Stucco decorations have traditionally been studied considering their formal and artistic qualities. Although much research and numerous publications have explored the works of stucco artists and their cultural context, little attention has been paid to their professional role in relation to the other actors involved in the decorative process (architects, painters, sculptors, patrons), the technical skills of these artists, and how their know-how contributed to the great professional success they enjoyed. From the 16th to the 18th century, many of the stucco decorations in churches and palaces throughout Europe were made by masters from the border area between what is now Canton Ticino and Lombardy. This collection of essays aims to examine how these artists worked from Spain to Poland, from Denmark to Italy, via the Netherlands, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Austria, adapting to the realities of the different contexts. The authors examine these issues with an interdisciplinary approach, considering art history and social history, the history of artistic techniques, and the science of materials. 

Text in English and Italian.

The largest and the smallest creatures of the animal kingdom meet in two books so closely linked as to become a single volume! In fact, the mini book of the smallest animals, which resembles its characters also in the format, fits perfectly into the enormous cover of the book of the largest animals. In both volumes the animals are presented by texts full of information and amusing curiosities, and poetic and funny illustrations by Francesca Cosanti, an artist able to draw both ironically and sensitively these extraordinary examples of Nature. Ages: 4 plus

Red Dot’s annual agendas have become coveted collector’s items in their own right. Published in letter-size format, the bilingual (English/German) day books present the latest design novelties. The 52 weeks of the year are each given a full page, while the facing pages feature the latest outstanding design achievements, including winners of the Red Dot Design Award. The Design Diary is a perfect promotional gift and has been on Red Dot Edition’s bestseller list year after year. Text in English and German.

In this new collection, the black, white, red Baby Montessori board books, the scientific studies on the visual development and the Montessori theory on the visual skills of new-borns are combined to stimulate the attitude of babies in recognising shapes and figures with net borders. The four board books propose progressive visual complexity, starting from black and white contrast and moving on with a third vibrant colour: red. Red is recognised by the baby from the third month of life forward. The variety of subjects (animals, vegetables, fruits, path to follow with the fingers) keep the interest of the baby during the first year of life. Ages: 0 to 12 months

In this new collection, the black, white, and red Baby Montessori board books, the scientific studies on the visual development and the Montessori theory on the visual skills of new-borns are combined to stimulate the attitude of babies in recognising shapes and figures with net borders. The four board books propose progressive visual complexity, starting from black and white contrast and moving on with a third vibrant colour: red. Red is recognised by the baby from the third month of life forward. The variety of subjects (animals, vegetables, fruits, path to follow with the fingers) keep the interest of the baby during the first year of life. Ages: 0 to 12 months

From the 1950s, Valentino Garavani began to create red clothes that realise, with their identification of a colour with its form, the dynamic vitality of the new world, renewing elegance and ease: his creations in red are guide-signals that connote a turning point in fashion history and give it epochal legibility: it is called style, a subtle and radiant method of marking historical time.

This exhibition, with which the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation in the new building in the very central Piazza Mignanelli in Rome is inaugurated, and its catalogue follows the phenomenology of red in painting and, simultaneously, Valentino’s reds: a certain red that becomes indistinguishable from its forms, so much so as to affirm the term ‘Valentino red’ beyond the field of fashion, conquering its definition outside the specific field of clothing, production and advertising, finding its place in the universal field of meanings. Works by Alberto Burri, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and Basquiat dedicated or inextricably linked to the ‘Valentino red’ will be exhibited, among others.

Text in English and Italian.

Dr. Sr. Yahaya Ahmad and Mauroof Mohamed Jameel have completed a painstaking graphic survey of the now endangered ancient stone mosques of the Maldives, which were built using porite coral stone from the reefs surrounding the island nation. These include exquisitely carved architectural features and detailed lacquer work. Little is known about these mosques, and the purpose of this book is to identify the surviving mosques, their state of condition, the influences in their evolution, and to establish a typology in terms of architectural features. The authors have identified all of the surviving mosques in Maldives and have assessed their condition. They have traced the specific geo-cultural regions in the Indian Ocean that have influenced the evolution of the culture of Maldives and have compared the prominent architectural features of these regions to those of these mosques, defining similarities with structures in the South Asian, East African, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern regions.

Since Habitat, his seminal experimental housing project constructed for Montreal’s Expo 67, Safdie has continued to contribute meaningfully to the development of many building types. Moshe Safdie: Volume Two features an essay by Safdie presenting his thoughts on the significant issues facing architecture today. Complementing this essay are texts by William J. Mitchell, on global practice responding to a wide range of varied local conditions, and Thomas Fisher, on Safdie’s books, which, like his buildings, continue to influence the international architecture community. Featured projects include the Salt Lake City Main Public Library, the US Institute of Peace Headquarters and the Peabody Essex Museum in the USA; the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem, the Yitzhak Rabin Center and the new city of Modi’in in Israel; the Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex in India and the Guangdong Science Center and the Guangzhou No. 2 Children’s Palace in China.

“An important document that should be included in any library of design and architecture.” – Daniella Ohad
“A masterful blend of émigré biography and architecture and design history, proving that the twentieth century fostered more than one modernism.”
– Donald Albrecht

Christopher Long, author of seminal monographs on Adolf Loos, Kem Weber, and Paul T. Frankel, turns his attention to the little-known architect and designer Jock Peters, a largely forgotten figure of early Los Angeles modernism.

This visually rich study is also an intimate portrait of an architect who, like too many, struggled to establish a career during the early decades of the 20th century, years ravished by World War I and the Great Depression. Among Peters’s early works in Germany are designs for the Levantehaus and Karstadt department stores, an innovative design dated 1916 for a magnificent glass pavilion, and his work for Peter Behrens after the war, but the architect’s most accomplished and compelling work came after 1922 when he settled in Southern California. Most notable are the strikingly lavish and elegant commercial interiors Peters designed for the iconic Bullock’s Wilshire store in Los Angeles and the tragically forgotten Hollander department store in New York City; both projects brought him international recognition.

The breathtaking scope of his short-lived career includes modern film sets for Famous Players-Lasky, later Paramount Pictures, while working under the legendary art director Hans Dreier; a dynamic sales office for the trendsetting Maddux Air Lines, which later became TWA; and modern residences, including the still extant homes he built for cinematographer Alfred Gilks, who would later win an Academy Award for An American in Paris, and art gallerist and developer William Lingenbrink for whom Peters also designed stores and a vibrantly colourful sidewalk for the Silver Strand beach development north of Los Angeles. Lingenbrink, a major supporter of the burgeoning modernism, also commissioned Jock Peters, alongside Schindler, to design houses for Park Moderne, the legendary avant-garde modernist retreat for artists in Calabasas. Peters also designed the retreat’s Streamline Moderne pump house, clubhouse, and zigzag fountain, which still stands.

This important study on early modernism includes never before published material from the architect’s personal archive, still in family hands. These remarkable and inspiring images-more than 250 historic photographs, etchings, watercolours, and drawings-alongside Long’s insightful narrative, demonstrate how Peters, despite his early death, managed to leave his mark on the modernist landscape in Southern California at a time when the new style was just emerging.

There is possibly no city in the United States as misunderstood as Baltimore, and yet there are few that can match it in majesty. One of the oldest Great Cities of America, Baltimore is profoundly rich in history and culture. But its character is not only derived from its past: Charm City’s present and future belong to the thousands of artists and innovators who call it home. Baltimore is full of adventure and surprises. You’ll visit the site of one of the most notorious scenes in cinematic history, and the home of the gay divorcée who stole the heart of a king. You’ll hear music performed by future classical music stars, grab a bite at the last old-fashioned Polish smokehouse on the East Coast, and spend a day on a street art scavenger hunt. Whether it’s your first visit or your 20th, and even if you’ve lived here for a lifetime, you’ll embark on a journey of discovery through 111 fascinating spots across Baltimore.

D*Face, born Dean Stockton, is a British artist known for his distinctive blend of pop art and punk culture in street art. Drawing inspiration from American comics, he creates street art and exhibits globally, contributing to the rise of contemporary street art alongside artists like OBEY and BANKSY.

The purpose of this book is to give a wider insight into the practice of working within the streets and the public domain. What people most often see of street art is actually the middle point of an artwork’s lifespan, the clean image of a recently finished mural or a freshly peeled sticker but that’s not the whole picture. Not only is there a whole process leading up to the creation of a mural but there also exists a journey of change after work has been left to the streets. Paint fades, tags appear, stickers peel and crack – all these are part and parcel of what it means to work within the street. This book aims to tell that story.

There is possibly no city in the United States as misunderstood as Baltimore, and yet there are few that can match it in majesty. One of the oldest Great Cities of America, Baltimore is profoundly rich in history and culture. But its character is not only derived from its past: Charm City’s present and future belong to the thousands of artists and innovators who call it home. Baltimore is full of adventure and surprises. You’ll visit the site of one of the most notorious scenes in cinematic history, and the home of the gay divorcée who stole the heart of a king. You’ll hear music performed by future classical music stars, grab a bite at the last old-fashioned Polish smokehouse on the East Coast, and spend a day on a street art scavenger hunt. Whether it’s your first visit or your 20th, and even if you’ve lived here for a lifetime, you’ll embark on a journey of discovery through 111 fascinating spots across Baltimore.

In his lyrical figurative paintings and murals, the internationally acclaimed artist Kerry James Marshall HON RA (b. 1955) places Black faces and bodies front and centre in compositions founded on the principles of Western picture-making. He uses memories, art-historical styles and genres and contemporary culture and science fiction to comment on the past, celebrate everyday life and imagine a more optimistic future.

This book records the largest UK survey of the artist’s work to date, and includes some 70 images, among them a new series of paintings and Marshall’s commemorative sculpture Wake, which evolves every time it is exhibited.

Text in English, French and German.

Architects have designed some of the most iconic items of furniture. This Architectural Design Journal features ingenious architect-protagonists of this genre, and explores the recent history and chronology of architectural involvement in the discipline.

Furniture augments architect-designed environments, contributing to the holistic ambience of a space and displaying in microcosm architects’ preoccupations with material palettes, haptic sensitivities and structural invention. It can take the form of props for commercial purposes including business meetings and offices, for spaces susceptible to the weather, or for convivial, domestic settings. Whatever the programmatic imperative, architects have contributed in the most aesthetic ways. This issue honours some of the best.

“Seldom does a collection of art history essays leave readers yearning for a second volume…”—Barbara Wisch, Renaissance Quarterly
Roman church interiors throughout the Early Modern age were endowed with rich historical and visual significance. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in anticipation of and following the Council of Trent, and in response to the expansion of the Roman Curia, the chapel became a singular arena in which wealthy and powerful Roman families, as well as middle-class citizens, had the opportunity to demonstrate their status and role in Roman society. In most cases the chapels were conceived not as isolated spaces, but as part of a more complex system, which involved the nave and the other chapels within the church, in a dialogue among the arts and the patrons of those other spaces. This volume explores this historical and artistic phenomenon through a number of examples involving the patronage of prominent Roman families such as the Chigis, Spadas, Caetanis, Cybos and important artists and architects such as Federico Zuccari, Giacomo della Porta, Carlo Maderno, Alessandro Algardi, Pietro da Cortona, Carlo Maratta.

In this new collection, the black, white, and red Baby Montessori board books, the scientific studies on the visual development and the Montessori theory on the visual skills of new-borns are combined to stimulate the attitude of babies in recognising shapes and figures with net borders. The four board books propose progressive visual complexity, starting from black and white contrast and moving on with a third vibrant colour: red. Red is recognised by the baby from the third month of life forward. The variety of subjects (animals, vegetables, fruits, path to follow with the fingers) keep the interest of the baby during the first year of life. Ages 0 to 12 months

In this new collection, the black, white, and red Baby Montessori board books, the scientific studies on the visual development and the Montessori theory on the visual skills of new-borns are combined to stimulate the attitude of babies in recognising shapes and figures with net borders. The four board books propose progressive visual complexity, starting from black and white contrast and moving on with a third vibrant colour: red. Red is recognised by the baby from the third month of life forward. The variety of subjects (animals, vegetables, fruits, path to follow with the fingers) keep the interest of the baby during the first year of life. Ages: 0 to 12 months

The books are designed and created by following the Montessori teaching method, by means of drawings built up with simple, repeated geometrical forms, minimal details and sharp outlines defined by the colours that are most easily identified by small children: black and white. Progressively complex visual features as well as introducing a third, colour, red, which children begin to perceive at the age of three months. The introduction to the third colour, the wide variety of subjects and the encouragement to trace the story paths with their fingers will hold the children’s attention well beyond their first few weeks of life and through their entire first year. Four new titles of a best-selling series for newborns. Ages: 0 to 12 months

The books are designed and created by following the Montessori teaching method, by means of drawings built up with simple, repeated geometrical forms, minimal details and sharp outlines defined by the colours that are most easily identified by small children: black and white. Progressively complex visual features as well as introducing a third, colour, red, which children begin to perceive at the age of three months. The introduction to the third colour, the wide variety of subjects and the encouragement to trace the story paths with their fingers will hold the children’s attention well beyond their first few weeks of life and through their entire first year. Four new titles of a best-selling series for newborns. Ages: 0 to 12 months

Anna Andreeva (1917–2008) was a Russian textile designer and leading artist at the famous Red Rose Silk Factory in Moscow 1946–84. Named after the Polish-German socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, the factory was a site of collective female design labour that shaped the fashion and material culture of late socialism. Andreeva’s spectacular patterns range from the abstract and geometric — recalling the early Soviet avant-garde — to the cosmic and space-age to the cybernetic to the gorgeously-stylised floral to elegantly-schematised narrative pictures of Moscow, electrification, the cinema, Russian folk art and Central Asian motifs. Her designs for mass production were among the most popular textile prints distributed within USSR in the 1960s and 1970s.

Collective Threads showcases Anna Andreeva’s outstanding art through reproductions of her drawings, sketches, and historic fabric samples as well as documents from the Red Rose factory collective, Soviet fashion magazines, and images of international exhibition designs. The illustrations are supplemented with essays contributed by international scholars, curators, and critics who explore Andreeva’s work and career and place it in historic and artistic context.

With vivid memories of his first visit to the Scottish National Gallery in the 1970s and his initial encounter with Hugo van der Goes’ The Trinity Altarpiece, Rembrandt’s A Woman in Bed, Velázquez’s An Old Woman Cooking Eggs and Degas’ Diego Martelli, Robert Storr discusses the shifting balance of museum collections from historically ‘certified’ classics to art whose status and significance remains in active contention and from singular ‘treasures’ to ensembles that speak to the larger scope of an artist’s endeavour. Also available: Unfinished Paintings: Narratives of the Non-Finito Watson Gordon Lecture 2014 ISBN 9781906270919 ‘The Hardest Kind of Archetype’: Reflections on Roy Lichtenstein The Watson Gordon Lecture 2010 ISBN 9781906270384 Picasso’s ‘Toys for Adults’ Cubism as Surrealism: The Watson Gordon Lecture 2008 ISBN 9781906270261 Sound, Silence, and Modernity in Dutch Pictures of Manners The Watson Gordon Lecture 2007 ISBN 9781906270254 Roger Fry’s Journey From the Primitives to the Post-Impressionists: Watson Gordon Lecture 2006 ISBN 9781906270117

From Peter Pan’s Neverland to Alice’s Wonderland. From the Wizard’s Oz to King Author’s Camelot. Finally, an atlas where children can dive-in and explore all of their favorite imaginary worlds. The Atlas of the Imaginary Places includes 80 pages with captivating illustrations of over 10 fictional lands, accompanied by an experienced and charming guide highlighting the main sights and facts about each. Not to be missed: a final and original map! Ages 7 +