Digital Architecture employs computer modeling, programing, simulation, and imaging to create both virtual forms and physical structures, and it is becoming increasingly popular in today’s architecture landscape the world over.
This book presents the fast-shaping and actively progressing digital architecture scene in China as it discusses the current status and trends in its development, design, and construction, in the different dimensions of digital architecture.
It includes four parts: Theoretical Explorations; Building Practice; Research Projects; and a chronology of digital architecture in China. The first part summarizes the understanding and positioning of digital architecture in China from the perspectives of construction, design techniques, and design concepts. The second and third parts provide readers with a wealth of information and resource through many analytical diagrams, technical drawings, and construction and completion images. This book is not only an academic review, but also a lively account of digital architecture in China. This read will feel like a visit to a vivid Chinese digital architecture exhibition, and will be a welcome addition to any architecture reference collection.

The beautifully illustrated volume is an editorial tribute to the history of the Comunale Theatre in Bologna, a city institution of international fame. With previously unpublished and richly detailed images and complementary texts by Professor Piero Mioli, this publication celebrates the theatre’s great and unique story. Also included is a rich photographic array from the theatre’s historical archives featuring posters, stage photos, sketches, drawings and figurine plates, which have been hidden from public view, until now.

Text in English and Italian.

Where’s the best place to go out on a Saturday night in Barcelona? What off-beat museums can be discovered after Sunday brunch (and where to have it)? Which locations offer the best viewpoints of the Catalan capital? What Gaudí buildings are essential? Where does Barcelona’s modernizm reach its zenith? Where to take the children? What’s the best place to buy wine? And where do the locals hang out?

The 500 Hidden Secrets of Barcelona reveals hundreds of good-to-know addresses, avoiding the touristy places and pointing out the urban details you are likely to miss. Mark Cloostermans, a Belgian journalist living in Barcelona, unlocks the various districts, pointing out historical details in the streets of the old town, taking you from green Montjuïc hill to the beach and back. The best places to eat halal, the must-visits for Barça fans and the various festivals you can plan your visit around: The 500 Hidden Secrets of Barcelona reveals it all.

These pages tell the story without words of a journey through Spain in which the author, the photographer Fernando Manso, visited unknown and hidden corners and captured them on the plates of his large-format camera. From the remotest parts of Galicia to those of Almería, he passed through coasts, deserts and mountains, stopping at old churches, ghostly castles or majestic cathedrals, in forests and gorges, at natural pools and salt mines, and at cemeteries, Arab baths and hermitages carved out of the rock.

Fernando has made the light of these places into the leading figure of his journey. His is a different light, as he has relinquished blue skies and brilliant sunshine, often the stuff of clichés, to make way for visions of places that appear to us with such intimate truth that even if we know them, we can barely recognize them. This is thanks to his technique, his art and the patience with which he waits for the light.

Fernando’s luxury is being able to use all the time in the world to draw us into an artistic heritage that is sometimes secret and hard to reach, and which the viewer has to know how to see. He reveals these places, often in danger of disappearing, after detailed investigation. Both architecture and landscape – for he knows that natural scenery is also a major patrimony that has to be affectionately preserved and protected from speculation – belong to all of us, and we are responsible for their care. We must be aware of this.

The result of that trip is this publication, with beautiful images in reproductions of exceptional quality that present us with a vision of Spain in a different light.

“If you really want to get under the skin of a city, the 500 Hidden Secrets series, which covers a number of cities from Havana 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
Discover the city’s best-kept secrets, with this practical guide to Antwerp’s most beautiful, interesting and often unknown places. This book takes you off the beaten track to discover the city’s hidden gardens, small museums and intimate coffee bars. On its pages you will find the 5 best places to eat frites, the 5 most secret courtyards and the 5 best independent record shops in town. It also guides you to some of the more unusual experiences that you can track down in Antwerp. So you can find out where to eat the best dim sum in Chinatown, sample a chocolate flavored with fried bacon, or dance the night away. The aim of this book is not to cover the city from A to Z, but to inspire; it is a guide to the places the author would recommend to a friend who wants to discover the real Antwerp.
The 500 Hidden Secrets of Antwerp offers a practical way to explore Antwerp’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 summarized 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 traveler.

Edited by Carl Brandon Strehlke and Machtelt Brüggen Israëls, The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection of European Paintings at I Tatti surveys the 149 works assembled by the Berensons for their home in Florence from the late 1890s through the first decades of the twentieth century at the time that they were making their mark on the world as connoisseurs. The catalogue presents a privileged window on the Berensons’ intellectual interests through the objects they owned. The entries, written by an international team of art historians, take full advantage of the extensive correspondence from the Berensons’ friends, family, and colleagues at I Tatti as well as the couple’s diaries and notations on the backs of their vast gathering of photographs. All the entries are lavishly illustrated with full scholarly and technical accountings of the objects. There are also 17 illustrated reconstructions of the original contexts of panel paintings. The catalogue includes essays on the progress of the Berensons’ collecting, their love for Siena, the Sienese forger Icilio Federico Joni, the critic Roger Fry, and René Piot’s murals at I Tatti, as well as a listing of 94 pictures that were once at I Tatti including donations made to museums in Europe and America.

Contents:
Preface Lino Pertile; Acknowledgments – Carl Brandon Strehlke and Machtelt Israëls; Note to the Use of the Catalogue; Abbreviations; Glossary of People in the Berenson Circle Mentioned in the Text; Section I: Introductory Essays and Entries 0 to 111; Essay I: “Bernard and Mary Collect: Pictures Come to I Tatti” – Carl Brandon Strehlke; Essay II: “The Berensons and Siena” (working title) – Machtelt Israëls; Essay III: “Passions Intertwined: Art and Photography at I Tatti” – Giovanni Pagliarulo; Entries: Paintings from the 14th to 18th century – Plates 0 to 111; Section II: Fakes; Essay IV: The Berensons and the Sienese Forger Federico Ioni – Gianni Mazzoni; Entries: Fakes – Plates 112 to 116; Section III: Roger Fry; Essay V: “Roger Fry and Bernard Berenson” – Caroline Elam; Entry: Fry – Plate 117; Section IV: René Piot; Essay VI: “A Failure: René Piot and the Berensons” – Claudio Pizzorusso; Entries: Piot – Plates 118 to 131; Section V: The Berensons, Family and Friends; Entries: Portraits – Plates 132 to 138; Entries: Miscellanea – Plates 139 to 148; Appendix: Paintings Formerly Owned by the Berensons – Carl Brandon Strehlke and Machtelt Israëls; Bibliography; Photo Credits; Index.

Nineteenth-Century European Painting: From Barbizon to Belle Époque represents a comprehensive guide to the range of stylistically diverse genres of nineteenth-century European painting. Accessible and insightful, this exquisitely illustrated volume presents the historical context behind the century’s essential artistic movements including Romantic Painting, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Realist Painting, Academic Painting, and Impressionist Painting. Influenced by an overwhelming wave of political, military and social change, nineteenth-century Europe represented an era more diverse in painterly subjects and styles than any before it. Indeed, it was a period that saw many European painters moving away from the strictures of the academy system, choosing instead to use their training to develop new techniques and traditions. A collection of independent stories, this book also outlines the unique progression between the different movements, exciting and enlightening the reader about the most magnificent period of art the world has ever known. Contents: Foreword; Dr. Vern G. Swanson; Introduction; Author’s Note; STYLES: The Barbizon School; Romantic Painting; Orientalist Painting; The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; Realist Painting; Academic Painting; Impressionist Painting; The Newlyn School; Post-Impressionist Painting; SUBJECTS: Landscape Painting; Venetian View Painting; Maritime Painting; Sporting Painting; Animal Painting; Genre Painting; Cardinal Painting; Costume Painting; British Neoclassical Revival Painting; Belle Époque Painting; Conclusion; Endnotes; Bibliography. Featured works from museums and collections including: Louvre, Paris, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Wallace Collection, London, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, The Tate Gallery, London, The Schaeffer Collection, New South Wales, The Royal Collection, The Royal Academy of Arts, England, The Musée D Orsay Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Collection), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, Russia, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, England, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Stanhope Forbes, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, PA, USA, Paisnel Gallery, London, National Gallery, London, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museo e Gallerie Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy, Museo de Arte, Ponte, Puerto Rico, Musée Marmottan, Paris, Musée D Orsay, Paris, Auguste Renoir, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among many others.

Richard Mille, 54, has devoted his career to haute horology. His love for high-precision mechanism and his passion for technological perfection have inspired his creations. Thousands of hours devoted to engineering research in a state-of-the-art workshop in the Swiss Jura resulted in the realisation and marketing in 2001 of a wristwatch which was the most ergonomic and the most technically sophisticated watch of its time. Since then, about ten new models have been created and launched successfully.

In a Richard Mille watch, the concept dictates the components, and not the other way round. Therefore there is no “standard” part. Carbon fibre, silicon, metallic and non-metallic alloys and ceramics are no longer exclusive to the car, aeronautics or aerospace industries. These materials offer haute horology fabulous possibilities and new technical solutions, provided it accepts the challenge of their adaptation to watchmaking.

These costly materials must be tried and tested many times before their full potential to watchmaking is appreciated and understood by the tool-makers and watch-mechanics. It can be considered therefore that Richard Mille watches are futuristic high-tech works of art.

Text in English & French.

For ten years, New York’s Alleged Gallery provided a breeding ground and played the role of willing accomplice to some of the most vibrant American art to come along in decades. By exhibiting the then emerging talents of Mark Gonzales, Chris Johanson, Rita Ackermann, Susan Cianciolo, Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Harmony Korine, Mike Mills, Ed Templeton, Thomas Campbell and Terry Richardson, much of Alleged’s impact was due to a complete and utter disregard for the status quo. Using a potent blend of photographs, artworks and interviews with artists, photographers, filmmakers, musicians, collectors and other denizens of the era, Aaron Rose’s Young, Sleek and Full of Hell documents the glorious trials and tribulations of running an independent gallery in the final hours of the 20th century.

The full list of the artists interviewed by Brendan Fowler in the book is as follows: Thomas Campbell, David Aron, Liz Goldwyn, Joey Garfield, Leo Fitzpatrick, Spike Jonze, Audrey ‘Rose’ Bernstein, Kid America, Amy Gunther, Mike Mills, Jason Lee, Arik ‘Moonhawk’ Roper, Carlo McCormick, Shelter Serra, Kim Hastreiter, Andre Razo, Chris Pastras, Lila Lee, Athena Razo, Joshua Wildman, Brian Degraw, Chris Habib, Julia Gandelsonas, Bill Powers, Sasha Hirschfeld, Susan Cianciolo, Shayla Hason, Ari Marcopoulos, Cynthia Connolly, Adam Glickman, Michele Lockwood, Terry Richardson, Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Tobin Yelland, Craig R. Stacyk II, Jess Holzworth, Marcellus Hall, Ashley Macomber, Tatiana von Furstenberg, Stefano Giovannini, Adam Wallacavage, Rita Ackermann, Erin Krause, Chan Marshall, Stephen Powers, David Hershkovits; Thurstone Moore, Chris Johanson, Janice Gaffney, Ed Templeton, Hugh Gallagher, Harmony Korine, Andy Jenkins, Ryan McGinley, Cheryl Dunn, Simone Shubuck, Shepard Fairey, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Lee Ranaldo, Seth Hodes, Bruce Labruce, Brendan Fowler, Dakota Goldhor, Beata Hendricks, Ivory Serra, Susanna Howe, Mai-Thu Perret, Christian Strike, Chloe Sevigny, Oliver Zaham and Clare Crespo.

The first monograph dedicated to Marc du Plantier (1901-1975), allows the reader to rediscover one of the major decorators of the 20th century. Marc du Plantier began his career in 1928. From his earliest projects he began to implement his architectural vocabulary, characterized by precision of line, working with color, indirect light and the interplay of mirrors. His art reached its apogee in the rue du Belvédère, where Anne and Marc du Plantier welcomed the Parissmart set of the 1930s. This was followed by the apartment overlooking the Bay of Alger, considered to be one of the high points of interior decoration of its time, the palaces in Madrid where, from 1938 to 1949, he developed a remarkable form of neoclassicism, his Parisian apartments of the 1950s, and the drawing room of the French embassy in Ottawa. In the 1960s, the disappearance of private commissions drove the designer to settle in Mexico, where he founded the Artedecor Company, and then in Los Angeles, before returning to Paris via the Orient. His contact with American Pop Art inspired the work he developed in 1968, creating models with new materials edited by the Lacloche gallery and for the dining room of Maurice Rheims, still hewing to the precision of his classical aesthetic.

Text in French.

Maria Lai (Ulassai, September 27, 1919 – Cardedu, April 16, 2013) is without doubt one of the leading figures in the history of contemporary Italian art. Not only on account of the content of her works, but also thanks to the diversity of her artistic approach, ranging as it does across many media – public art, embroidery, weaving, sculpture, drawing, and writing: all are grist for her poetics. The book is published to coincide with the exhibition at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, which is presenting to the general public over one hundred works by the Sardinian artist, from the early 1960s to her very last works, and explores the various themes dear to the artist with the contributions of experts in their fields: the locations, the creation, and publication of art books, her public art events and her relationship with the written word and her own writing. Her entire oeuvre is distinguished by its powerful visual impact, revealing a ‘way of doing art’ that is nothing other than an instrument of thought. The book’s structure reflects the exhibition’s own sections, arranged by theme, whose titles are paradigmatic of Lai’s oeuvre as a whole: Essere è tessere. Cucire e ricucire; L’arte è il gioco degli adulti. Giocare e raccontare; Disseminare e condividere; Il viaggiatore astrale. Immaginare l’altrove; L’arte ci prende per mano. Incontrare e partecipare.

Published to accompany an exhibition at the MAXXI Museum, Rome, 19 June 2019-12 January 2020.

Text in English and Italian.

A remarkable private collection formed over the last thirty years is the focus of this richly illustrated book that introduces the reader to English silver spanning a century and a half from a little before the Tudor age (1485-1603) to the threshold of the Civil War (1642-51). This was a period when England changed out of all recognition. At the beginning it was still essentially a medieval country dominated by an autocratic king and a rich and powerful Church; by the end of the period the Church had lost virtually all of its power and, with the execution of Charles I in 1649, the monarchy itself was abolished. To a degree, this changing world is mirrored in the styles represented by the silver featuring in the collection. Besides setting the silver against its social and historical background the book examines the wide range of techniques used by silversmiths at the time to shape and adorn silver objects.

“Although the street art is generally conveyed in a very natural matter, even his dead animal paintings seem at peace.” – Streetartbio.com “Detached from the artist’s identity, his detailed, illustrative animal paintings have brought him back to the world. With local species of animals as his main focus, ROA inevitably starts a dialogue about human interaction with nature and the environment, whether it is painting on the walls of a museum or in an abandoned rural factory.” – Hi Fructose – The New Contemporary Magazine “One of the most influential acts of street art around the world.” – The Huffington Post Fascinated by nature, the anonymous muralist and street artist ROA is inspired by the beauty of its non-human inhabitants. With great attention to detail, ROA draws over-sized black and white creatures of endemic or endangered species on buildings around the world, from Moscow to Mexico City, and from Los Angeles to London. His subjects are frequently survivors; scavengers, rodents, and unusual animals that thrive in their particular milieu.

Pioneering Edinburgh photographers David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848) together formed one of the most famous partnerships in the history of photography.

Producing highly skilled photographs just four years after the new medium was announced to the world in 1839, their images of people, buildings and scenes in and around Edinburgh offer a fascinating glimpse into 1840s Scotland. Their much-loved prints of the Newhaven fisherfolk are among the first images of social documentary photography.

In the space of four and a half years Hill and Adamson produced several thousand prints encompassing landscapes, architectural views, tableaux vivants from Scottish literature and an impressive suite of portraits featuring key members of Edinburgh society.

Anne M. Lyden, International Photography Curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, discusses the dynamic dispute that brought these two men together and reveals their perfect chemistry as the first professional partnership in Scottish photography.

Illustrated with around 100 masterpieces from the Galleries’ unique, vast collection of the duo’s ground-breaking work.

Bloom: The Luminous Gardens of Frederico Azevedo presents the accomplished work of Frederico Azevedo – the Brazilian landscape designer who has established himself as the leading gardener of the Hamptons. With stunning projects all over Long Island, Azevedo’s work carries an emphasis on flowers which he uses to ‘lure the eye through the flow of the design’. His signature curving, floral borders are the hallmark of an Azevedo garden. He also often creates multi-dimensional vistas using layers of flowers, trees, grasses, shrubs, and hedges for a dramatic effect. The results of his impeccable designs are soft and romantic, but always sophisticated, well executed, and most importantly, adaptable to whatever its environment may bring. Discover the luminous world of Frederico Azevedo and his dazzling gardens.  Contents: Introduction; Casa Meu; Vista; Bloom; Green; Border; Tree; Stone; Water; More.

David Hockney’s interpretation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales are like no other version you will have read before. Although inspired by earlier illustrators of the tales, from Arthur Rackham to Edmund Dulac, Hockney’s extraordinary etchings re-imagine these strange and supernatural stories for a modern audience, capturing their distinctive atmosphere in a style that is recognizably the artist’s own. Reprinted for the first time since its original publication in 1969, Hockney’s book brings together some well-known tales – Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin – with others that are less familiar. Informed by great art of the past, attuned to idiosyncrasies of character and incident, and fresh in execution and content, his illustrations invite us to read each one as if for the first time.

In recent years David Hockney has returned to England to paint the landscape of his childhood. East Yorkshire’s stern hillscapes, craggy drystone walls and endless windswept moors make for a stimulating muse, and Hockney’s work captures the character of this scenery with expert precision.

Although his passionate interest in new technologies has led Hockney to develop a virtuoso drawing technique on an iPad, he is still regularly accompanied by a trusty sketchbook. This invaluable tool allows him to work quickly, capturing the changing light and the fleeting effects of the weather. Executed in watercolour and ink, these panoramic scenes have the spatial complexity of finished paintings: the broad sweep of sky or road, the patchwork tapestry of land. Yet unlike a painting completed in the studio, far-removed from the landscape that inspired it, these sketches convey the immediacy of Hockney’s impressions. And as indicated by views down village streets and across kitchen tables, his rooted local knowledge and fondness for the area around the East Yorkshire Wolds always shines through.

If you know the region, the location of these sketches is unmistakable. If you don’t, its features will come to life in these pages, animated by Hockney’s incomparable skill.

Classic, refined, and alluring are just some of the ways to describe Sarah Blank Design Studio’s timeless kitchen designs. Sarah Blank’s vast expertize in the classicist language spanning many decades and her creative vision for contemporary elegance form the basis of her understanding that a beautiful and functional kitchen is not only an integral part of the architecture of the house, but the very heart of the home. She incorporates a set of rules and principles in her work that are imperative to beautiful and functional design, mastering some of the finest kitchens ever developed for a new generation of happy homeowners. This beautifully photographed volume presents a stunning selection of award-winning projects, each showcasing exquisite beauty, attention to detail, and technical prowess.

Passing Through is a book concerned with nature, and our transient connection to it. Consequently, the human figure is seen only occasionally and rather vague, like something from the imagination or a memory. Nigel Grierson’s visual journey through the seasons, treads a fine line between reality and fiction, in his search for abstraction and spirituality:

“As adults, in search of sophistication, and jaded by the rigours of work, it’s easy to lose the natural sense of wonder, and to take for granted the things that fascinated us so much as children. For Rudolph Steiner, the most direct route to spirituality for the adult, involves finding the inner child via the occupation of playing. For me, spirituality lies in nature, in its myriad of forms and colors, and in the elements; earth’s chaotic beauty. On a personal level this book represents a journey; a return to childhood, exploring woodlands, playing in the dirt, finding little treasures and taking something home as a souvenir; the photograph.

I once heard it said that spirits are in fact traces or energies left behind when beings repeat the same actions over and over on the same pathways. Perhaps that is why we can sometimes hear voices in the woods, even after the people have long gone.”