Chicago. City of the Big Shoulders. What started off as a small fur-trading settlement is today a bustling metropolis. Once considered the “hog butcher of the world, stacker of wheat, player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler”, Chicago’s colourful past remains hidden in the nooks and crannies of this wonderful windy city.
Adventures await, from the glamourous to the gritty. Sip dirty martinis in an elegant, underground, 1920’s bank vault. Paddle a kayak down the infamous Bubbly Creek of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. While away an afternoon in a salt cave, or smoke a classic cigar in the oldest family-run tobacco shop in the U.S. Snorkel a 32-acre, limestone sheet shoal, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the Midwest. Dine outdoors in a 23rd floor Beaux-Arts cupola overlooking the Chicago River. Whether you’re an out-of-towner or a diehard Chicago dweller who thinks you’ve seen it all, these 111 hidden places are waiting for you to discover them.
Egyptian Places: An Illustrated Travelogue, presents an architect’s account of visits to 12 of Ancient Egypt’s most spectacular sites, a journey that transports the reader from the urban metropolis of Cairo and the Great Pyramid of Giza to the remote desert setting of the rock-cut temple at Abu Simbel; with visits to other monumental temples and towering pyramids which line the Nile River.
The book recreates that journey, describing important architectural features of these sacred monuments, their mystic foundations, and religious significance. Over 200 colour hand drawings and graphic studies capture and interpret the character of each site from the architect’s unique perspective.
Bike London
is the definitive guide to cycling in the UK’s capital. The cycling culture in London is constantly evolving and this book offers an indispensable resource for the city’s bike users – whether they’re weather-hardened commuters who ride in all conditions or summer daytrippers looking to explore. This book covers all things two-wheeled, from local cycle shops and essential cafe stops, to ideas for routes and events that will appeal to all breeds of bike lover.
More than a mere directory, Bike London
speaks to important players in the city’s cycling community, while also looking back and offering interesting facts and snippets of information from London’s 100-year-plus love affair with the bicycle.
As London embraces a greener future, this book is a timely resource that will help you put words into action.
Each chapter is categorised by theme: Local Bike Shops, Cycling Clubs, Cycling Events, Cycling Locations, Cycling Routes, Cycling Equipment, Cycling Apparel, Cycling Cafes, Cycle Hire and Iconic London Cyclists. Throughout, Bike London will also feature profiles of some of the great and the good of London cycling, from Bradley Wiggins and Paul Smith to Tahnée Seagrave, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Maurice Burton and Jeremy Vine.
Also in the series:
Vinyl London ISBN 9781788840156
London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182
Art London ISBN 9781788840385
Rock ‘n’ Roll London ISBN 9781788840163
A survey by Nicklaus Pevsner in the 1930s estimated that some 80-90% of manufactured goods in England were shoddy and poorly designed. When it came to furniture only a handful of manufacturers would have escaped such condemnation. Prime among these was Heals of Tottenham Court Road – manufacturer, retailer, and, with its top floor Mansard Gallery, the Mecca for Home Counties cognoscenti of ‘modernism’. Most furniture manufacturers advertised their wares in the press but Heal’s was a rare exception in the industry in its use of posters.
Heal’s posters not only relay the saga of a pioneering enterprise but provide a shorthand history of what was happening in the design and retailing of furniture and furnishings in Britain in the 20th century.
Tat* is a bit of a graphic designer’s curse. Walk into any design studio and you will see tat pinned to the walls or placed with loving care on top of a computer screen. Even the purist will have a secret cache hidden away somewhere.
Andy Altmann began collecting tat while he was on his Foundation course, getting ready for an interview at St Martins School of Art. He’d been asked to present a sketchbook, but worried that he couldn’t draw very well, he decided to start a scrapbook: “I rummaged through the drawers at home and found some football cards from the late 1960s and early ’70s (plenty of Georgie Best), an instruction leaflet from an old Hoover, Christmas cracker jokes, and so on. Then I started on the magazines, cutting out images of anything that interested me. And finally I took myself off to the college library, where I photocopied things from books before reaching for the scissors and glue.” It was the beginning of a significant collecting habit.
So what it is that makes a piece of graphic tat interesting? Is it the ‘retro’ thing – a fascination with a bygone age, the primitive printing techniques, the naivety of the design, or the use of colour? All of the above, of course, but it’s not quite that simple. “Occasionally people offer me something they’ve found that they think I might like”, says Andy. “But usually they’re wrong – it doesn’t excite me at all. The magic is missing.”
To a graphic designer, most the content of this book can safely be regarded as ‘bad’ design. But there is some magic in each and every piece that has made Andy either pick it up off the street, trail through online links, or enter some dodgy looking shop on the other side of the world just to snap it up. Here you’ll find everything from sweet wrappers to flash cards, from soap powder boxes to speedway flyers, from wrestling programmes to bus tickets. More tat than you can shake a stick at. Taken together, it represents a lifetime of gleeful hunting and gathering.
* tat (noun) – anything that looks cheap, is of low quality, or in bad condition; junk, rubbish, debris, detritus, crap, shite
Young people around the world have been following the example of Greta Thunberg and demonstrating for climate protection as part of ‘Fridays for Future’. Week after week since 2018, they have called emphatically for political ramifications in order to finally stop the dangerous effects of global climate change. The photographer Andrea Baumgartl (*1965) has accompanied these demonstrations from the very beginning. At close proximity and with great empathy, she shows the determination with which young people are fighting self-confidently for their future. Her new book is a highly topical, moving, and rousing contemporary document.
Text in English and German.
The Jewish Museum Frankfurt presents The Female Side of God, based on numerous objects from cultural history and contemporary works of art. In a close reading of these works, the exhibition catalogue introduces this hardly known and oftentimes even ‘suppressed tradition’. Comprehensible descriptions of these visual representations of a female deity, which can be found throughout the centuries, alternate with five essays, resulting from an interdisciplinary symposium of the research association ‘Religious Positionings’. A highly topical publication, comprising faith, science, and art.
Text in English and German.
Jamy Yang, an award-winning designer with major partnerships to his credit, began his career in the industrial design department of the German manufacturer Siemans. Returning to China permanently in 2004, he founded his own company, Yang Design, which is now considered the most influential product strategy and design consultancy in China.
This book explores Yang’s creative ideology in 15 thematic chapters, beginning with ‘minimalism’ and ending with ‘kindness’. It expands on his theories about the purpose of design, the dislocations that exist today in Chinese culture and aesthetics, as well as the differences between Chinese and Western design.
Contents:
Minimalism; Archaeology; The Disconnect; DNA; Craftmanship; Virtuality; Easy to use; Visuality; Touched; The Anomalies; Semantics; Modulation; Sustainability; Fragmentation; Kindness.
Bentu is an award-winning, cutting-edge Chinese design company founded in 2011. It is known for innovative and engaged product and lighting design and manufacturing, with an emphasis on day-to-day functionality and attention to raw materials. The design teams have experimented extensively with the detritus of industry, including concrete, ceramic, metal and plastic pipes, and terrazzo.
In this beautifully photographed book, the evolution of a product is shown, more than told. A stunning series of photos of raw materials and work sites follows the process from beginning to end, creating a visual storyline of environmental impact, innovative design, sustainability, reusability, local sourcing, and usage.
This beautifully designed book is a celebration of one of the world’s most creative, dynamic and fascinating cities: Tokyo. It spans 400 years, with highlights including Kano school paintings; the iconic woodblock prints of Hiroshige; Tokyo Pop Art posters; the photography of Moriyama Daido and Ninagawa Mika; manga; film; and contemporary art by Murakami Takashi and Aida Makoto. Visually bold and richly detailed, this publication looks at a city which has undergone constant destruction and renewal and it tells the stories of the people who have made Tokyo so famous with their insatiable appetite for the new and innovative – from the samurai to avantgarde artists today. Co-edited by Japanese art specialists and curators Lena Fritsch and Clare Pollard from Oxford University, this accessible volume features 28 texts by international experts of Japanese culture, as well as original statements by influential artists.
It is interdisciplinary teams with complex compositions that develop and realise exhibitions. Groenlandbasel directs a network of specialists and with Spaces and Stories enables an insight into the cooperation and the dedicated efforts of a wide range of involved parties. Exhibition thinkers and exhibition makers express themselves alongside each other in essays, shorter highlights and interviews.
The texts are accompanied by a diverse selection of projects by Groenlandbasel: museum developments, special and permanent exhibitions, architecture, as well as indoor and outdoor installations.
With text contributions from: Dominic Huber, Director Rimini Protokoll, Zurich; Nina Gorgus, Curator Historical Museum Frankfurt; Ramon De Marco, Sound Designer Idee und Klang, Basel; Daniel Tyradellis, freelance curator, Berlin; Beat Hächler, Director Alpine Museum of Switzerland, Bern; Sibylle Lichtensteiger, Director Stapferhaus Lenzburg.
Text in English and German.
How do you sell Bruegel to children? How can you make them look twice at his paintings? It’s like serving them broccoli. Give it to them straight and few will clean their plate. But they’re likely to spoon it up, if you mash it with a good story. A Finger in the Pie begins with a bombshell. In Bruegel’s painting The Peasant Wedding
a plate of pie goes missing from the large tray two men carry around. Nobody knows the perpetrator is a boy who can get into Bruegel’s works. His adventures bring the paintings back to life.
A Finger in the Pie
is a beautifully illustrated book with full-page pictures of some of Bruegel’s most famous paintings. Children are certain to look at those pictures more than once while reading. Why, they may even want to go to the museum to see the very paintings themselves.
Jan Brueghel was a prominent painter in his hometown of Antwerp, a good friend and frequent collaborator of Rubens. What is perhaps less well known is that Jan was also an exceptional draughtsman.
At the Snijders&Rockox House in Antwerp, some seventy works by Jan Brueghel have been brought together to create a unique exhibition. These drawings hail from collections held around the globe, including print rooms in Berlin, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, London and Stockholm, and is the first time they have all been on view together, presenting a significant cross-section of Jan Brueghel’s authentic drawn oeuvre. Jan Brueghel – A magnificent draughtsman has been created by the publishing firm BAI, in collaboration with the Snijders&Rockox House to celebrate this exhibition.
The book includes a biography, essays by Dr.Teréz Gerszi and Dr Wood Ruby on his draughtsmanship and six chapters in which the drawings are discussed according to their theme: sojourning in Italy, riverside and village scenes, study-sheets, roads and travellers, views of the sea and ports and coastal scenes, and impressions while travelling. The authors also place Brueghel’s draughtsmanship within the context of his complete works and the times in which he lived, in the process signalling relationships and making enlightening comparisons.
“To my mind, Koen is the photographer of the instant. Whatever the subject, the format, the colour may be, the emotion that is implied is always expressed vigorously; either with a sense of humour, seriousness, or with lots of tenderness. Unlike other photographers, he is not the prisoner of a style; his goal is to express the sincerity of the moment in its widest variety. Koen’s freedom also lies in a real physical need to be in motion, on a journey. In this way, systematically taking pictures beyond the borders allows him to focus, to find himself, and to come as close as possible to the essence of his soul.” Antoine Reyre, CEO CAPA Pictures
Shot in Time
is the first anthology by the Belgian photographer Koen Lauwaert, who displays his talent for developing an original and poetic language that alternates the different registers of contemporary photography, from portraiture to abstraction through reportage. Partly academically trained, studying at the Brussels Filmschool and the Photo Academy Rhok, Koen Lauwaert devised his own language in the field, working as a film operator during his military service and for an agency specialising in portraits of children and families as well as a cover author for rock band albums. Shot in Time is an autobiographical narrative in which the passion for photography goes hand in hand with Koen’s nomadic soul, the images are taken all over the world, notably in Italy, a country for which the author has a predilection.
Text in English and Italian.
Dreams, fears, projects, desires. Turning 18, with your future in front of you: it’s a special time, which the talented photographer, Anne-Catherine Chevalier, has tried to capture. Her sensitive lens is matched by the delicate writing of Geneviève Damas: the result is a selection of 50 exceptional portraits.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
Why did Hans Memling paint everything in such minute detail? How did Rubens, in just a few brushstrokes, create special effects that Steven Spielberg would envy? And why was the Southern Netherlands the artistic centre of the world for three centuries?
From Memling to Rubens: The Golden Age of Flanders
tells the story of Flemish art from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, as you’ve never read it before. It’s a rollercoaster ride through 300 years of cultural history. Leading the charge are breathtaking masterpieces from the collection of The Phoebus Foundation, unknown gems by the likes of Hans Memling, Quinten Metsys, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck that plunge you into a world full of folly and sin, fascination and ambition. Along the way you’ll bump into dukes and emperors, rich citizens and poor saints, picture galleries like wine cellars, and Antwerp as Hollywood on the Scheldt.
This is a stirring tale about the image and its meaning, and the link between culture and society. Above all, it’s about us, and about who we are today – as people.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition From Memling to Ruben – The Golden Age of Flanders,during Autumn 2020, in the Kadriorg Palace in Tallinn (Estonia).
Catrin Huber (*1968) works with architectural, fictional and imagined spaces as well as with site-responsive practices. Fascinated by ancient Roman wall painting, she developed site-specific installations in a topical dialogue with two Roman houses at the world-heritage sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii. This intricately designed book presents Huber’s versatile spatial interventions, discusses the complex relation between her installations and their respective archaeological settings (local/temporal), and re-evaluates the daring concept of a historiographic turn within the arts.
Text in English, German and Italian.
Jan-Ole Schiemann (*1983) belongs to a young artist generation, subjecting painting to a critical actualisation. On the fringes of figuration and abstraction, he extracts fragments of advertisement, comics, and architecture from their original context. Almost transparently, he interweaves and layers structures, logos, topographies, graffiti, and everyday textures. This complex surface mesh, always full frontal, yet equally deep, dissolves the fabric of reality as a flashing, constantly renewed and self-generating hyper-text, into which one can actively immerse oneself or trace the origins of individual elements.
Defying traditional portraiture, Wolfgang Strassl (*1956) has made a series of photographs which encapsulates the rich, varied, eclectic and diverse population of London as seen in the democratising space of a carriage on the London Underground. By omitting the face in these portraits, Strassl allows us an undistracted and genuine perusal of these passengers and the stories, which their visual appearances are telling. This also challenges our ability to see, recognise and understand these stories. It is a gentle yet pervasive look at the great sea of humanity travelling in subterranean London and the rich diversity in this contemporary metropolis.
Text in English and German.
Leon Keer is the master of optical illusion. The ‘Dutch JR’ plays with perspectives and creates a whole new world. One in which Snow White is stuck under a door. Or a world in which you unexpectedly enter a seventies living room. This is his first monograph. He allows the reader an exclusive look into his world and imagination. How does he work? And how does a wild idea develop into a gigantic 3D artwork?
This body of work is a contemplation of human beings’ passage on earth and their intimate interrelation with the environment. This book attempts to bring humour to the things we are getting attached to. It points at the invisible within the visible, the immaterial within the material or the vertical nature of being (and its mirror-like quality) within our horizontal way of living (where our mind, time, and space condition our experiences). The naked body is seen as our primary indivisible unit of perception which is usually pushed and pulled by our thinking mind’s desire to either get less or more. In other words, our lives are coloured by our minds and since body-mind is a single entity, most of the colours painted on the body are an allusion to the range of our changing desires from being invisible or transparent to wanting to be singular and the centre of attention. The book’s Interviews (the interviewers are from Russia, Colombia, Korea, Germany, and the US) stanzas, and photographs are not seen as being subservient to one another but can be seen as an assemblage of three independent directions that may or may not intersect following each reader.
It’s 1939 and Hitler just invaded Poland. Henry is 13 years old, and unbeknownst to him or his family, his life is about to change forever. Soon he is torn from his siblings and parents and finds himself packed into a covered truck with dozens of desperate strangers. He doesn’t have any idea where he’s going or when he’ll be let out, if ever. Henry is now struggling for his life in one of the most diabolical and murderous events in human history – the Nazi plan to exterminate every last Jew in Europe.
Travel with him to a munition’s factory in his home town of Radom, where he is forced to labour 12 hours a day with barely enough rations to keep him alive. Discover how he manages to obtain extra food through ingenuity and a willingness to risk his life. Would we have the courage to do the same? Follow Henry to an airstrip in Unterriexingen where he is put to work in the freezing cold with barely any clothes and no shoes to protect him from the elements. Learn how, during an Allied air strike, he escapes to a nearby farmhouse where he pleads with the owner to take him in after he’s caught eating with the swine. Feel what it’s like to hold a Luger for the first time while Henry struggles with the idea of killing the Nazi officer who allows him to clean his pistol and shine his boots, when he is not forced to work building what would someday become his own prison. Would you pull the trigger? Walk with Henry on a ‘death march’ through the streets of Germany with no end in sight, having to endure the taunts of passersby who yell nasty epithets and throw stones at him while he reaches for a discarded apple core and is stabbed in the back by a Nazi soldier’s bayonet. How many of us would have the strength to continue in such circumstances?
This true-to-life story shines as a beacon of hope and perseverance and serves as a backdrop-narrative to remind us that racism and hate can lead to murderous behaviour and the rapid destruction of civil society. Every Last Jew
is a beautifully written memoir by Henry’s son Mark Koperweis that will take you on a journey that is up-close, personal, and in full living horror. When you emerge, you will never again see the world or your life in the same way. It will change you, as it did Henry, forever.