View your shopping cart.

Banner Message

Please note: We are working on getting our inventory accurately represented on our site while we are in our temporary location. There might be items that appear online that are not currently accesible to us to ship to you. If you order these items, you will be refunded and the rest of your order will ship. Feel free to contact us with any questions.

Art & Architecture

THROWING POTS

THROWING POTS

By: Rogers, Phil
$24.95
More Info

"Throwing clay on a potter's wheel and the seemingly effortless and wonderful way that clay will swell and climb in the hands of a skilled potter is merely the beginning to this most 'natural' and ancient of crafts."--from Throwing Pots

Throwing is a skill that many potters seek to master. It requires patience, time, and lots of practice. In Throwing Pots, Phil Rogers takes the reader through the basic principles of throwing. With the help of step-by-step illustrations, he demonstrates how to make a wide range of pots, from the simple bowl to the more complex forms of teapots and jugs, including lids and spouts. Rogers also discusses the aesthetics of pottery, encouraging readers to assess design and develop a personal style as well as recommending places to see examples of fine quality handthrown pottery.

TIBETAN PAINTING

TIBETAN PAINTING

By: Jucker, Ernst
$75.00
More Info
Reproduced here are exquisite paintings of the historical Buddha, bodhisattvas, historical and mythological figures, protectors of the Buddhist law, tutelary deities, as well as rare bardo paintings, black background scrolls, and mandalas. The selection of these sacred paintings which date from the late twelfth to the early twentieth centuries, was made on the basis of their stylistic or iconographic rarity--and their sheer beauty. Very few reproductions of these masterpieces have been published before.
TIMELESS WAY OF BUILDING

TIMELESS WAY OF BUILDING

By: Alexander, Christopher
$65.00
More Info
The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. Yet the power of present-day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable, even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is happening, because they are afraid to seem foolish, afraid perhaps that they will be laughed at.

Now, at last, here is a coherent theory which describes in modern terms an architecture as ancient as human society itself.

TINY HOUSES: 47 GRAND DESIGNS FOR 47 TINY HOUSES

TINY HOUSES: 47 GRAND DESIGNS FOR 47 TINY HOUSES

By: Walker, Lester
$29.95
More Info
Both playful tribute and handy how-to, this is a wonderfully illustrated volume that features hundreds of photographs and detailed scale drawings. Whether you're a student of philosophy aspiring to build a replica of Thoreau's cabin, an ice fisherman in need of four walls to fend off winter winds, or just a dreamer with a vision of a humble cottage on a quite seashore, Tiny Houses is a precious resource for ideas, instruction, and inspiration.
TRANSMEDIAL LANDSCAPES AND MODERN CHINESE PAINTING

TRANSMEDIAL LANDSCAPES AND MODERN CHINESE PAINTING

By: Noth, Juliane
$39.95
More Info
Juliane Noth shows how art and discussions about the future of ink painting were linked to the reshaping of the country, leading to the creation of a uniquely modern Chinese landscape imagery. Noth offers a new understanding of these experiments by studying them as transmedial practice, at once shaped by and integral to the modern global art world.
TRAVELS WITH FACE HUNTER: STREET STYLE FROM AROUND THE WORLD

TRAVELS WITH FACE HUNTER: STREET STYLE FROM AROUND THE WORLD

By: Rodic, Yvan
$25.00
More Info
This ultra-stylish travel diary chronicles a year-long face-hunting expedition to more than thirty of pioneering street fashion photographer Yvan Rodic's favorite cities. An extension of Rodic's wildly popular Face Hunter blog (1.5 million page views per month), Travels with Face Hunter is a visual feast for a wide audience of fashionistas.

For Yvan Rodic (better known to his fans as "Face Hunter"), style is about so much more than clothes -- it's an attitude, a form of self-expression, a way of interacting with the world that is at once expansively global and distinctively local. Travels with Face Hunter captures the global phenomenon that is street fashion, and proves the best outfits and most beautiful faces of fashion aren't necessarily on runways or in magazines. Along with more than three hundred stylish photos, Rodic offers commentary on the atmosphere and style trends of each city he visits, taking readers with him on the journey.

Throughout the pages of this book, readers will discover a young child in Tokyo wearing fantastic striped sunglasses; trainers paired with cowrie shells in Cape Town; a woman posing in a fake leopard-skin coat outside of a Milan Cathedral; and blue suede shoes in Beirut. You never know what will catch Face Hunter's eye -- but you can bet it won't be a professional model or celebrity wearing this season's must-have outfit from a leading fashion house.

TREASURES FROM INDIA (SP.SALE)

TREASURES FROM INDIA (SP.SALE)

By: Clive, Museum
$10.95
More Info
The Clive Collection at Powis Castle in Wales contains some 300 pieces, and represents perhaps the greatest single sampling of the art of Mughal India outside of the subcontinent itself. It was begun by Clive of India, whose military victories in the 18th century marked the first stage of Britain's domination of India. Archer writes on collectors in India at the time, Rowell about the Clive family and the assembling of the collection and Skelton provides and original assessment of the objects themselves.
product image

TREE HOUSES BY ARCHITECTS

By: Trulove, James Grayson
$29.95
More Info

Tree houses are no longer just for children. With the growing excitement surrounding tree house architecture, adults around the world are building their own treetop hideaways -- savoring the childhood memories, feelings of nostalgia, and images of fantasy that are evoked by these almost dreamlike constructions. TreeHouses: Living a Dream brings together the most innovative ideas of today's architects and designers, providing readers with a comprehensive exploration of the unique construction methods that allow these amazing structures to adapt to their changing environments.

From Nebraska and Georgia to France and Germany, this book features a variety of projects that include playrooms, weekend retreats, home offices, dining rooms, and more. Each case study includes interior and exterior photography, as well as detailed site and floor plans accompanied by concise, informative text. With more than 350 full-color illustrations, TreeHouses: Living a Dream is sure to help every reader make a reality out of their tree house fantasy.

TREEHOUSES AND PLAYHOUSES YOU CAN BUILD

TREEHOUSES AND PLAYHOUSES YOU CAN BUILD

By: Stiles, Jeanie
$19.95
More Info

Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build shows how average "do-it-yourself" families can easily and affordably bring to life a "Hobbit's Treehouse," a "Pirate's Playhouse," or a "Crow's Nest" in their own backyards! There are a lot of books out there filled with enchanting photos of elaborate treehouses and playhouses built by professionals and costing tens of thousands to build. For the rest of us, there's bit of elbow grease, a lot of imagination, a trip to the hardware store-and Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build.

Authors David and Jeanie Stiles are the best-selling authors of a number of books on treehouses with sales of over 150,000 copies. They have created another straightforward how-to-build book filled with beautiful hand-drawn step-by-step illustrations that are easy to follow and describe in detail how to create each project. They include tips on budgeting, using basic tools, buying materials, and kid- and adult-friendly instructions! Even for DIY novice types, this book simplifies the building process and inspires families of all types to work together and build cool stuff.

product image

UNEARTHING THE PAST: Renaissance Culture

By: Barkan, Leonard
$19.95
More Info
In this text, Leonard Barkan tells the cultural story of the emergence into the daylight of the artworks of antiquity that had lain beneath Roman ground for more than a thousand years.
UNPACKING MY LIBRARY: ARCHITECTS AND THEIR BOOKS

UNPACKING MY LIBRARY: ARCHITECTS AND THEIR BOOKS

$20.00
More Info

"I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. . . . Be ready to share with me a bit of the mood--it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation--which these books arouse in a genuine collector. . . . What I am really concerned with is giving you some insight into the relationship of a book collector to his possessions, into collecting rather than a collection." --Walter Benjamin, 1931

What does a library say about the mind of its owner? How do books map the intellectual interests, curiosities, tastes, and personalities of their readers? What does the collecting of books have in common with the practice of architecture? Unpacking My Library provides an intimate look at the personal libraries of twelve of the world's leading architects, alongside conversations about the significance of books to their careers and lives.

Photographs of bookshelves--displaying well-loved and rare volumes, eclectic organizational schemes, and the individual touches that make a bookshelf one's own--provide an evocative glimpse of their owner's personal life. Each architect also presents a reading list of top ten influential titles, from architectural history to theory to fiction and nonfiction, that serves as a personal philosophy of literature and history, and advice on what every young architect, scholar, and lover of architecture should read.

An inspiring cross-section of notable libraries, this beautiful book celebrates the arts of reading and collecting.

Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books features the libraries of:

Stan Allen

Henry Cobb

Liz Diller & Ric Scofidio

Peter Eisenman

Michael Graves

Steven Holl

Toshiko Mori

Michael Sorkin

Bernard Tschumi

Todd Williams & Billie Tsien

Peter Eisenman's Recommended Titles:

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York

Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology

Andrea Palladio, The Four Books on Architecture

Walter Benjamin, Illuminations

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

William Faulkner, Light in August

product image

UTAMARO: Portraits from the Floating World

By: Kobayashi, Tadashi
$25.00
More Info
Who was the man behind the pseudonym "Utamaro"? We know that he was one of the greatest artists of eighteenth-century Japan, and that he was a master portraitist of women in the woodblock-print tradition known as ukiyo-e. But as for the man himself, we know almost nothing. The little there is-gleaned from contemporary books, miscellaneous writings, temple registers-is brought together in this book to present as clear a picture of Utamaro's life as modem researchers are capable of. Utamaro is placed in his cultural setting-the pleasure-loving urban culture of eighteenth-century Tokyo, the shogun's capital and the de facto center of Japan

Utamaro's world was that of teahouse girls and courtesans whose fame and popularity can only be compared, in modern terms, to those of a movie actress whose name is on every man's lips. His was a world of popular literature and art, of publishers competing for the work of the most talked-about writers and artists. This world, however, was under the constant scrutiny of the authorities, and near the end of his career, Utamaro fell afoul of the government's proscription of certain subject matter, and he was sentenced to three days in prison and fifty days in hand chains.

But Utamaro's life is only one theme of this book. The other is the development of his art, the perfection of his depictions of women that enabled him to capture subtle moods and differences of character. The prints of women produced by the ukiyo-e artists preceding Utamaro showed expressionless beauties of little individuality. It was against this that Utamaro rebelled, creating such prints as that of the kashi, one of the lowest ranking of courtesans-in fact, a mere prostitute. Recognizing within himself the power to see and depict the individual behind the outward appearance, Utamaro added to some of his prints the notation "Studies in Physiognomic Judgment of Character by Utamaro." Modem opinion tends to agree with Utamaro's assessment of himself, and his reputation as an artist of the inner woman has firmly established him in the top ranks of the ukiyo-e world.

VAN GOGH TV'S PIAZZA VIRTUALE

VAN GOGH TV'S PIAZZA VIRTUALE

$35.00
More Info

"Piazza virtuale" by the artist group Van Gogh TV was not only the biggest art project on television ever-from a contemporary point of view the project was also a forerunner of today's social media. The ground-breaking television event that took place during the 100 days of documenta IX in 1992 was an early experiment with entirely user-created content. This is the first book-length study of a largely forgotten experiment: It not only documents its radicality of the approach, novel programme ideas and technical innovations. It also allows direct access to videos from the show, which were inaccessible until now, via QR codes.


VISIONS OF BUDDHIST LIFE

VISIONS OF BUDDHIST LIFE

By: Farber, Don
$19.95
More Info
Don Farber's highly acclaimed photographs open a spectacular view of the beauty and diversity of Buddhist life around the world. His superb eye for composition, his attention to color and detail, and his intimate knowledge of Buddhism come together to produce outstanding, often breathtaking images. A selection of Farber's best work to date, Visions of Buddhist Life brings an important message of compassion, healing, and understanding to today's troubled world.

The photographs, together with Farber's extensive captions, take us to the temples, monasteries, and colorful streets of Los Angeles, Kyoto, and Bangkok, and travel onward to China, India, Nepal, South Korea, and Taiwan. They depict Buddhists alone and in crowds, in cities rich and poor, in meditation and in conversation. They also picture some of the great teachers of our day--the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Kalu Rinpoche. These images capture some of the last Tibetan masters to have received their training before the Chinese invasion and are a vital documentation of a tradition in danger of vanishing forever.

A study in the human face, in the art of spiritual devotion, in the evocative power of landscape, this collection of images provides an essential context for understanding Buddhism. Visions of Buddhist Life is also a visual and spiritual journey into a realm where the doctrine of nonviolence is paramount and where peace begins with the thoughts and actions of the individual.

VISUAL THINKING

VISUAL THINKING

By: Arnheim, Rudolf
$29.95
More Info
For thirty-five years Visual Thinking has been the gold standard for art educators, psychologists, and general readers alike. In this seminal work, Arnheim, author of The Dynamics of Architectural Form, Film as Art, Toward a Psychology of Art, and Art and Visual Perception, asserts that all thinking (not just thinking related to art) is basically perceptual in nature, and that the ancient dichotomy between seeing and thinking, between perceiving and reasoning, is false and misleading. An indispensable tool for students and for those interested in the arts.
product image

VIVIAN MAIER: A PHOTOGRAPHER'S LIFE AND AFTERLIFE

By: Bannos, Pamela
$20.00
More Info
Who was Vivian Maier? Many people know her as the reclusive Chicago nanny who wandered the city for decades, constantly snapping photographs, which were unseen until they were discovered in a seemingly abandoned storage locker. They revealed her to be an inadvertent master of twentieth-century American street photography. Not long after, the news broke that Maier had recently died and had no surviving relatives. Soon the whole world knew about her preternatural work, shooting her to stardom almost overnight.

But, as Pamela Bannos reveals in this meticulous and passionate biography, this story of the nanny savant has blinded us to Maier's true achievements, as well as her intentions. Most important, Bannos argues, Maier was not a nanny who moonlighted as a photographer; she was a photographer who supported herself as a nanny. In Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife, Bannos contrasts Maier's life with the mythology that strangers--mostly the men who have profited from her work--have created around her absence. Bannos shows that Maier was extremely conscientious about how her work was developed, printed, and cropped, even though she also made a clear choice never to display it. She places Maier's fierce passion for privacy alongside the recent spread of her work around the world, and she explains Maier's careful adjustments of photographic technique, while explaining how the photographs have been misconstrued or misidentified. As well, Bannos uncovers new information about Maier's immediate family, including her difficult brother, Karl--relatives that once had been thought not to exist.

This authoritative and engrossing biography shows that the real story of Vivian Maier, a true visionary artist, is even more compelling than the myth.

WABI-SABI: FURTHER THOUGHTS

WABI-SABI: FURTHER THOUGHTS

By: Koren, Leonard
$16.00
More Info

Twenty-plus years after the initial publication of Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, Leonard Koren is back with further insights into this seminal aesthetic paradigm. An important book for art and design theorists, and other thoughtful creators.


WATER, WIND, BREATH

WATER, WIND, BREATH

$60.00
More Info
The Barnes Foundation's historic Pueblo and Navajo collections are explored alongside works by contemporary Native American artists

This richly illustrated book makes the Barnes Foundation's exceptional collection of Native American art from the Southwest available to the public for the first time. Collector and educator Albert C. Barnes traveled to the U.S. Southwest in 1930 and 1931 and, deeply impressed by the generative art practices he saw there, formed a collection of Pueblo and Navajo pottery, textiles, and jewelry. Water, Wind, Breath illuminates the materials, forms, and designs of the objects as they relate to Pueblo and Navajo histories and ideas. The book blends postcolonial and Indigenous perspectives, introducing readers to living artistic traditions filled with purpose, intention, and a deeply embedded spirituality that connects places, practices, and Native identities. Works by contemporary Native American artists are juxtaposed with historic pieces, illuminating the connections between heritage traditions and modern practices.

WAY OF THE BRUSH: Painting Techniques of China and Japan

WAY OF THE BRUSH: Painting Techniques of China and Japan

By: Van Briessen, Fritz
$34.95
More Info
The first paperback edition of this backlist classic, "The Way of the Brush" examines the technique, style, traditions, and methods of ink-painting. Illustrated with over 250 paintings and packed with instructions, "The Way of the Brush" covers every aspect of the art, from brushstrokes, composition, and the painting surface to meaning, perspective, and artistic philosophy. Part One explains the elements, techniques, and principles of Chinese and Japanese painting, while Part Two is devoted to challenges associated with the art. Also included are three appendices and a full bibliography.
WHAT IS CULTURE FOR?

WHAT IS CULTURE FOR?

By: The School of Life
$16.99
More Info
How to find compassion, hope, and perspective in the arts.

Our societies frequently proclaim their enormous esteem for culture. Music, film, literature and the visual arts enjoy high prestige and are viewed by many as getting close to the meaning of life. But what is culture really for?

This book proposes that works of culture were all made, in one way or another, with the idea of improving the way we live. The book connects a range of cultural masterpieces with our own pains and dilemmas around love, work and society, and invites us to see culture as a resource with which to address the complex agonies of being human. It provides us with enduring keys to unlocking culture as a way of transforming our lives.

WHAT IS LANDSCAPE?

WHAT IS LANDSCAPE?

By: Stilgoe, John R
$15.95
More Info
A lexicon and guide for discovering the essence of landscape.

"Mr. Stilgoe does not ask that we take his book outdoors with us; he believes that reading and experiencing landscapes are activities that should be kept separate. But, as I learned in his book, the hollow storage area in a car driver's door was once a holster, the 'secure nesting place of a pistol.' I recommend you stow your copy there."
--The Wall Street Journal

Landscape, John Stilgoe tells us, is a noun. From the old Frisian language (once spoken in coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany), it meant shoveled land: landschop. Sixteenth-century Englishmen misheard or mispronounced this as landskep, which became landskip, then landscape, designating the surface of the earth shaped for human habitation. In What Is Landscape? Stilgoe maps the discovery of landscape by putting words to things, zeroing in on landscape's essence but also leading sideways expeditions through such sources as children's picture books, folklore, deeds, antique terminology, out-of-print dictionaries, and conversations with locals. ("What is that?" "Well, it's not really a slough, not really, it's a bayou...") He offers a highly original, cogent, compact, gracefully written narrative lexicon of landscape as word, concept, and path to discoveries.

What Is Landscape? is an invitation to walk, to notice, to ask: to see a sandcastle with a pinwheel at the beach and think of Dutch windmills--icons of triumph, markers of territory won from the sea; to walk in the woods and be amused by the Elizabethans' misuse of the Latin silvaticus (people of the woods) to coin the word savages; to see in a suburban front lawn a representation of the meadow of a medieval freehold.

Discovering landscape is good exercise for body and for mind. This book is an essential guide and companion to that exercise--to understanding, literally and figuratively, what landscape is.

product image

WHAT IS LANDSCAPE?

By: Stilgoe, John R
$20.95
More Info

A lexicon and guide for discovering the essence of landscape.

"Mr. Stilgoe does not ask that we take his book outdoors with us; he believes that reading and experiencing landscapes are activities that should be kept separate. But, as I learned in his book, the hollow storage area in a car driver's door was once a holster, the 'secure nesting place of a pistol.' I recommend you stow your copy there."

--The Wall Street Journal

Landscape, John Stilgoe tells us, is a noun. From the old Frisian language (once spoken in coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany), it meant shoveled land: landschop. Sixteenth-century Englishmen misheard or mispronounced this as landskep, which became landskip, then landscape, designating the surface of the earth shaped for human habitation. In What Is Landscape? Stilgoe maps the discovery of landscape by putting words to things, zeroing in on landscape's essence but also leading sideways expeditions through such sources as children's picture books, folklore, deeds, antique terminology, out-of-print dictionaries, and conversations with locals. ("What is that?" "Well, it's not really a slough, not really, it's a bayou...") He offers a highly original, cogent, compact, gracefully written narrative lexicon of landscape as word, concept, and path to discoveries.

What Is Landscape? is an invitation to walk, to notice, to ask: to see a sandcastle with a pinwheel at the beach and think of Dutch windmills--icons of triumph, markers of territory won from the sea; to walk in the woods and be amused by the Elizabethans' misuse of the Latin silvaticus (people of the woods) to coin the word savages; to see in a suburban front lawn a representation of the meadow of a medieval freehold.

Discovering landscape is good exercise for body and for mind. This book is an essential guide and companion to that exercise--to understanding, literally and figuratively, what landscape is.

product image

WHEN I WAS A PHOTOGRAPHER

By: Nadar, Félix
$24.95
More Info

The first complete English translation of Nadar's intelligent and witty memoir, a series of vignettes that capture his experiences in the early days of photography.

Celebrated nineteenth-century photographer--and writer, actor, caricaturist, inventor, and balloonist--Félix Nadar published this memoir of his photographic life in 1900 at the age of eighty. Composed as a series of vignettes (we might view them as a series of "written photographs"), this intelligent and witty book offers stories of Nadar's experiences in the early years of photography, memorable character sketches, and meditations on history. It is a classic work, cited by writers from Walter Benjamin to Rosalind Krauss. This is its first and only complete English translation.

In When I Was a Photographer (Quand j'étais photographe), Nadar tells us about his descent into the sewers and catacombs of Paris, where he experimented with the use of artificial lighting, and his ascent into the skies over Paris in a hot air balloon, from which he took the first aerial photographs. He recounts his "postal photography" during the 1870-1871 Siege of Paris--an amazing scheme involving micrographic images and carrier pigeons. He describes technical innovations and important figures in photography, and offers a thoughtful consideration of society and culture; but he also writes entertainingly about such matters as Balzac's terror of being photographed, the impact of a photograph on a celebrated murder case, and the difference between male and female clients. Nadar's memoir captures, as surely as his photographs, traces of a vanished era.

WHITE

WHITE

By: Pastoureau, Michel
$39.95
More Info

From the acclaimed author of Blue, a beautifully illustrated history of the color white in visual culture, from antiquity to today

As a pigment, white is often thought to represent an absence of color, but it is without doubt an important color in its own right, just like red, blue, green, or yellow--and, like them, white has its own intriguing history. In this richly illustrated book, Michel Pastoureau, a celebrated authority on the history of colors, presents a fascinating visual, social, and cultural history of the color white in European societies, from antiquity to today.

Illustrated throughout with a wealth of captivating images ranging from the ancient world to the twenty-first century, White examines the evolving place, perception, and meaning of this deceptively simple but complex hue in art, fashion, literature, religion, science, and everyday life across the millennia. Before the seventeenth century, white's status as a true color was never contested. On the contrary, from antiquity until the height of the Middle Ages, white formed with red and black a chromatic triad that played a central role in life and art. Nor has white always been thought of as the opposite of black. Through the Middle Ages, the true opposite of white was red. White also has an especially rich symbolic history, and the color has often been associated with purity, virginity, innocence, wisdom, peace, beauty, and cleanliness.

With its striking design and compelling text, White is a colorful history of a surprisingly vivid and various color.

WHY ARCHITECTS STILL DRAW

WHY ARCHITECTS STILL DRAW

By: Belardi, Paolo
$15.95
More Info
An architect's defense of drawing as a way of thinking, even in an age of electronic media.

Why would an architect reach for a pencil when drawing software and AutoCAD are a click away? Use a ruler when 3D-scanners and GPS devices are close at hand? In Why Architects Still Draw, Paolo Belardi offers an elegant and ardent defense of drawing by hand as a way of thinking. Belardi is no Luddite; he doesn't urge architects to give up digital devices for watercolors and a measuring tape. Rather, he makes a case for drawing as the interface between the idea and the work itself.

A drawing, Belardi argues, holds within it the entire final design. It is the paradox of the acorn: a project emerges from a drawing--even from a sketch, rough and inchoate--just as an oak tree emerges from an acorn. Citing examples not just from architecture but also from literature, chemistry, music, archaeology, and art, Belardi shows how drawing is not a passive recording but a moment of invention pregnant with creative possibilities.

Moving from the sketch to the survey, Belardi explores the meaning of measurement in a digital era. A survey of a site should go beyond width, height, and depth; it must include two more dimensions: history and culture. Belardi shows the sterility of techniques that value metric exactitude over cultural appropriateness, arguing for an "informed drawing" that takes into consideration more than meters or feet, stone or steel. Even in the age of electronic media, Belardi writes, drawing can maintain its role as a cornerstone of architecture.

WHY ARCHITECTURE MATTERS

WHY ARCHITECTURE MATTERS

By: Goldberger, Paul
$18.00
More Info
A classic work on the joy of experiencing architecture, with a new afterword reflecting on architecture's place in the contemporary moment

"Architecture begins to matter," writes Paul Goldberger, "when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads." In Why Architecture Matters, he shows us how that works in examples ranging from a small Cape Cod cottage to the vast, flowing Prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Guggenheim Bilbao. He eloquently describes the Church of Sant'Ivo in Rome as a work that "embraces the deepest complexities of human imagination."

In his afterword to this new edition, Goldberger addresses the current climate in architectural history and takes a more nuanced look at projects such as Thomas Jefferson's academical village at the University of Virginia and figures including Philip Johnson, whose controversial status has been the topic of much recent discourse. He argues that the emotional impact of great architecture remains vital, even as he welcomes the shift in the field to an increased emphasis on social justice and sustainability.

product image

WHY PHOTOGRAPHY MATTERS

By: Thompson, Jerry L
$13.95
More Info

A lucid and wide-ranging meditation on why photography is unique among the picture-making arts.

Photography matters, writes Jerry Thompson, because of how it works--not only as an artistic medium but also as a way of knowing. With this provocative observation, Thompson begins a wide-ranging and lucid meditation on why photography is unique among the picture-making arts. He constructs an argument that moves with natural logic from Thomas Pynchon (and why we read him for his vision and not his command of miscellaneous facts) to Jonathan Swift to Plato to Emily Dickinson (who wrote "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant") to detailed readings of photographs by Eugène Atget, Garry Winogrand, Marcia Due, Walker Evans, and Robert Frank. Forcefully and persuasively, he argues for photography as a medium whose business is not constructing fantasies pleasing to the eye or imagination, but describing the world in the toughest and deepest way.

product image

WOMEN ARE HEROES

By: Jr
$40.00
More Info
Guerilla street artist JR traveled to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Kenya, Brazil, India, and Cambodia to seek out women struggling in their everyday lives and, in his words, "to take their stories around the world." Pasting mural-size portraits of his subjects into their own communities--on the sides of buildings, on trains, on bridges--he brings a haunting human presence to harsh environments of social conflict. His photographs of the vast outdoor "exhibitions" that he creates are iconic images celebrating the worth of the individual. A beautifully illustrated account of this remarkable project, Women Are Heroes introduces JR's thrilling imagery of the modern landscape filled with human faces, and also includes his original photographic portraits paired with interviews in which the women share their lives and dreams.
WORLD ATLAS OF STREET ART AND GRAFFITI

WORLD ATLAS OF STREET ART AND GRAFFITI

By: Macdowall, Lachlan
$40.00
More Info
Bursting with color and energy, this revised edition of the definitive guide to street art and graffiti covers the world's most significant artists, styles, and the urban landscapes that form their canvas

Ten years after its original publication, The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti is recognized as the definitive guide to the most significant artists and styles of street art and graffiti around the world. This revised edition brings the content up to our present moment, expanding its geographic breadth to six continents. Featuring more than 700 full-color photographs of raw, energetic, whimsical, and eye-catching art, the book is visually exciting as well as an essential survey of the urban art of our time.

Organized geographically by country and city, the publication profiles more than 100 of today's most important street artists--Espo in New York, Merlot in Seattle, Os Gêmeos in São Paulo, Michael Pederson in Sydney, Essu in Tokyo, Lady K in Paris, Milu Correch in Buenos Aires, and Nardstar in Cape Town----alongside key examples of their work. With contributions by the foremost authorities on street art and graffiti, this landmark publication continues to provide a nuanced understanding of a global contemporary art practice.

WRITERS

WRITERS

By: Wilson, Laura
$45.00
More Info
Intimate photo essays of thirty-eight important writers, including Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Zadie Smith, and Colm Tóibín

"We've all seen writers on the dust jackets of their books. These portraits, it seemed to me, generally failed to convey either character or personality. Writers deserve better. I wanted to make compelling pictures that would stick in the mind's eye."--Laura Wilson

Inspired by the classic photo essays that once appeared in Life magazine, renowned photographer Laura Wilson presents dynamic portraits of thirty-eight internationally acclaimed writers. Through her photos and accompanying texts, she gives us vivid, revealing glimpses into the everyday lives of such luminaries as Rachel Cusk, Edwidge Danticat, David McCullough, Haruki Murakami, and the late Carlos Fuentes and Seamus Heaney, among others. Margaret Atwood works in her garden. Tim O'Brien performs magic tricks for his family. And Louise Erdrich, who contributes an introduction, speaks with customers in her Minneapolis bookstore. At once inviting and poignant, the book reflects on writing and photography's shared concerns with invention, transformation, memory, and preservation. With 220 duotone images, The Writers: Portraits will appeal to fans of literature and photography alike.

Published in association with the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin