The architecture work of Brazil-based Raul di Pace is guided by creativity and innovation. The firm’s focus always comes with the awareness that it is providing a service to its customer. The firm’s ideas happen naturally, and relate to the needs of the residents and their dreams for the place where they will live. A house is a place that must adapt to fit in with the time for which it is designed, and then it must continue to be a living environment as time and generations evolve. Before, cities had no running water and electricity—today most things are automated. To follow time is to adapt to new technologies, new materials, new habits and demands. We cannot imagine something as unchangeable, untouchable. A contemporary house cannot be simply a sanctuary. It should primarily be a pleasant space that provides adequate housing that serves the residents before anything else; it is up to the architect to remake, adapt, orient and reorient—all the while fulfilling this overall mission. Since the beginning, Raul di Pace’s architecture is about the search to reinvent oneself, to propose new solutions, built to suit specific purposes. Heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s work, which was a process of reinvention from start to finish, this highly anticipated volume shows how Raul di Pace continues to reinvent its language based on the same premise: make less, splurge less, seek the essential.

Text in English and Portuguese.

Chronicling international art from Realism through Surrealism, ArtSpoke explains such popular but often misunderstood movements and organisations as Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, the Salon, the Fauves, the Harlem Renaissance, and so on-as well as events ranging from the 1913 Armory Show to Brazil’s little-known Semana de Arte Moderna. Concise explanations of potentially perplexing techniques, media, and philosophies of art making-including automatism, calotype, found object, Pictorialism, and Readymade-provide information essential to understanding how artists of this era worked and why the results look the way they do. Entries on concepts that were crucial to the development of modern art-such as androgyny, dandyism, femme fatale, spiritualism, and many others-distinguish this lively guide from any other art dictionary on the market. Also unique to this volume is the ArtChart, a handy one-page chronological diagram of the groups discussed in the book. In addition, there is a scene-setting timeline of world history and art history from 1848 to 1944, overflowing with invaluable information and illustrated with 24 colour reproductions. Students, specialists, and casual art lovers will all find ArtSpoke an essential addition to their reference shelves and a welcome companion on visits to museums and galleries.

Invisible is a book on St. Louis design practice, Axi:Ome led by Heather Woofter and Sung Ho Kim. A collection of essays, built, unbuilt and conceptual projects which maps the trajectory of the last seven years of work from 2015 through 2022. The book covers 24 projects in different cultures and landscapes around the world with various programs and scales. Nader Tehrani, Eric Mumford, Alan Balfour, Jennifer Yoos, Nanako Umemoto, and Jessie Reiser provide insightful texts supporting and articulating critical frameworks of Axi:Ome, while defining a discourse of complexities in contemporary practice that is emerging from academic expectations. The book documents the invisible ethos that constructs a project in an intricate world that challenges practitioners to re-think and re-examine how they position into architectural spectrum. Invisible cartographs and chronicles the legitimisation of architectural practice that engages the pedagogical visions of the profession and the education.

François Meyer was awakened very early on to the appeal of contemporary art; his father was a great collector. Even as a child, Meyer would accompany his father to art galleries and auctions.

Meyer began his photography career at world-renowned Swiss photographers Boissonas. Here, he developed a love of photography, portraiture in particular, and has, over the years, gone on to photograph some of the world’s best-known and best-loved artists. Included in this stunning book are portraits of Max Bill, Fernando Botero, Francesco Clemente, Sonia Delaunay, Helen Frankenthaler, April Gornik, David Hockney, JonOne, Wilfredo Lam, Roy Lichtenstein, Marilyn Minter, Beverley Pepper, Pierre & Giles, Kurt Sonderborg, Andy Warhol, and Yan Pei-Ming to name just a few.

This book tells the story of the forty-year career of a passionate art collector and photographer.

Text in English and French.

“…here’s eye candy on every page of the book.” — Natural Diamonds

“From the 1950s to the present day, a wide range of international designers are examined in detail with many examples of their work clearly illustrated. The author focuses on themes associated with jewellery, including colour, light, proportion, nature and legends.” — Lovely Books
This sumptuous book showcases the work of women jewellers in the 20th century. Beginning with Arts & Crafts jewellers in Britain, Europe and North America, the author then examines the key figures and movements of the pre-war period including Coco Chanel’s legendary ‘Bijoux de Diamants’ exhibition of 1932, the designs of Suzanne Belperron and the roles of Jeanne Toussaint at Cartier and Renée Puissant at Van Cleef & Arpels. From the 1950s to the present day, a wide range of international designers are examined in detail with many examples of their work clearly illustrated. The author focuses on themes associated with jewellery, including colour, light, proportion, nature and legends. Among the many names included are Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe (designer for Georg Jensen), Margaret De Patta, Wendy Ramshaw, Angela Cummings, Paloma Picasso, Marina B, Lydia Courteille and Michelle Ong.

Jewellery firms include: Boivin, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Jensen, Tiffany & Co.

Designers featured: Alma Pihl, Coco Chanel, Suzanne Belperron, Juliette Moutard, Olga Tritt, Elisabeth Treskow, Margaret de Patta, Jeanne Toussaint, Line Vautrin, Margret Craver, Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe, Nanna Ditzel, Marianne Ostier, Barbara Anton, Gerda Flöckinger, Astrid Fog, Cornelia Roethel, Catherine Noll, Angela Cummings, Elsa Peretti, Wendy Ramshaw, Marina B, Marie-Caroline de Brosses, Marilyn Cooperman, Paloma Picasso, Victoire de Castellane, Alexandra Mor, Ornella Iannuzzi, Neha Dani, Paula Crevoshay, Nathalie Castro, Claire Choisne, Bina Goenka, Carla Amorim, Monique Péan, Michelle Ong – Carnet, Kara Ross, Lydia Courteille, Suzanne Syz, Sylvie Corbelin, Kaoru Kay Akihara – Gimel, Katey Brunini, Luz Camino, Cindy Chao, Aida Bergsen, Anna Hu, Barbara Heinrich, Jacqueline Cullen, Cynthia Bach.

Institutions — the state, the church, the army, the judiciary, the university, the bank, etc.— organise social relations. As social structures, they regulate societies according to various practices, rites and rules of conduct, and guide our actions by delimiting what is possible and thinkable. Institutions’ individual scope depends on how the society as a whole understands them. They are in perpetual mutation and thus form complex entities. Architecture plays an essential role in the establishment, identification and perpetuation of this social structure as it formalises value systems in space and represents ideologies in permanent physical structures. Architecture establishes and reveals the way an institution functions through different strategies.

Institutions and the City investigates this role of architecture, taking the Tracé Royal (King’s Street) in Brussels as an example. Running from the Place Royale in the heart of the city to the Église Royale Sainte-Marie in the Schaerbeek district north of it, it is the place where several of Belgium’s national political, legal, religious, financial, and cultural institutions are located. The book explores the stratagems put in place over time by the various institutions to inscribe themselves durably on the country’s social order, and reveals similar spatial responses and surprisingly common mutation processes. And it highlights the importance of architecture when it comes to inventing new relationships with institutional spaces in order to live together better in a time when social, political and cultural reference points are being blurred.

Text in English, French and Dutch.

Learn how to make a positive impact in these milestone years of your child’s development, when he or she goes from crawling to walking, and from knowing just a few words to speaking in complete sentences. Armin Brott guides you through this crucial phase of fatherhood three months at a time, in the third volume of the New Father series trusted by millions of dads nationwide. Each chapter covers: Your child’s physical, intellectual, verbal, and emotional/social development

What you’re experiencing as a father Age-appropriate activities you and your child can enjoy together Family matters, including your relationship with your partner, sibling relationships, and more

This new edition of The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the Toddler Years has been thoroughly updated to cover the issues dads face today, from balancing work and family to managing kids’ screen time. Dads will rely on this friendly yet authoritative book—and moms will find it helpful, too.

The book examines the contemporary Asian city through the prism of urban design in assimilating new and established drivers of growth. This includes intensified forms of residential development, specialised commercial centres and technology parks, that drive the momentum of the contemporary city, while acting to restructure and reshape forms of capital investment. New spatial patterns are facilitated by tranches of urban expansion, redevelopment, regeneration and suburbanisation that have emerged as by-products of both formal and informal development processes. The book also examines the Asian city language embodied in the local morphology — the essential values of the street, block, temple precinct and monument, and how these can be incorporated as drivers of new urban identities that relate to the changing culture and configuration of city neighbourhoods. All of these continue to impose different levels of impact on the creation of livable cities and the quality of life for their inhabitants. In this way urban design can look to the future while respecting the past.

The book frames a perspective on the urban design challenges presented by the rapidly expanding and regenerating Asian cities, and how these can be shaped by memory, meaning and identity while meeting sustainable, resilient and community concerns.

“…a quite remarkable book… For students of this period and for future historians, this will be essential reading.” — World of Fine Wine

“This wide-ranging memoir of one of Bordeaux’s grandest fromages, who died in June aged 88, is full of history and anecdote.” — Telegraph
Owner of Château Lynch-Bages, Grand Cru Classé of Pauillac, Jean-Michel Cazes is an international figure in wine. He has contributed to bringing the Bordeaux vineyard into the modern day and bears witness to the upheavals in the wine world over the past 50 years.

After a golden age crowned by the 1855 classification which made Bordeaux crus the most famous wines in the world, the Bordeaux vineyards took time to integrate the changes of the 20th and 21st centuries. Jean-Michel Cazes witnessed the crisis of the 1970s which saw the aura of Bordeaux tarnish and the price of its wines collapse. He was a major player in their revival and their tireless ambassador. The family history and personal journey of this enthusiastic entrepreneur, winegrower at heart, make his book a real saga. His experience and his wise reflections are all keys to deciphering the complex heritage and functioning of the grands crus of Bordeaux. This book, translated by leading Bordeaux expert, Jane Anson, is his story, not just of his own journey, but of the evolution of wine-making over the 20th century and into the 21st, where his son now runs one of the most progressive chateaux in the world, in a new facility designed by Pei Partnership.

This series of board books will help children to make the right choice when coming to recycling and saving the planet! On each page, after a short explanatory introduction, children will find a turning wheel. If they place it on the right recycling action, the following page will result in a happy ending. If they make the wrong decision, something bad for the environment will happen… but they can learn from that experience and start all over again thinking about their choices! A simple yet effective idea to make children understand that their actions have an impact on the planet. They can learn from it and make the right choice also in real life. Ages: 5 plus

This series of board books will help children to make the right choice when coming to recycling and saving the planet! On each page, after a short explanatory introduction, children will find a turning wheel. If they place it on the right recycling action, the following page will result in a happy ending. If they make the wrong decision, something bad for the environment will happen… but they can learn from that experience and start all over again thinking about their choices! A simple yet effective idea to make children understand that their actions have an impact on the planet. They can learn from it and make the right choice also in real life. Ages: 5 plus

This series of board books will help children to make the right choice when coming to recycling and saving the planet! On each page, after a short explanatory introduction, children will find a turning wheel. If they place it on the right recycling action, the following page will result in a happy ending. If they make the wrong decision, something bad for the environment will happen… but they can learn from that experience and start all over again thinking about their choices! A simple yet effective idea to make children understand that their actions have an impact on the planet. They can learn from it and make the right choice also in real life. Ages: 5 plus

“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

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.

The sacred sites of Burma are amongst the most beautiful and spectacular in all of Asia. However, the fame and sacredness of these holy places rests almost solely on the myths and legends that surround their founding and the origins of their relics. The Buddha himself presented strands of his hair to two travelling merchants in Bodh Gaya, India. The pair returned to Burma where these ‘living hairs’ are venerated as the country’s most sacred relics, now enshrined in the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. It appears that this myth arose amongst the Mon but today it is known throughout the land. Similar myths and legends abound in Burma, always in connection with a sacred site, whether it be the cast bronze Mahamuni Buddha in Mandalay, the Buddha footprints found at Magwe or curious geological phenomena such as the Golden Rock at Kyaik-hti-yo. These Buddhist tales can arise and evolve with astounding speed and creativity drawing on a variety of sources ranging from local folklore to Sri Lankan chronicles. The author uncovers the evidence for and traces the development of these intricate myths across a wide spectrum of Burmese sacred sites ranging from the Mon State in lower Burma to those dotted around the city of Yangon, to Pagan and Mandalay in upper Burma as well as considering the areas of Shan influence around Inle lake. Furthermore, the author illustrates how sacred sites can emerge with remarkable frequency in our own time with only those that possess myths catching the imagination of the Buddhist faithful having any chance of long term survival. This book therefore is an essential read for anyone interested in the development of Buddhism in its many aspects and facets, be they its art, archaeology, history or belief.

Crown moldings or cabinetry? Vintage or Victorian? Orange or ocher? Successful interior design – creative, comfortable rooms with a personal touch – is built from layer upon layer of colour, texture, pattern, embellishment, and more. But the plethora of choices available in the early twenty-first century has made it almost impossible to assemble these layers thoughtfully. Prominent decorator and author Penny Drue Baird is here to help with On Interior Design, an incisive exploration of the essential aspects of contemporary interiors. Baird considers architectural details, furniture, colour, fabric, flooring, lighting, and accessories, offering equal servings of expertise, history, and recommendation. She illustrates her topics with dozens of photographs of her own work, from apartments in New York City to houses in the Hamptons and Palm Beach to a residence in Paris. Building on her three previous books, in On Interior Design Baird imparts the lessons and principles gleaned from her thirty-plus years in practice.

No one who wants to explore the world of floristry can do without the basics. They are even more essential for those who want to experiment. This handy book contains eleven basic techniques that every florist just has to master. All of these techniques are explained by master florist and teacher Gudrun Cottenier and explained in step-by-step instructions. Every technique comes with four or five compositions that show the possible variants on each theme. An indispensable manual for every hobby florist! Also available:
Bouquets: Creativity with Flowers ISBN 9789058561886 £22.50
Christmas: Creativity with Flowers ISBN 9789058562074 £22.50
Interior Decoration: Creativity with Flowers ISBN 9789058561893 £22.50

This monograph is the first title in a new series titled Opera Maestra, specifically focused on the work and itinerary of the artists who made history, from an unprecedented perspective. The series begins with Leonardo da Vinci, captured by the expert Marco Versiero.

At the core the analysis is the specific soul, among the thousands of Leonardo’s, that Marco Versiero wants to underline: his mirror-soul; namely, Leonardo’s eye between Human and Nature. In other words, the eye that allowed the artist to mediate between his favourite dimensions (the human and the natural one), and allowed them to communicate with each other without cancelling themselves, but rather managing to reflect one in the other’s light, like in front of a mirror.

An essential biographical note introduces the reader to Marco Versiero’s pages, enriched with 61 detailed pictures. The pictures, proposing not only a selection of Leonardo’s paintings but also of his drawings, enhanced with comprehensive captions, tell the itinerary of the genius from the years of his apprenticeship in Verrocchio’s workshop till the days of his maturity.

Written Chinese can call upon about 40,000 characters, many of which originated some 6,000 years ago as little pictures of everyday objects used by the ancients to communicate with one another. To convey more abstract ideas or concepts, the Chinese stylised and combined their pictographs. For instance, the character for’man” – a straight back above two strong legs – becomes, with the addition of a head and shoulders and arms held sternly akimbo, the character for “official”.

This book, modelled after a classic compilation of the Chinese language done in the 18th century, introduces readers to the 214 root pictographs or symbols upon which this writing system, whose rich complexities hold a wealth of cultural meaning, is based. These key characters, called radicals, are all delightfully presented in this volume, with their graphic development traced stage-by-stage to the present representation, where even now (in many of them) one can easily make out what was originally pictured-with the author’s guidance. Centuries ago, when the Japanese took up writing, they also adopted these symbols, though they gave them different names in their own spoken language.

Each of the 214 classic radicals is charmingly explored by the author, both for its etymology and for what it reveals about Chinese history and culture. Chinese characters are marvels of graphic design, and this book even shows the proper way to write each radical, stroke by stroke. Finally, there are also samples of each radical combined with other radicals and character elements to demonstrate how new characters are formed-some 8,000 have been added to the language since the 18th century. With all its expertly executed calligraphic illustrations and fascinating commentary, this book serves as an excellent introduction to Chinese writing and its milieu.

Encompassing two thousand years of building history, The Architecture Reader includes 40 key texts from Alberti, Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Gropius, Venturi, Gehry, and many more. The writings address persistent concerns in architecture and design, including the role of the architect and the relationship of architecture to nature, art, and science.    

The carefully chosen texts provide a taste of the multiplicity that characterises historical and contemporary views of architecture. Krista Sykes organises the selections chronologically and introduces each with a helpful commentary, contextualising the author and the salient issues covered in the piece. The excerpts appear in a variety of formats, including interviews, manifestos, lectures and treatises, and are representative of the varied sometimes conflicting approaches to building and design. In combination, they provide a fascinating overview of significant concepts within the field of architecture.