt until it finally blurs into impenetrable wilderness. The quiet voyage reminds us of a theatre backdrop, a midsummer night’s dream, Alice, or even Where the Wild Things Are, but at its core, a personal story lies hidden. The book contains 96 images with field notes by the photographer and an essay by Prof. Jürgen Pieters (Ghent University).
Text in English and French.
In the twelve years since Polhemus Savery DaSilva Architects Builders was formed, the firm has created a significant body of wooden buildings that are rooted in the seaside vernacular of the fabled region of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. As a design/build firm led by architects, Polhemus Savery DaSilva Architects Builders is able to reach a level of aesthetic control not normally associated with light construction today. Each project is approached as an individual work of art and craft specifically associated with its site and client. The eclectic, evolutionary use of architectural history infuses the firm’s designs with fresh interpretations of architectural tradition, subtle playfulness, and wit. The compositional and planning strategies ground the work in the vernacular tradition that evolved into the shingle style; the ‘architecture of the American summer’ to use the words of historian Vincent Scully. The experience of the firm’s principal designers, John and Sharon DaSilva, includes several years at Venturi Rauch and Scott Brown and Cesar Pelli and Associates. The book features over twenty houses and a handful of small institutional buildings in photographs by some of the world’s best architectural photographers and drawings by the firm. Includes essay by noted architecture writer Michael J. Crosbie.
This lavishly presented coffee table book, features 22 of the most beautiful and inviting summer residences from all over the world.
Summer Residences includes projects by internationally acclaimed architects and designers, with properties all over the world including Hawaii, California, Mykonos, Portugal, México, Wyoming, Australia, New York, Los Angeles, Florida, Puglia, Mallorca, Syros Island, Monterey, Las Vegas, and many more.
The work of Polhemus Savery DaSilva (PSD) synthesises ideas from modernism, Shingle Style, and New England vernacular architecture into special homes that are carefully crafted for each different site and client. PSD’s poetic architecture reflects on the joy of living by the New England coast, and this major new monograph, The Art of Creating Houses: Polhemus Savery DaSilva, beautifully presents that work and the ideas embodied within it. This lavishly illustrated and clearly written coverage of PSD’s most recent work features 27 select homes designed and built by the firm. This stunning volume also contains a foreword by Brian Vanden Brink; an introduction by Victor Deupi, PhD; and text by John R. DaSilva, FAIA, the firm’s Design Principal. This new volume is a brilliant companion to the firm’s earlier monographs, namely Living Where Land Meets the Sea, Shingled Houses in the Summer Sun, and Architecture of the Cape Cod Summer.
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.”
Picturesque Scandinavian archipelagos and extra-long summer days create the perfect environment for dreamy homes. Summer houses that blend smoothly into their surroundings help us reconnect with and merge into nature. But even in the long, dark winters, these homes must be destined to withstand exceptional weather conditions. The main features of these houses are the abundance of light, large windows and free, minimalist interiors. This selection of 40 stunning houses defines a perfect summer escape for those Scandinavian days that seem to last forever and, at the same time, an ideal place to spend the long winter days.
“In a visually arresting book titled Houses That Sugar Built, authors Gina Consing McAdam and Siobhán Doran tell the tales behind the historic homes that proliferated during the sugar boom in the Philippines.” — Tatler
Houses that Sugar Built – An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes explores the largely unknown architectural legacy to be found in the ancestral houses of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Pampanga – the three main sugar-producing provinces of the Philippines. These grand residences have yet to receive international exposure.
Nonetheless, they are important in two ways. Firstly, although easily classifiable in terms of architectural style, upon experiencing the buildings themselves there are almost always layers of additional influence. Secondly, this assured blending of styles reveals what we might call a ‘Critical Ambition’ – a desire on the part of the patrons who commissioned these residences to participate in an international architectural culture. Their relatively overlooked location did not stop the sugar barons responsible for these houses from undertaking a 20th-century form of the Grand Tour of European capitals, returning with a desire to bring the latest trends from Paris or Vienna to the provincial Philippines, or from partaking of the latest streamlined Moderne style from the US.
Beautifully photographed with over 200 pages of interiors that have rarely been seen by the public, Houses that Sugar Built- An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes is layered with intimate stories and individual house texts that transport us back to a time when these residences were in their heyday.
“… With enticing descriptions and exquisite photography, the book is perfect for travelers to leaf through for destination inspiration. Here is a preview of six of the most tempting tea houses you should put on your 2026 bucket list.” — Forbes
Discover the most enchanting tea houses around the world in 150 Tea Houses You Need to Visit Before You Die. This book takes you on a fascinating journey through 150 unique tea houses across all continents. Whether you are a seasoned tea enthusiast or seeking new travel destinations, this richly illustrated book serves as an inspiring travel guide. From traditional Japanese tea houses to modern, trendy hot spots in global cities, each tea house has its own story, ambiance, and unique tea experience. Immerse yourself in the art of tea drinking and uncover must-visit locations.
A humorous tribute to Matteo Thun, one of Italy’s most distinguished designers and architects, and his work. In the summer of 2009, Swiss photographer Walter Pfeiffer made an extensive trip from Zurich to the Italian island of Capri, taking shots of some 50 of Thun’s design objects en route. Yet, rather than doing a mere documentation of these items, Pfeiffer created highly lively tableaux vivants. The artist was accompanied on his journey by Thun’s two then teenage sons, who thus form the main visual narrative of the book and appear in many pictures together with their father’s creations. A brief introduction by Matteo Thun’s wife Susanne and an index of the depicted design gems round out this extraordinary and entertaining visual travelogue.
In this lavishly produced volume, authors Virginia and Lee McAlester explore outstanding landmark houses that exemplify America’s major architectural and interior design styles from Colonial times to the mid-20th century. These 25 houses are illustrated with more than 350 specially commissioned full-colour photographs of interior and exterior views, 125 black-and-white line drawings and floor plans, historical paintings, and vintage photographs.
The text not only discusses the houses architectural innovations and design elements but also profiles the architects and their clients. The featured houses were built by many of the country’s leading architects – from Alexander Jackson Davis, Richard Morris Hunt, Henry Hobson Richardson, and McKim, Mead and White to Frank Lloyd Wright, the Greene brothers, and Walter Gropius – and owned by some of its most celebrated citizens, including Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Jay Gould, the Guggenheim’s, the Phippses’, and the Vanderbilt’s. As a result, the book is as much a cultural history as it is an architectural study. The authors also include an informative discussion of each style as it can be seen in vernacular versions around the country.
Located all over the United States, most of the featured houses are open to the public, and the book provides their addresses and other helpful information for visitors. Great American Houses and Their Architectural Styles will be irresistible to all house lovers, architects, and designers, and will give readers a deeper understanding and appreciation of our rich architectural heritage
Discover the grandest opera houses around the world in 150 Opera Houses You Need to Visit Before You Die. This book will take you on a fascinating journey through 150 unique opera houses across all continents. Whether you are an opera-goer or architecture lover, this richly illustrated book serves as an inspiring travel guide and is the perfect reference for those passionate about the performing arts. From opulent Baroque theatres in Germany to sleek contemporary performing arts centres in China, each opera house has its own story – full of drama of course, and worth exploring both on stage and backstage.
Pests can be damaging, annoying or even dangerous, causing untold damage to treasured possessions and even the structure of buildings themselves. This English Heritage guide focuses on these destructive pests and includes:
– Clear photography to aid identification of pest species
– Practical pest management strategies
– A cutaway drawing of an infested house to locate pest trouble spots
– Information about new pest species found in the UK
– Case studies from various English Heritage properties
– An action checklist
Written by leading heritage experts in clear, accessible language with helpful illustrations, this book provides a concise but comprehensive guide to the key pest species that commonly cause damage when they infest houses and collections. It provides solutions for dealing with them and – crucially – shows you how to stop the pests returning.
The handbook includes: clothes and house moths, carpet beetles, wood-boring insects, other damp-loving pests, detritus feeders and scavengers, new and other invertebrate invaders, flies, rodents and birds.
“Focusing on the variety and quality of materials used, these projects demonstrate that when it comes to residential design, there are few limits to what you can do, whether it’s a complete knock-down and rebuild or a careful restoration… A great resource for anyone interested in modern design” – Country Home Ideas
Houses Now: Material Style is a chic, modern book that showcases an eclectic range of contemporary homes, designed by an impressive selection of architects. Honing in on the variety and quality of materials used, Houses Now also explores the finer details of architectural styles from across the globe – from suburban masterpieces and sprawling country homes, to sleek city residences and breathtaking beach houses. These houses demonstrate that, when it comes to residential design, there are few limits. Professional full-colour photography is complemented by floor plans and a vibrant book design.
Projects include: Narrabundah House, Australia; 1917 Bungalow, USA; Jellyfish House, Spain; House N, Moscow; OLS House, Germany; Three Cusps Chalet, Portugal; Davy House, New Zealand; Northcote House, Australia; Tree House, USA; Shirokane House, Japan; Montville Residence, Australia.
Only few architecture firms in Europe have addressed the villa as a building type as consistently and with such formal rigor as Stuttgart-based Alexander Brenner Architects. The firm is widely known for designs characterised by plastic-geometric facades often resembling constructivist tableaux. What all of Alexander Brenner’s designs have in common is a truly holistic approach to the task. A house’s interior, kitchen, cupboards and other built-in furniture, is attended to with the same care for detail as its exterior. Corresponding gardens with curved sensual forms surround, and contrast, Brenner’s bright white cubic architectural sculptures.
This new monograph follows-up on two successful previous volumes published in 2011 and 2015, and features five buildings realised between 2015 and 2021, including the architect’s own home in Stuttgart, the Brenner Research House. They are all documented in rich detail through striking photography, standardised plans and visualisations, as well as concise texts. An essay by Alexander Brenner rounds out this volume that serves again as a source of inspiration for anyone with an interest in residential architecture.
Text in English and German.
“…amazing black houses from around the world.” — Mano Namai Lithuania
A black home commands attention. Black adds drama, sophistication, and edginess to residential architecture. In Modern Houses in Black, Susan Redman explores the trend in black home design through a curated collection of twenty-eight residential properties across the world.
Illustrated with striking images of houses sited in either urban settings or remote rural landscapes, the book features these bespoke residences confidently displaying their dark exteriors, making a bold statement wherever they are located.
By including interviews with architects who explain their design choices for structure and materiality, from black-stained or burnt wood and metal cladding to black glazed brickwork and tinted concrete, Redman provides insights for current developments in the trend.
The homes featured will appeal to lovers of distinctive design, particularly to those who appreciate both the elegance and daring that black offers modern residential architecture.
For almost a decade we had an interior design studio which gave us a unique opportunity to discover and visit Portuguese family houses, with stories and beauty that deserved to be portrayed. Since then, time has passed and with the growth of tourism in our country, many of these houses ended up being transformed into hotels, vacation rentals, airbnb’s and rural hotels, as it was too expensive to keep them just as family homes. Watching this made us feel the need to make a book about the ones that still resist. Our shared passion for these houses and their unrepeatable identity convinced us that this could be a project where we could work together again, photographing the properties that we still managed to find so that at least their visual memory didn’t get lost. We want this book to pay homage to a memory, a Portuguese savoir-faire and taste that is disappearing with the massification of design, objects and furniture. We hope that this book will help raise awareness to what we feel is most valuable about these homes: the notion that this heritage is precious, that it is part of our history and must be preserved.
House design in Britain and Ireland is guided by climate, landscape and local resources just as much as the centuries-old traditions that have influenced architectural shape and form. Today’s best-known and emerging architects interpret their briefs with imaginative flair: they are transforming houses for the next generation of families by blending their renewed vigour for a local aesthetic with new materials and trends. Many of the new houses featured in British + Irish Modern reflect the architect’s focus on redefining local expectations for form by beautifully juxtaposing the traditional with contemporary structures, thus forging a new vernacular. Architects across this region are wholeheartedly seeking opportunities to re-use existing structures in myriad ways, resulting in surprising and remarkably unique renditions of old houses and buildings made new. Shown in stunning, full-colour photographic detail are hundreds of pages of new and renovated houses, cottages and even converted barns nestled in misty rural valleys, including new and retrofitted modern inner-city terraces and townhouses that make the best use of available space. Houses are selected for levels of comfort, use of materials, and dramatic expression of traditional and contemporary architecture, as well as houses that capitalise on longer and warmer summers imposed by changing weather patterns in this corner of the globe. Houses are designed with indoor spaces and intimate courtyards for play and recreation that draw in light and shield from the extreme weather elements yet maintain an eye on sustainability and affordability. British + Irish Modern reveals a rich array of works that showcase how architecture in Britain and Ireland today has much to teach the world about creative, high-calibre design, innovative application of materials, and cautious but clever reliance on resources.
Sir Edwin Lutyens is widely regarded as one of Britain’s greatest architects. In a career of over 50 years, spanning the Victorian, Edwardian and modern eras of architecture, Lutyens was prolific. His work ranged from great country houses, city commercial office buildings, his famous World War I memorials across Europe and Britain, and his magnum opus designs for New Delhi built during the 1920s and 1930s. Despite such diversity of building types across his long career, Lutyens’s most celebrated works remain his country houses, which first established his reputation during the 1890s. As Lutyens’s practice flourished his work became widely promoted in publications such as Country Life magazine, and his houses, particularly those designed in the vernacular manner, would subsequently give rise to an entire genre of the English country house that became known, as it is to this day, as a ‘Lutyens-style’ house. Sir Edwin Lutyens: The Arts and Crafts Houses brings together in new, wide-format, full-colour photography a definitive collection of 45 of Lutyens’s great Arts and Crafts houses, in which he ingeniously blended the style of the Arts and Crafts movement with his own inventive interpretation of the Classical language of architecture. The book features 575 all-new current photographs of the houses, inside and outside, together with a selection of floor plans of the houses, and a fresh interpretation of Lutyens’s enduring architectural genius.
Contemporary Beach Houses is a stunning collection that showcases 18 newly designed beach houses and apartments from around the globe. Created by some of the world’s most celebrated architects and interior designers, each project offers a fresh take on coastal living. From sleek, modern retreats to warm, minimalist escapes, the book captures the unique charm and character of contemporary seaside architecture. With a strong emphasis on natural light, open spaces, and a seamless connection between indoor and outdoor environments, these homes redefine the beachfront experience. Beautiful photography and insightful design commentary bring each project to life, offering inspiration for architects, designers, and beach lovers alike. Whether you’re drawn to bold innovation or understated elegance, Contemporary Beach Houses delivers a captivating look at the future of coastal design.