Monacelli Press

Bringing Paris Home invites the reader to re-create the panache of French interior style in an American setting. Author Penny Drue Baird shares her love and knowledge of French history and decorative arts and describes the design elements essential to an elegant French interior--architectural details, furniture, paint and wall covering, fireplaces, lighting, and tabletop settings. A special chapter on shopping offers tips on finding treasures in the famed Marche aux Puces in Paris. Penny Drue Baird's highly engaging text, filled with reminiscences and anecdotes, brings the charm and pleasure of Paris to life. Lavishly illustrated with Parisian scenes and completed interiors by Baird, Bringing Paris Home is an essential resource for capturing the atmosphere of Paris.

The garden—a place for refined pleasure and spiritual relaxation—has its roots in ancient China. Western travelers from Marco Polo onward marveled at the intricacy, the elaborate buildings, the subtle design, and the assured use of plants, water, and natural materials in Chinese landscapes. The Great Gardens of China shows, through stunning original photography and cogent text, both the visual splendors of China’s finest gardens and explains their ideas and techniques in accessible terms. Now every gardener, architect, or designer can understand China’s garden heritage and be inspired to use it to dramatic effect.

In over thirty years of practice, Robert A. M. Stern has developed a distinctive architecture committed to the synthesis of tradition and innovation and, above all, to the creation and enhancement of a meaningful sense of place. This monograph, covering the years 1999-2002, is the fourth in a series on Stern's work. The volume includes more than one hundred projects, including houses and apartments, buildings for cultural institutions and universities, office and commercial structures, government facilities, and designs for products, including fabric and tableware. Robert A M Stern has contributed to Robert A. M. Stern: Houses and Gardens as an author.Robert A. M. Stern is the founding partner of Robert A. M. Stern Architects and dean of the Yale School of Architecture. He is the author of the monumental five-volume history of New York's architecture and urban development, concluding with "New York 2000," The author lives in New York.Witold Rybczynski has contributed to Robert A. M. Stern: Houses and Gardens as a content introducer.Witold Rybczynski has written about architecture for "The New York Times, Time, The Atlantic, The New Yorker", and "Slate", and is the author of the critically acclaimed book "Home" and the award-winning "A Clearing in the Distance". He is the recipient of the National Building Museum's 2007 Vincent Scully Prize. He lives with his wife in Philadelphia, where he teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

The current environmental crisis calls for a unified practice of landscape and architecture that would allow buildings and landscapes to perform symbiotically to heal the environment. Over the past ten years, a diverse group of architects, landscape architects, and artists have undertaken groundbreaking projects that propose an integration of landscape and architecture, dissolving traditional distinctions between building and environment. Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture examines twenty-five projects, on an international scale, that consider landscape and architecture as true reciprocal entities. Groundwork divides the projects into three design directions: Topography, Ecology, and Biocomputation. Topographic designers create projects that manipulate the ground to merge building and landscape as in Cairo Expo City in Egypt (Zaha Hadid Architects), Island City Central Park Grin Grin in Fukuoka, Japan (Toyo Ito & Associates) and the City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (Eisenman Architects). Ecologic designers develop environments that address issues such as energy climate and remediation, such as I’m Lost In Paris in France (R&Sie(n)), Turistroute in Eggum, Norway (Snøhetta) and Parque Atlántico in Santander, Cantabria, Spain (Batlle i Roig Arquitectes). Biocomputation designers use digital technologies to align biology and design in projects such as the Grotto Concept (Aranda/Lasch), North Side Copse House in West Sussex, England (EcoLogicStudio) and Local Code: Real Estates (Nicolas de Monchaux.) What these projects all have in common is a desire to pay attention and homage to the liminal space where indoors and outdoors meet. The critical connection between natural and synthetic, exterior and interior space, paves the way toward a more inclusive—and indeed more alive—conceptualization of the physical world.

Through her first book, Bringing Paris Home, Penny Drue Baird established herself as an authority on all things French—interior design, flea market and antiques shopping, Parisian life, and stylish entertaining. In The New French Interior, she moves beyond the traditional historic styles to explore the design elements that make up the fresh, clean look—architectural details adapted from art deco, a monochromatic palette based on creams and ivories highlighted with rich browns and blacks, bold forms in furniture and lighting, and restrained tabletop settings. To illustrate the style, Baird draws on ten of her own recent projects, apartment and house installations, and presents French precedents and influences through specially commissioned photography of Parisian interiors. Images of cafes, markets, shops, and street scenes add to the magical Parisian ambiance she creates.

Sweeping, voluptuous, and authoritative, "Private Paradis"e instantly joins an elite collection of great and inspiring garden design books. Charlotte Frieze presents forty-one cutting-edge gardens, all richly photographed and profusely illustrated, emphasizing design, climate, and horticulture. Overarching themes of Aqua, Arcadia, Bold Geometry, Color, Nightscapes, Oasis, Sanctuary, and Urban cogently frame chapters about the challenges presented by the land, the climate, and the client's interests. Located throughout the United States, these gardens demonstrate the intersection between traditional elements of garden design and current concerns such as sustainability, drought tolerance, and use of native plants. " Private Paradise" features the work of the most talented landscape architects and garden designers working in the United States today, including Topher Delaney, Marta Fry, Kathryn Gustafson, Raymond Jungles, Steve Koch, Ron Lutsko, Steve Martino, Pamela Palmer, Ken Smith, Christine Ten Eyck, and Thomas Wolz. In a publication that rightfully takes its place on the sturdy foundation of a century's worth of garden surveys and design monographs, "Private Paradise" creates a compelling portrait of contemporary landscape design.

Adolf Loos not only was part of the first wave of modern architecture but also served as an important source of inspiration for all architects who followed. He is emblematic of the turn-of-the-century generation that was torn between the traditional culture of the nineteenth century and the innovative modernism of the twentieth. Loos's masterful "astylistic architecture" is captured in this volume by the esteemed photographer Roberto Schezen in over one hundred exceptional photographs. Starting with the refurbishment of his own apartment in 1903, twenty of Loos's most significant buildings are beautifully displayed: Villa Karma, the Karntner Bar, the Goldman & Salatsch Michaelerplatz Building, the Zentralsparkasse Bank, and the Steiner, Scheu, Moller, and Muller houses. Schezen's vivid color and luminous black-and-white photographs display each building in detail, showing both the formal characteristics and the rich textures and materials Loos most frequently used. Complementing this remarkable visual material is Kenneth Frampton's perceptive essay, which places Loos within the context of Viennese intellectuals of the time. His circle, which included Arnold Schonberg, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and at the center, Karl Kraus, explored the essential nature of architecture, and the other arts and sciences, through linguistic structures. Frampton identifies the hallmarks that Loos derived from these structures and with which he created his work: the blank, "degree-zero" exterior with its luxurious interior; his commentary on architecture's position between art and function, plus subtle recollections of both the classic and the vernacular. All these ploys were to subvert typical architectural expectations. Joseph Rosa's accompanying descriptions comprehensively discuss each building, from the circumstances surrounding the realization of the projects to the use of Loos's architectural conventions.

For everyone interested in the enduring appeal of Louis Kahn, this book demonstrates that a close look at how Kahn put his buildings together will reveal a deeply felt philosophy. Louis I. Kahn is one of the most influential and poetic architects of the twentieth century, a figure whose appeal extends beyond the realm of specialists. In this book, noted Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn's focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy. Kahn's work clearly conveys a kind of transcendent rootedness--a rootedness in the fundamentals of architecture that also asks soaring questions about our experience of light and space, and even how we fit into the world. In Louis Kahn: The Philosophy of Architecture, John Lobell seeks to reveal how Kahn's buildings speak to grand humanistic concerns. Through examinations of five of Kahn's great buildings--the Richards Medical Research Building in Philadelphia; the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla; the Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven--Lobell presents a clear but detailed look at how the way these buildings are put together presents Kahn's philosophy, including how Kahn wishes us to experience them. An architecture book that touches on topics that addresses the universal human interests of consciousness and creativity, Louis Kahn: The Philosophy of Architecture helps us understand our place and the nature of well-being in the built environment.

Central to the work of Robert A. M. Stern is a commitment to architecture that reinterprets the past to serve contemporary life. Buildings and Towns explores the application of that principle to a wide range of building types, including libraries, university buildings, cultural centers, offices, health care facilities, courthouses, and recreational complexes completed throughout the world over the past twenty years. The sequel to the highly successful Robert A. M. Stern: Buildings (1996), this volume also incorporates master plans for towns and campuses.  Among the sixty-five featured projects are the Miami Beach Public Library, the new campus for the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, multiple projects for Disney including the Ambassador Hotel in Japan, and a range of apartment towers culminating with 15 Central Park West, the largest residential structure in New York City, opening in fall 2007.

A comprehensive, yet flexible and holistic approach to the human body for artists, Roberto Osti s method of teaching anatomy is exhaustive, but never loses sight of the fact that this understanding should lead to the creation of art. Basic Human Anatomy teaches artists the simple yet powerful formula artists have used for centuries to draw the human figure from the inside out. Osti, using the basic system of line, shape, and form used by da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, takes readers step-by-step through all the lessons needed in order to master this essential foundation skill. Organized progressively, the book shows readers how to replicate the underlying structure of the body using easy-to-understand scales and ratios; conceptualize the front and side views of the skeleton with basic shapes; add detail with simplified depictions of complex bones and joints; draw a muscle map of the body with volumetric form and realistic dimension; master the feet, hands, and skull to create realistic renderings of the human form; and apply a deeper knowledge of anatomy to finished drawings for more impact.

The only monograph to chronicle the life and work of one of the most important figures in American landscape architecture. Beatrix Farrand, the only female founder of the American Society of Landscape Architects, is one of the most important landscape architects of the early twentieth century. Today the scope of her work and her influence on the profession are widely acknowledged, and her gardens are being studied, restored, and opened to the public. A long-awaited updated edition of the 2009 definitive monograph, Beatrix Farrand- Garden Artist, Landscape Architect chronicles the life and work of one of the most important figures in American landscape architecture. Born into a prominent New York family (she was Edith Wharton's niece), Farrand designed lavish gardens for the leaders of society, including the Harknesses, the Rockefellers, and the Blisses. Ultimately, her portfolio extended to college and university campuses, including Princeton, Yale, and the University of Chicago, and public gardens, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and the Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden among them. Her best-known design is the landscape at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., originally a private residence with extensive grounds and now a research center for Harvard University surrounded by a naturalistic park restored and maintained by the National Park Service. Deeply influenced by the English garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, Farrand was known for broad expanses of lawn with deep swaths of borders planted in a subtle palette of foliage and flowers. In her public work, she adapted this design strategy to create paths and plantings that define the character of the space and the hecirculation through it. Heavily illustrated with archival images and photographs of her gardens at their peak-many taken especially for this book, Beatrix Farrand- Garden Artist, Landscape Architect also displays beautiful watercolor wash renderings of her designs, now preserved at College of Environmental Design of the University of California at Berkeley. The new edition includes updated images that reflect the current state of gardens including the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, the International House Courtyard at the University of Chicago, Garland Farm (Farrand's last home and garden, which has recently been restored), Dumbarton Oaks, Dumbarton Oaks Park (which was not included in the first edition), among others. The book concludes with a comprehensive list of Farrand's commissions and the gardens open to the public, providing direction for further study and exploration. It also features a new preface outlining the milestones in research since the first edition's publication, updated details about ownership and renovations of many properties, and a revised bibliography including articles and books published over the past ten years. Published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Farrand's birth and written by landscape historian and preservation consultant Judith B. Tankard, Beatrix Farrand- Garden Artist, Landscape Architect takes readers on a tour of Farrand's finest works, celebrating her influence on succeeding generations of women landscape architects.

Breuer's Bohemia explores a vibrant period of midcentury modern design and culture as seen through the influential New England houses designed by Marcel Breuer for his circle of clients and friends. The iconic twentieth-century architect MarcelBreuer was a prolific designer of residentialarchitecture, which is often overshadowedby his early renown as a Bauhaus furnituremaker and his large-scale projects. Breuer'sBohemia surveys the houses he designed in Connecticut and Massachusetts from the 1950s through the '70s, many of which were commissioned by a few culturally progressive clients-chiefly Rufus and Leslie Stillman and Andrew and Jamie Gagarin-who coalesced around him into a dynamic social circle. Included in this scene were prominent cultural figures such as Alexander Calder, Arthur Miller, Francine du Plessix Gray, Philip Roth, and William Styron, and more, marking a unique intersection of postwar architecture, art, and letters. The publication of Breuer's Bohemia coincides with the feature-length documentary of the same name by author and filmmaker James Crump, exploring Breuer's explosive residential practice on the East Coast. Through original research and interviews, the voices of principal characters from Breuer's circle and notable figures from the field of architecture help tell the story of Breuer's collaborations with his friends and clients, breathing new life into the history of the rich cultural atmosphere of which they all played a vital part. Heavily illustrated with vintage and contemporary photographs as well as rarely seen archival materials, Breuer's Bohemia is a unique glimpse of a twentieth-century milieu that produced an aesthetic, intellectual, and sometimes sybaritic community during a fertile period of American design and culture.