“An ode to the architectural wonders of Iran.” — AD Middle East

“A book that you enjoy picking up because there are always new and exciting things to discover in the photos. A very special kind of eye journey and absolutely worth reading!” — Lovely Books

Iran, the former Persia, lies at an interface between West-East and North-South. Several early trade routes crossed the country, connecting Asia, Africa and Europe, and the cultural wealth and scenic beauty of this region has attracted travelers for over 2,000 years. This rich past makes Iran one of the most culturally interesting countries of Asia.

The art of building has a special significance here. In contrast to other fields of knowledge, visual communication is particularly important in architecture. Much cannot be fully described; it must be made visible.

In his book, Sohrab Sardashti immerses us in the dreamlike world of Iranian architecture. At the beginning of the book, the history of Iranian architecture is briefly described. Then an impressive variety of buildings is presented, divided according to their different functions. Mosques, tombs, madrassas, hammams, castles, palaces and more are all covered. The text at the beginning of each chapter briefly explains the nature and history of that type of building, followed by a series of examples with a short text on each, and an abundance of photos taken especially for this book.  

The book allows one to experience the great diversity and fascination of Iranian architecture and is a visual treat for the reader.

Istanbul represents a vast field for experimentation and dialogue between the wonderful examples of historical and traditional Turkish architecture and the new demands of contemporary design. In the 21st century the city of Istanbul began a new urban transformation process, aimed at becoming an important hub for trade and finance. Today, the Turkish metropolis can be defined as a megacity with the construction of new financial centres, shopping malls, and infrastructures such as airports, bridges and tourist ports.
The structural transformations in society have led to a shift in the urban morphology that, in turn, has generated not only social and cultural changes, but also an identity crisis in the city itself. Within this scenario, the guide not only offers a horizontal view of contemporary architecture, but also acts as a means for analysing new architectural directions and contemporary urban development in Istanbul. As well as the itineraries that feature selected buildings, both contemporary and historic, the guide includes critical essays that provide an analysis of the history, urban planning, and the future of the city.

Public markets are the world’s oldest retail trading format. The recent resurgence of public markets is unlocking a new era of market cities, which have sparked urban revitalization and fostered community diversity. This new book will look at the latest developments in market design across the globe, bringing readers up to date with the latest developments and demonstrating ideas, projects, and visions that will offer not only information, but inspiration too.

The Paris guide is focused on describing the complexity of this European metropolis through its 20th and 21st century architecture.
Following Haussmann’s transformations, Paris, the most densely constructed city in Europe, expanded thanks to a flexibility based on a matrix able to absorb and integrate the directional courses of the architecture of the period. However, the complexity of the urban transformations and the changes in the Parisian architectural panorama did not erase the solid identity of the city’s urban image. This book guides the reader through decades of Parisian architectural history beginning with the great names of the Modernist movement, Loos, Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. The second half of the 20th century is famous for the cultural vitality of the city reflected in the innovative architecture of the Centre George Pompidou designed by Piano and Rogers. The Pompidou Centre is both the symbol and result of the 1968 student revolution. The 1980s and 90s were defined by the forceful initiatives of President François Mitterrand, promoter and advocate of iconic projects like the Louvre Pyramid, the Musée d’Orsay renovation, the Parc de la Villette and the Arab World Institute. The present period is represented with several selected projects that have elevated the quality of certain areas on the outskirts of the urban agglomeration.

The works of contemporary and established architecture, collected in five different itineraries within the volume, highlight the presence of a multitude of fragments and elements that make up the stratigraphy of the city. Venice turns out to be a laboratory for reflection on modernity to which it is necessary to turn our gaze in order to understand the complex uniqueness of a lagoon city that develops on an island. This presents itself as the city of the mind and people in that it consists entirely of pedestrian and public spaces but at the same time is traversed by water in which motor vehicles navigate. The unrepeatability of Venice makes its infinite architecture even more unprecedented and unique, giving those who visit it an unprecedented experience. 

This book is an attempt to answer the questions: What makes historic architecture awe-inspiring? How have the Indian architectural masterpieces retained their vitality even after so many centuries? What spatial qualities and organizational principles have rendered them timeless?

At the outset the author sets forth fundamental Indian philosophical and ideological tenets—the Indian notion of time, the duality of existence, the concept of a world within a world, the idea of opposites as counterpoints, the role of semiotics in providing visual clues in architecture, and the changing perception of space while in movement. The study unravels the inherent virtues of traditional Indian architecture, inferred and exemplified in a range of traditional Indian architectural examples.

Discussion of each site is illustrated with a wealth of visual materials—photographs, architectural plans with analytic overlays and volumetric constructs. Miniature-style reproductions drawn for each example reconstruct their spatial, environmental and experiential qualities and are used to demonstrate the universality of communication in Indian architecture.

When architecture is the subject of an exhibition, there is almost always a dilemma: architecture can only be represented through drawings, models, and photographs; the physicality of architecture per se is missing. The abstraction of architecture for exhibition and the absence of architectural experience in architectural exhibition are in fact two sides of the same coin: The problem of the lack of an architectural reality.

In this book, Yong He Chang traces the history of architectural intervention in exhibitions and answers the above questions through more than forty exhibition designs made by Chang and Atelier FCJZ. The book showcases his original approach to construction and shares his thoughts on the relationship between architecture and the timeless aspects of ‘exhibition’. It also includes a discussion of a series of issues Yong He Chang and his team have encountered in designing exhibitions and installations, and the responses they came up with.

“Showcasing 25 residences by today’s leading classical architects, this wonderful new book also addresses the fundamental issue of collaboration between architect, decorator, landscaper, and the enormous cast of characters who bring their formidable talents to the realization of every project. An Ideal Collaboration is an important addition to the literature of architecture and design.” – Ellie Cullman

“An Ideal Collaboration shares a place in my library next to volumes on great 20th century Classicists. It is essential as a visual reference to the continued evolution of timeless style.” Steven Gambrel

In the follow-up to the critically acclaimed The Art of Classical Details, Phillip James Dodd continues his look at some of the finest examples of contemporary classical architecture in Great Britain and the United States, while also examining how collaboration is the key to their successful design. In reality, collaborative relationships are rare, especially amongst designers, where each is often focused on their own individual objectives and unable to transcend their own egos. Often used as a catch phase, but not often realized, true collaboration requires an understanding and an appreciation – of the role that all parties play in the design and construction of a home. An Ideal Collaboration includes the work of some of the most notable names in contemporary residential design. Architects, decorators, landscape designers, consultants, builders, craftsmen, artists and vendors, all address the design process and the pivotal role that collaboration plays in creating cohesive timeless designs.

Relationships between architects and clients – built upon expressed values, as well as their import into the final work of architecture – are typically not discussed in architectural education, rarely considered in architectural criticism or theory, and usually missing in most writing about architecture. This monograph seeks to highlight and address this deficiency. The book focuses on the process that the firm uses to help their clients to define values, and to intone them through architectural design. Exquisitely presented throughout, this volume presents a range of built and in-process works at a variety of scales, complexity, and locations, with various clients. Most of these projects have not been previously published. The projects will be documented and discussed within the context of the value proposition and design process that distinguish Pickard Chilton’s approach to architecture.

We recognize Mario Botta’s buildings for their strong presence. His architecture is not ephemeral. It shapes the mass firmly and precisely. It touches the ground with self-reliance. A building by Mario Botta is an autonomous object. It comprises an ordered world of its own make. It is standing in dialogue with the urban tissue, but it establishes its own order as if it aims at differentiation instead of integration. Architectural order represents the core of his personal idiom. It is a well structured, compositional order which organises everything into a whole, as an underlying thread that connects and brings together houses on the mountains to museums and churches, banks and commercial buildings to buildings on the ground and buildings underground, different buildings at different places in time. The themes that underlie Mario Botta’s architecture are ties that connect and spines that support, common threads that bind one building to the next. His architecture is one of mass. It is then of no surprise that mass is the first thing to be defined and ordered, in his creative process. The volume of his buildings is mostly composed by one or more primary solids. Volume is thus an a-priori for Botta. It is conceived beforehand, the starting point to the adventure of architectural design.

Scenic Architecture Office always starts with responding to needs from body & mind, nature, and society, and tries to establish a balanced and dynamic relevance among them through ontological orders composed by space-time and tectonics. This collection includes 12 representative works in its 18 years of practice, and each work contains design concept, sketches, tectonic details, and photos. The works are categorized in “Courtyard Settlement”, “Extension of Homes”, and “Free Cell”. “Courtyard Settlement” refers to reconstruction of the spatial formtype of courtyard; “Extension of Homes”, expansion of the traditional house formtype; and “Free Cell” test of the new formtype. Through explorations of the formtype, they hope to bridge the past, present and future to make architecture a carrier of cultural memory and the times’ energy, and a balanced and dynamic connection between human, nature and society.

Rome, the ‘Eternal City’, is not only enriched by buildings and monuments that preserve the culture of Italy in the symbolic center of Christianity and the hub of the Italian Republic. The architecture of Rome also tells the story of a process of restoration and innovation. During the 1930s, the social and cultural revolution led to calls for functionality and practicality, which are represented by impressive modern public and residential works, as well as by major initiatives from architectural forces of urban change in the capital. This handy pocket guide to modern and contemporary architecture in Rome has entries for 87 buildings, and a clever folding map with thumbnail photographs which correspond to marked locations. It includes indices by architect and by project, accessibility to the public, and directions by bus and metro.

“I recommend to every Architect, designer and those who have a passion for New York to own this magnificent book…there is no better on the extraordinary Beaux Arts of New York.” —Lemeau, Decorator’s Insider

“This great, beautiful, glossy, polychromatic slab of a book more than does justice to an epic period in architecture when some of the world’s most luscious buildings were designed for some of the most unpleasant people in American history.” — Timothy Brittain-Catlin, World of Interiors

“New York would be little more than another faceless glass-and-steel city were it not for its Gilded Age buildings and institutions… An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City, written by Phillip James Dodd with photography by Jonathan Wallen, is a gilded embrace of this legacy.”  — The Critic
The Gilded Age, also referred to as the American Renaissance, is an era associated with unparalleled growth, technological advancement, prosperity, and cultural change. Spanning from the 1870s to the 1930s, it marks the first time that the titans of American finance and industry had more wealth than their European counterparts. As the center of this dynamic economy, New York City attracted immigrant workers and millionaires alike. It was not enough for the self-appointed elite to just build their own grand châteaux and palazzos along Fifth Avenue—collectively they dreamed of creating a new metropolis to rival the great cultural capitals of London, Paris, and Rome. To flaunt their newly acquired wealth they needed an architecture dripping in embellishment and historical reference. Enter the Beaux-Arts.

This book, which has been painstakingly researched and beautifully photographed over many years, takes a close look at 20 of the finest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City. While showing public exteriors, its focus is on the lavish interiors that are associated with the opulence of the Gilded Age—often providing a glimpse inside buildings not otherwise viewable to the public. While some of the buildings and monuments featured are world-renowned landmarks recognizable and accessible to all, others are obscure buildings that history has forgotten.

Set amid the magnificent achievements of an American Renaissance, this book recounts not only the fascinating stories of some of New York’s most famous and significant Beaux-Arts landmarks, it also recalls the lives of those who commissioned, designed, and built them. These are some of the most acclaimed architects, artists, and artisans of the day—Daniel Chester French, Cass Gilbert, Charles McKim, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Stanford White—and some of the most prominent millionaires in American history—Henry Clay Frick, Jay Gould, Otto Kahn, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and the ubiquitous Astor and Vanderbilt families. Names that—as Julian Fellowes (the acclaimed director of Downton Abbey) notes in the Foreword—“still reek of money.” Excerpt from the Introduction

Rome is not only enriched by the works that have led it to be known as the “eternal city”, or with those monuments that still preserve the stories of a strong people, such as the Colosseum, the Roman Forum or Castel Sant’Angelo. It is not only the symbolic center of Christianity thanks to St. Peter’s Basilica, or the central and figurative hub of the Italian Republic because of the Palazzo del Quirinale. The history, art, and culture of Rome tell the story of a process of restoration and innovation that sees the participation of some timeless places and the birth of other contemporary community services that join those already known to the public. During 1930s, the social and cultural revolution and call for functionality and practicality are represented by impressive modern public and residential works, as well as by major operations from architectural protagonists in the urban change of the capital. Works such as the university city of Sapienza and its institutes, or the EUR district tell the story of the formal transition between modernity and contemporaneity.  

Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership: Public/Private presents the first monograph from the award-winning New York-based architectural firm. Covering over 40 years of work, the book – presented in a unique double-sided, two-cover format – exhibits projects in both the public and private sectors. Included in the public section is a sprawling center for entrepreneurial education, a science center built in an old turbine hall, a sky-lit synagogue, two colorful and bright public libraries, and a children’s museum inspired by Leonardo da Vinci. The private side features a serenely spatial six-story townhouse, a sublimely linear beach house, a residence and matching studios for two painters, and luxurious twin villas in Anguilla. With text by principal architect Lee Skolnick, and a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic Paul Goldberger; each chapter provides valuable insight into the extensive planning and highly intellectual process that goes into each project. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership: Public/Private celebrates the accomplishments of a firm still operating at the top of their game.

The new architecture series Sections on Italian Architecture, an editorial project that aims to highlight the multiplicity of contemporary Italian architecture, dedicates this second volume to the work of the FTA – Filippo Taidelli Architetto studio, a dynamic and multidisciplinary laboratory led by Filippo Taidelli, operating with his architecture and design studio in Milan since 2005. The studio deals with integrated design on various scales, focusing on research and innovative interventions in the health sector and in the urban retrofit sector for the energy redevelopment of existing buildings.

The series, directed by architect Maurizio Carones, dedicates small monographs to the most interesting Italian professionals, a series of agile bilingual volumes that identify examples of qualified design commitment. Each contains essays, project sheets and apparatus, to put in synthetic order the complex research and professional work of each protagonist. The texts, edited by Alessandro Benetti, include an introductory essay, descriptions of projects chosen between 2012 and 2024 and information apparatus that illustrates the great quality of one of the most interesting design studios on the contemporary Italian scene.

Text in English and Italian.

This highly anticipated monograph focuses on the architectural output of Enrique Browne, a talented and prolific Chilean architect and co-founder of Browne & Swett Arquitectos, based in Santiago. Over the last 40 years, this South American architect has been trying to reconcile natural and artificial worlds through architecture. They are one indissoluble unity. This book showcases in rich photographic detail how his innovative projects incorporate multiple environmental aspects that result in a complex, layered response to the challenges of place, form and identity in Chile.

Browne’s practice has developed architectural designs in a diverse range of scales, with emphasis on sustainability and energy efficiency. This volume delves into Browne’s processes, such as developing variations of the “grapevinestructure typology” to create a “double green skin” as a green wall (or roof), to protect dwellings from the region’s strong westerly sun; or combining vegetation and its oxygenation benefits with building to counter pollution; or using both artificial and natural light as a material for illuminating spaces or volume. This book also includes commentary on the new zeitgeist surrounding modernity and the impacts of the digital and globalized world on architecture today. Highly regarded, and a prolific writer and designer, Enrique Browne has a unique way of looking at the world. Showcasing the wide range of his design, this title is sure to impress.

This new monograph celebrates the creative accomplishments of one of the world’s most influential architects, Cesar Pelli. The book surveys this extraordinary body of work in terms of the AIA’s Gold Medalist’s design, architecture, and planning, tracing Pelli’s motivation as a leading designer and teacher, and the evolution of his work over the span of half a century. More than 50 projects from around the globe – museums, theaters, offices, laboratories, airports, cultural centers, civic works, master plans – are presented in rich full color with insights from Pelli that delve into the design and construction of these landmarks from a practice that has thrived for nearly 40 years.

New York City is a metropolis in a constant state of metamorphosis. Amidst continuous construction, the redevelopment of the existing cityscape plays a fundamental role in the evolution of the Big Apple as a place to live, work, and visit. This pocket guide to highlights of modern and contemporary architecture features 85 famous skyscrapers, cutting-edge projects with abandoned infrastructure, post-industrial buildings, and inventive low-cost housing models. Each building is accompanied by text describing its history, use, materials, and architectural profile, in addition to directions, and public accessibility.

Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, is known as one of the most beautiful cities in the world because of its perfect blend of nature, environment, architecture and people. With almost complete preservation of architecture from all historical periods, Prague is second to none among other World Heritage cities for its richness, integrity and diversity. The city is like a European open-air museum of architectural art, and one of the indispensable destinations for architects and architecture lovers to travel in Europe.

Based on years of field and literature research by the authors, this book showcases the achievements of Prague’s thousand-year urban architectural changes and the protection of complete heritage.

Through the interpretation of 43 historic buildings from different periods, this book explores Prague’s urban characteristics and changes. Though priceless, most of these built heritages are beyond the focus of Western architectural history research, and their status and significance need to be readdressed and reassessed.

Text in English and Chinese.

This book presents innovative examples of hidden architecture: buildings that are designed to disappear into their surroundings or hide in plain sight. In the city, hidden buildings are often designed to provide the occupants with privacy and protection from the busy world outside or they can be incorporated into the streetscape to free up space for public use. In the countryside, buildings should not spoil a scenic landscape, so they can be designed to become a part of it. Buildings can be buried underground, hidden amongst trees, covered with greenery or even sunk into the sea. They can be clad in mirrors to reflect their surroundings, disappear beneath an urban plaza or be hidden from view on top of another building. Each of these imaginative solutions offers a way for architecture to blend in rather than stand out. Hidden Architecture tells the stories of projects from around the world that are cleverly disguised but still beautifully detailed and outstanding in their execution.

Richard Manion Architecture creates distinctive residences and estates with a respect for traditional forms and historic imagery adapted to modern living. The curated selection of rarely published projects in this second volume of RMA’s work, Streamlined, demonstrates the firm’s signature classicist style, which draws upon traditional and streamlined classical, regional, and contemporary influences to reflect authentic details, proportions, and a sophisticated sense of place for the 21st century.

In this book, the firm’s focus is on the integration of modernism within an overall framework of simplicity and restraint, discretion and harmony. Academic studies of European modernism, with its visionary approach and embodiment of the machine age, have come back to inspire, but with the understanding that many of its roots can be traced back to the heritage of classical design principles. This exquisite, fully illustrated volume showcases RMA’s goal to unite ideas about tradition, history, and modernity in a synergy and explores the meaning of shared architectural imagery and heritage for our time.