Auguste Rodin rose from humble origins to become one of the most influential sculptors of all time, regarded during his life as a Michelangelo of the modern age. The influence of such masterpieces as The Thinker, Eternal Idol, The Kiss and The Burghers of Calais still reverberates today, almost one hundred years after Rodin’s death. Jennifer Gough-Cooper’s interest in photography was sparked by a chance visit to the Hôtel Biron in Paris, Rodin’s eighteenth-century château. There, Rodin’s sculpture inhabits its own environment; light streams in from grand windows, bathing objects in colour and breathing life into the stone. Her photographs reveal soft Impressionist forms with a wonderful painterly quality.

«Louise Brooks has become one of the most spectacular icons of early cinema. Her distinctive «bob» haircut looks as modern as they did when she first appeared in films in 1925. Louise Brooks was born on November 14, 1906 in Cherryvale, Kansas, and by eighteen had established herself as a dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies, and was receiving film offers from both MGM and Paramount. In 1928, she starred in William Wellman's Beggars of Life. Meanwhile she was mingling with the high and mighty of Hollywood, having a passionate affair with Charlie Chaplin, spending weekends at William Randolph Hearst's castle and captivating such men as William S. Paley, the founder of CBS. Her brief, yet spectacular role in Howard Hawks' A Girl in Every Port impressed G.W. Pabst, the German maestro who was seeking an actress for his upcoming production, Pandora's Box. He rejected Marlene Dietrich in favor of Brooks, who went to Berlin and made not only Pandora's Box but also Diary of a Lost Girl, forever ensuring her status as a screen icon.This exquisitely produced album celebrates Lulu with rare film footage stills, private photos, letters, interviews, and text by renowned film critic Peter Cowie, exploring this influential cult figure and abiding symbol of the Jazz Age.»

«Owen Jones was, and still remains, a highly influential force in the world of architecture and design. His prolific and impressive work—captured here in its various stages through drawings, architectural plans, and photographs—is as current, imaginative, and important now as when it first emerged more than 125 years ago. Owen Jones: Design, Ornament, Architecture & Theory in an Age in Transition fills a serious gap in the history of Victorian design. In his early career Jones was recognized as an authority on Oriental design. In the 1850-s he was commissioned to decorate the interior of Joseph Paxton's magnificent World's Fair Crystal Palace in London. Other signature projects include St. James' Hall, the Crystal Palace Bazaar, Osler's Glass Shop, and Eynsham Hall at Oxford. In 1856 he completed his monumental Grammar of Ornament, which remains one of the most influential works on design ever published and is a source for many artists and designers today. More than just an architect, Jones' skills were applied to designing interiors, books, textiles, furniture, and carpet. His philosophy can most accurately be expressed in his words, «Form without color is like a body without a soul.»

The Floridian paradise for modern residential architecture during the 50's and 60's, on par with the West Coast oasis Palm Springs, and now of great stylistic influence for tropical homeowners.

A beautiful record of America's jazz age, Jazz Age Beauties celebrates the original Ziegfeld Follies girls with gorgeous portraits and publicity stills by photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston — a star maker of the 1920s and '30s. With more than 100 beautiful vintage photographs of Broadway starlets and silent film actresses, Jazz Age Beauties is an evocative and nostalgic ode to a glamorous era of America's history. It is also an important and interesting document of one of America's first star makers, Alfred Cheney Johnston, who is credited with inventing America's celebrity culture and creating the image of the all-American It girl. Beginning with the era of the Gibson Girl in the 1890s and proceeding to the era of the Ziegfeld Girl the book contains anecdotes, bios and memorabilia such as advertising photographs for lingerie, perfume, furs, hats and make-up that define the glamour and society of the age.

Questo romanzo è la storia di un progressivo inoltrarsi nel sogno di un silenzio assoluto, che il giovane narratore compie con ritmi e colpi di scena. Chi è quest'uomo anonimo, che potrebbe essere chiunque e decide di ricercare un silenzio totale, a cui il mondo esterno si rivolta aumentando il suo fragore immorale e malefico? La lotta contro il frastuono per la conquista del silenzio assoluto è la saga di un uomo normale, sposato con una donna che non ama, dalla vita semplice e borghese.

Prior to the 1960s, Andrew Wyeth enjoyed a stellar reputation as a rising star in the art world. Since then, critics and scholars have largely ignored him. Wyeth, however, who is age 88 at the date of publication, has continued to paint, to the delight of his admirers, collectors, and the art-loving public. Now, in association with the High Museum exhibition, Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic takes a fresh look at the work of one of America's most beloved artists.In examining his entire oeuvre, the book celebrates the artist's ongoing love affair with everyday life-domestic, natural, and architectural. Found throughout Wyeth's work, these objects form patterns that illuminate core themes and reveal the artist wrestling with issues of memory, temporality, embodiment, and the metaphysical. Organized chronologically and thematically, the book explores how the artist's approach to these subjects was formed in his early career, and has been revisited in new and surprising ways in recent years.Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic comprises 150 tempera paintings and 50 drawings and watercolors-including his most-famous works, but also many published here for the first time.

Frank Lloyd Wright is not only synonymous with architecture, his name is also synonymous with the American house in the twentieth century. In particular, his residential work has been the subject of continuing interest and controversy. Wright's Fallingwater (1935), the seminal masterpiece perched over a waterfall deep in the Pennsylvania highlands, is perhaps the best-known private house in the history of the world. In fact, Wright's houses — from his Prairie style Robie House (1906) in Chicago, to the Storer (1923) and Freeman (1923) houses in Los Angeles, and Taliesen West (1937) in the Arizona desert — are all touchstones of modern architecture. For the first time, all 289 extant houses are shown here in exquisite color photographs. Along with Weintraub's stunning photos and a selection of floor plans and archival images, the book includes text and essays by several leading Wright scholars. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses is an event of great importance and a major contribution to the literature on this titan of modern architecture.

Jed Johnson: Opulent Restraint is the first book to chronicle the fascinating career, work and times of an interior design superstar whose life was cut short in 1996 by the disastrous explosion of TWA Flight 800. From humble beginnings in Minnesota, Johnson rose to prominence in nineteen-seventies New York, via the Warhol Factory, to the highest echelons of the rarified world of design and decoration. His impressive celebrity client list included Pierre Bergé, Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, Richard Gere, and Barbara Streisand. Yet, with success and acclaim, he never lost his shy humility, generous spirit and quiet grace. Through a series of essays, project photographs and personal pictures we trace the influences on his nascent career, his special relationship with Andy Warhol and his magical affect on others. Many never-before-seen photographs are included by important photographers, among them: Cecil Beaton, Francesco Scavullo, Billy Name, Jack Mitchell, John Hall, Elizabeth Heyert and Warhol himself. Opulent Restraint is a must have book for every interior design office and for those interested in the fascinating Warhol years in New York. Interior Design magazine called Johnson “a great talent” whose “spirit lives on in a stunning legacy of interior design”.

Prairie Skyscraper traces the history and evolution of Wright's recently restored nineteen-story-skyscraper masterwork, which takes its place beside the S.C. Johnson Wax Research Tower as one of Wright's only two vertical structures-and, at 221 feet tall-his largest. Built as a multi-use skyscraper in 1956, the building is now a luxury hotel and arts center, featuring collections of the works of Bruce Goff and Frank Lloyd Wright, and soon a new museum facility designed by Zaha Hadid. Now, with all-new color photography, we are given access to this extraordinary architectural gem and the Wright-designed furnishings custom made for it.

Throughout his career, David Hovey has designed spaces for living, exploiting structure and materials to create buildings of strength, simplicity, and grace. The Nature of Dwellings presents a comprehensive view of the seven single-family houses Hovey has designed, three near Chicago and four in Arizona, and relates them to his award-winning portfolio of multifamily housing developments.Lavish suites of photographs reveal the sweep of space through the interiors and the relationship of the houses to the land. Through a series of comments accompanying these photographs, Hovey describes his design intention and the palette of materials that creates a unique solution for each site. These houses merge into the landscape, and, with names like Ravine Bluff, Cloud Chaser, and Shadow Caster, their ties to the land and climate are clear.

This epic history is the first comprehensive survey of the use of wood in architecture throughout the ages. The book is organized both chronologically and geographically. It features works from the oldest heritage of wooden buildings (Kyoto's Buddhist temples and Scandinavia's pagan-inspired stave churches) to the latest cutting edge designs, proving that wood is on the rise as the preferred material in these ecologically conscious times. Every region of the world with a native tradition of building with wood is carefully examined. In North America, the book demonstrates the European origins of New England's clapboards and saltboxes, and later shows how such sophisticated California architects as Greene & Greene or Bernard Maybeck could blend age-old traditions of the Far East and Switzerland with a Pacific Coast sense of novelty and whimsy. Spectacular and diverse photographs highlight the architectural masterpieces of wooden architecture throughout the world, illustrating that wood is a building material with a deep history as well as a vibrant future.

«Sempre più Dorian Gray si innamorava della sua stessa bellezza, con sempre maggiore interesse seguiva il corrompersi della sua anima...» fino a uccidere la sua immagine e se stesso. Sinistra vicenda di magie, delitti e sdoppiamenti di personalità, «Il ritratto di Dorian Gray» non è solamente un romanzo dell'orrore e una profonda riflessione sul tema filosofico del doppio, ma il vero e proprio breviario del decadentismo e dell'estetismo fin-de-siècle.»

Gwathmey Siegel has long been the architect of choice for clients who want to combine extravagance with an intellectually rigorous, well-crafted modernism. While the houses for which they are so justly renowned often exceed 20,000 square feet, the apartments they have designed are frequently one-tenth that size. The work, however, does not suffer from this reduction in scale, it rather takes on a stunning intensity — as if the ideas encompassed in the bigger houses are in the apartments compressed into tight, concentrated forms. The seventeen apartments featured in this monograph document the evolution of the firm's design ethos over thirty years of practice from a minimalist modernism to what has sometimes been described as baroque modernism.

Imagining Ground Zero: Official and Unofficial Proposals for the World Trade Center Site documents not only the master plan competition, won by Studio Daniel Libeskind and sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, but also proposals submitted by invitation of and published by New York magazine, proposals from the exhibition at Max Protetch Gallery, as well as a selection from the more than 5,000 schemes submitted to the competition for the World Trade Center Memorial. This survey features in depth the official scheme for the site, designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with the collaboration of Daniel Libeskind of Studio Daniel Libeskind; Reflecting Absence, the winning scheme for the memorial, designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker; and, as well, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, designed by Santiago Calatrava, DMJM + Harris, and STV Group.

New Classicism provides an in-depth look at a form of design that appeared lost forever with the rise of modernism in architecture. But now, with an intense revival of interest in classical design, and with the demise in popularity of the subsequent postmodernism, new vigor has infused traditional forms and motifs. Focusing on thirty-four projects by the best classically oriented firms in the United States and Great Britain, New Classicism examines this burgeoning new vogue for the many varieties of traditional classical design, such as Georgian, Palladian, neoclassical, Greek Revival, Empire and Federal, and even classicized forays into the Gothic.

Following on the runaway success of This is New York, Universe is thrilled to reissue two more titles from M. Sasek's beloved children's travel series: This is London and This is Paris. Like This is New York and This is San Francisco, This is London and This is Paris are facsimile editions of Sasek's original titles. His brilliant, vibrant illustrations have been meticulously preserved and remain true to his vision. With the passing of time facts have been updated where applicable in the back of each book. Perfect souvenirs with timely and nostalgic appeal, the books have an elegant, classic look and delightful narrative that will charm both children and their parents, many of whom will remember them from their own childhood. This is London, first published in 1959, presents impressions of London with its beautiful buildings, historic monuments, bridges, parks, shops and Piccadilly Circus, black cabs, Horse Guards, and famed Underground. This is Paris, first published in 1959, brings Paris, one of the most exciting cities in the world, to life. There are famous buildings, beautiful gardens, cafes, and the Parisians-artists, concierges, flower girls, and even thousands of cats. Take a tour along the banks of the Seine, through the galleries of the Louvre, and to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

The Architecture of Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company is a monograph on the highly successful urban design and architecture firm started by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk in 1980 and now known simply as DPZ. Credited with popularizing small towns and villages as welcome alternatives to the bleak monotony of the suburbs, DPZ champions vernacular architecture (traditional buildings with ties to local culture) in neighborhoods that share the same common features that made smalltown living so livable. This book illustrates representative buildings, mainly houses, that make up some of these communities, in such places as Seaside, Florida, Kentlands, Maryland, and Markham, Ontario. In addition, the book showcases individual buildings that demonstrate DPZ's reinvigoration of a simple vernacular architecture, including the Hibiscus House in Coconut Grove, Florida, and the Carambola Villas in St. Croix.

A passion for luxury and beauty propels the multifaceted work of acclaimed international architect and interior designer Robert Couturier. Robert Couturier's aesthetic is a dialogue between Old World elegance and contemporary design. His masterful approach effortlessly brings eras together, for example a Louis XVI commode with a 1960s lamp. Couturier's name has become synonymous with continental and international style, and he is known for composing adventurous rooms that have a witty flair. All his interiors extol the importance of how a home should stimulate the five senses, from the tactile feel of upholstery to the visual presentation of objects that leads a person through a space. The book opens with a tour of Couturier's country retreat in bucolic Kent, Connecticut. Composed of neoclassical-style pavilions, early American guesthouses, and beautiful gardens, the house features imaginative rooms that are filled with his collections of European art, furniture, and decorative objects. A selection of the designer's other projects — from smart contemporary apartments to romantic Mexican villas to a stately English manor — provides further inspiration.