A Few Good Books - a list by Chris

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Reviews on various design books and publications.

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Viewing 1-10 of 26 Items

The Salvage Sisters' : Guide to Finding Style in the Street and Inspiration in the Attic

First to recommend

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By Kathleen Hackett and Mary Ann Young. Artisan, hardcover $22.95, softcover $14.95

O junk hounds, back-alley prowlers, garage sale addicts and all tenderhearted toward cast-offs, rejoice: Your bible is here, or at least its first book. <i>The Salvage Sisters’ Guide to Finding Style in the Street and Inspiration in the Attic</i>, by EOL contributor Hackett and her sister, is, like its title, full of good news: It’s clever to turn an old prom gown into a dressing table skirt, plant silk blossoms in a cane chair seat, replace a mantel mirror and objets with explosions of ball fringe, and perform many another minor decorating miracles with what’s often right under one’s nose. After this genesis, the Salvage Sisters will pick up plenty of converts. (via Elements of Living)

Updated Apr 12, 2006

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Arts and Crafts Gardens

First to recommend

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By Wendy Hitchmough. V & A Publications, $24.95
“The house as a work of art, perfectly harmonious in its relationship with nature, was designed to have an improving effect upon the spirit as well as the lifestyle of the client,” writes art historian Wendy Hitchmough in this well-illus-trated and informative book tracing the Arts & Crafts movement from its main inspiration—the garden. Design reform at the turn of the twentieth century mirrored political and social changes of the day. In reaction to the Industrial Revolution, for example, pioneers of the Arts and Craft movement such as John Ruskin, William Morris and C. F. A. Voysey pushed for the need to get back to nature. As she guides us through the “almost wild plantings” that resulted from the movement’s desire to smudge the lines between outdoors and in, Hitch mough, curator of the Charleston, the famous Bloomsbury artists’ Sussex home, also provides an illumin-ating history of architecture, furniture and textiles. Color plates, historic black-and-white photographs and drawings of gardens in Britain, Europe and the US show readers the profound influence of Arts and Crafts on the gardens of our time. (via Elements of Living)

Updated Apr 12, 2006

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The New Modern House

2 people recommended this item

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I'm fascinated with modern architecture - like Chris said The New Modern House gets my wheels turning!! (via Chris)

Updated Oct 1, 2006

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Felder's Comprehensive

First to recommend

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By L. Nick Felder. Princeton Architectural Press, $125

Let’s say you get a client who wants his house completely decorated in woven wire, or is set on having a golf course installed in the backyard. Would you know where to go to make it happen? How about Woven Wire Products Association, or the American Society of Golf Course Architects? You’ll find those design resources and a heap of others in the 820 pages of Felder’s Comprehensive, compiled by author L. Nick Felder, a design and architecture marketer. The book’s vast listings include detailed contact information for associations and for the manufacturers themselves as well as for design-related museums, trade shows and events, design media, competitions and awards. This is a compendium that leads design pros to the resources they spend half their lives looking for. And in anticipation of your dependency, the publishers include a card for advance orders of the 2007 edition. (via Elements of Living)

Updated Apr 12, 2006

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At Home in Hudson Valley

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By Allison Serrell. Photographs by Meredith Heuer. Chronicle Books, $40

“The landscape that defined America” is the 315 miles that bestride the Hudson River, an area of rare visual and agricultural abundance, latticed with fieldstone walls. Dairy farmers, Ichabod Crane, cap-tains of industry and Dylan disciples all have called the Hudson River counties home, and any of them might be content in one of the remarkable dwellings scouted by Allison Serrell for her new book. Most were photographed, wisely, in peak fall or dead of winter, accentuating rhythms in the dense woods. What these houses most share, besides a preference for stone and wood, are delightful peculiarities that invite further investigation—a cypress shed that incorporates a 1940s silver Spartan trailer, a 20-foot slash of red door on a fog-painted wall. None of the houses is a perfect restoration; some of them are unashamedly “glamorized” (New York City design professionals have very entertaining notions of the perfect cabin in the woods). There are archetypes: batty Victorians (ten bedrooms and a blackened tin ballroom), disappearing acts (hooded Zen palaces, ivy-claimed cottages), deconsecrated churches and other conversions, even an eye-popping prefab. Each building expresses the creative souls who dwell within, the best that can be said of an interior design. (via Elements of Living)

Updated Apr 12, 2006

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Architectural Surfaces: Details for Artists, Architects, And Designers

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By Judy A. Juracek. W. W. Norton & Company, $89.95
If you are a texture person, someone who loves the look, touch and feel of objects, then brace yourself for this 352-page book composed solely (introductory text excepted) of 1,400 color images of architectural surfaces around the world. The latest addition to Judy Juracek’s Surfaces series, the tome appears to encompass every material a surface can be made of, every other material that can be applied on top of it and every architectural style. Even though you can’t actually touch the materials that make up the pictured walls, facades, windows, doorways, roofs, ceilings and ornamentation, their sheer variety and number will satisfy even the most texture-crazed designer or architect. (via Elements of Living)

Updated Apr 12, 2006

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The Abrams Guide to Period Styles for Interiors

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2 people recommended this item

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By Judith Gura. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., $40

The <i>Abrams Guide to Period Styles for Interiors</i> is an essential tool for anyone interested in the history of design and its relevance to current trends. Comprehensive, concise and cliché-free, it surveys the most influential looks in American decorating, with illustrations, drawings, photographs, fabric swatches and color palettes. The clarity with which the five-year evolution of designs presented earns The <i>Abrams Guide to Period Styles for Interiors</i> a place on the shelf in any designer’s reference library as well as a prominent spot on the desk/night table of any reader seeking inspiration for personal projects. (via Elements of Living)

Updated Apr 12, 2006

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Michael Graves: Images of a Grand Tour

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Princeton Architectural Press, $29.95

The coveted prix de rome scholarship, awarded yearly by the American Academy in Rome, took a young Michael Graves to Italy in 1960. Over 250 sketches and photographs from his two years of architectural studies in the Eternal City, and his subsequent travels through Europe, are the subject of a new book called <i>Michael Graves: Images of a Grand Tour</i>. Brian M. Ambroziak notes in the introduction that throughout his long career, Graves has honored architectural precedent not merely by “treating or employing history, but rather by participating in its continuities.” Thus sketches and photographs—a view of the Forum framed by a narrow doorway, the oculus of the Pantheon, Stonehenge—not only record the vernacular architectural language of an ancient time and place but suggest how, in his work, Graves has extended the architectural dialogue. <i>Images of a Grand Tour</i> stands on its own as an inspirational collection of beautiful and visually compelling renderings. (via Elements of Living)

Updated Apr 12, 2006

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Sourcebook of Modern Furniture

First to recommend

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By Jerryll Habegger and Joseph H. Osman
W. W. Norton $89.95

Like the two previous editions, the latest <i>Sourcebook of Modern Furniture</i> by Jerryll Habegger and Joseph H. Osman is filled with all facets of technologically innovative furniture from Gebrüder Thonet to Zaha Hadid. But this third edition offers the splendid and lively allure of color images. As the saying goes, third time’s a charm. Each of the 2,000 images is categorized by furniture type, year (in chronological order), model name or number, designer(s), manufacturer, materials and dimensions. With little text and relatively no historical information, this book is a great quick source for design professionals, furniture buyers and consumers looking for their favorite innovative and modern pieces to complete their home or office décor. (via Elements of Living)

Updated Apr 12, 2006

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