Speed up my Brain: December 2013

William Hodgins Interiors - Stephen M. Salny

>> Tuesday, December 31, 2013

A lavish look at the work, over nearly half a century, of one of the last of the great old-guard decorators.

One of the deans of American interior decoration, William Hodgins follows in the footsteps of the legendary Billy Baldwin and also Sister Parish and Albert Hadley, for whom he worked early in his career. Based in Boston since the late 1960s, Hodgins’s work encompasses residential commissions from New England to Florida, as far west as California, and overseas. His interiors have been celebrated in the pages of Architectural Digest, House & Garden, House Beautiful, and other magazines and books. This is the first publication entirely devoted to his oeuvre, which spans five decades.

Hodgins’s rooms are beautiful, thoughtful, and poetic; they are airy, light-filled spaces. They are also, in his words, as “extraordinarily luxurious as they can be in a quiet, understated way.” Handsome architectural detailing and a soothing palette work their magic and create visual flow; Hodgins is a master artist, his designs reminiscent of Merchant-Ivory films. A Hodgins interior is governed by white, and the decorator invokes the slightest of subtleties and different shades of white. For Hodgins, whites “reflect the quality of life and light in a room.” They “glow behind the art and furniture,” are restful, timeless, and age gracefully. Yet Hodgins is also noted for his judicious use of exquisitely clear and jewel-like colors: this skillful combination makes his interiors special, inviting, and comfortable.

Among the forty notable commissions covered in this generously illustrated book are the private quarters of the American ambassador’s residence in Paris (1997), a pied-a-terre in a 1920s Beaux-Arts apartment building on San Francisco’s Nob Hill, several prewar cooperative apartments in New York City, and a considerable number of houses and apartments in the Boston and Washington, DC, areas and in Palm Beach, Florida. The majority of his commissions have been carried out for repeat and loyal clients, many of whom have commissioned him to decorate multiple homes. This presentation of his work will be valued not only by professional decorators but also by everyone seeking the best in interior design. 280 color illustrations

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Neutra: Complete Works (25) -

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Frank Lloyd Wright The Houses - Alan Hess

>> Monday, December 30, 2013

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.

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Gilded New York: Design, Fashion, and Society -

The Gilded Years of the late nineteenth century were a vital and glamorous era in New York City as families of great fortune sought to demonstrate their new position by building vast Fifth Avenue mansions filled with precious objects and important painting collections and hosting elaborate fetes and balls. This is the moment of Mrs. Astor’s “Four Hundred,” the rise of the Vanderbilts and Morgans, Maison Worth, Tiffany & Co., Duveen, and Allard. Concurrently these families became New York’s first cultural philanthropists, supporting the fledgling Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Opera, among many institutions founded during this period. A collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York, Gilded New York examines the social and cultural history of these years, focusing on interior design and decorative arts, fashion and jewelry, and the publications that were the progenitors of today’s shelter magazines.

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Never Built Los Angeles - Sam Lubell

Never Built Los Angeles explores the "what if" Los Angeles, investigating the values and untapped potential of a city still in search of itself. A treasure trove of buildings, master plans, parks, follies and mass-transit proposals that only saw the drawing board, the book asks: why is Los Angeles a mecca for great architects, yet so lacking in urban innovation? Featured are more than 100 visionary works that could have transformed both the physical reality and the collective perception of the metropolis, from Olmsted Brothers and Bartholomew's groundbreaking 1930 Plan for the Los Angeles Region, which would have increased the amount of green space in the notoriously park-poor city fivefold; to John Lautner's Alto Capistrano, a series of spaceship-like apartments hovering above a mixed-use development; to Jean Nouvel's 2008 Green Blade, a condominium tower clad entirely in cascading plants. Through text and more than 400 color and black-and-white illustrations drawn from archives around the U.S., authors Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin explore the visceral (and sometimes misleading) power of architectural ideas conveyed through sketches, renderings, blueprints, models and the now waning art of hand drawing. Many of these schemes--promoting a denser, more vibrant city--are still relevant today and could inspire future designs. Never Built Los Angeles will set the stage for a renewed interest in visionary projects in this, one of the world's great cities.

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The Great American House: Tradition for the Way We Live Now -

Acclaimed architect Gil Schafer illustrates how he blends classical architecture, interior decoration, and landscape to create homes with a feeling of history. As a traditional architect, Gil Schafer specializes in building new "old" houses as well as renovating historic homes. His work takes the best of American historic and classical architecture—its detailed moldings and harmonious proportions—and updates it, retaining its character and detail while simultaneously reworking it to be more in tune with the way we live now—comfortable, practical, family-oriented. In his first book, Schafer covers the three essential cornerstones of creating a great traditional house: architecture, landscape, and decoration. He discusses the important interplay between the interior architecture and the fabrics, furniture, and wall treatments. In-depth profiles build on these essays, including Schafer’s own new "old" house in the Hudson Valley; the renovation of a historic home in Nashville designed by Charles Platt in 1915; and the restoration of a magnificent 1843 Greek Revival mansion in Charleston.Filled with hundreds of interior and detail shots, The Great American House is an invaluable resource for anyone who loves old houses and traditional design.

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Thomas Pheasant: Simply Serene - Victoria Sant

The work of influential, award-winning interior designer Thomas Pheasant is best described as "contemporary classical" and simply serene. Celebrated interior designer Thomas Pheasant is best known for his seamless melding of tradition and the contemporary. His spaces are fresh and of the age yet also enduringly timeless. Balancing classical elements, like recessed paneling, pilasters, crown moldings, and carved plaster garlands, Pheasant introduces modern details, sometimes including such flourishes and surprising complements as a scroll coffee table and a room screen of ribbed, translucent glass. Unafraid of combining pieces from various traditions, he achieves a sense of harmony and balance. This lavish offering of his work gives the reader a sensible, artful approach to interior design, presenting models of great aesthetic subtlety and beauty. Based in Washington, D.C., Thomas Pheasant works around the globe. Recent projects include the redesign of Blair House, the President’s guest house on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the White House, and apartments in Washington, New York, Paris, and Moscow. Never a strict by-the-book traditionalist, Pheasant responds to and sees in classicism its rational order, its quietude, its serenity.

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101 Things I Learned in Architecture School - Matthew Frederick

101 THINGS I LEARNED IN ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the design studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language the things they tend to make murky and abstruse. These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation--from the basics of how to draw a line to the complexities of color theory--provide a much-needed primer in architectural literacy and make concrete what too often is left nebulous and open-ended in the architecture curriculum.

Like all books in the popular and celebrated 101 THINGS I LEARNED® book series, the lessons in 101 THINGS I LEARNED IN ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL utilize a unique two-page format, with a brief explanation and accompanying illustration. A lesson on how to draw a line is accompanied by examples of good and bad lines; a lesson on awkward floor level changes shows the television actor Dick Van Dyke in the midst of a pratfall; and a discussion of the proportional differences between traditional and modern buildings features a building split neatly in half between the two.

Written by an architect and instructor who well remembers the fog of his own student days, 101 THINGS I LEARNED IN ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL provides valuable guideposts for students navigating the architectural design studio and the rest of the architecture curriculum. Architecture graduates, from young designers to experienced practitioners, will turn to the book as well for inspiration and a guide back to basics when solving complex design problems.

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Matthew Frederick is an architect and urban designer in Hudson, New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mid-Century Modern: Interiors, Furniture, Design Details (Conran Octopus Interiors) - Bradley Quinn

>> Sunday, December 29, 2013

The 1950’s house was a scientific triumph, designed in a laboratory and tested on inhabitants of all ages before being built for the masses. Never had homes been so thoroughly contemporary, with antiques and period styles entirely banished. Mid-Century Modern explores the interior decor of this seminal decade, concentrating on all aspects of a home's decoration—walls, flooring, surfaces, lighting, and, of course, furniture. Case studies examine beautiful present-day homes that exhibit mid-century style in an exemplary way, and suggest ideas for taking the 1950’s look—complete with collector's pieces—and mixing and matching it with elements from other eras.

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BRADLEY QUINN is a British author and journalist with expertise in fashion, architecture, textiles and design. His books include Techno Fashion, The Fashion of Architecture, Chinese Style, Scandinavian Style, Mid-century Modern, Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge, Textile Futures and UltraMaterials. Three of his books (The Fashion of Architecture, Designed in Sweden and Mid-century Modern) became exhibitions that toured internationally. Bradley Quinn was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2003, and lectures at institutions and events throughout the world today.

Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin - Catherine Merridale

A magisterial, richly detailed history of the Kremlin, and of the centuries of Russian elites who have shaped it—and been shaped by it in turn

The Kremlin is the heart of the Russian state, a fortress whose blood-red walls have witnessed more than eight hundred years of political drama and extraordinary violence. It has been the seat of a priestly monarchy and a worldly church; it has served as a crossroads for diplomacy, trade, and espionage; it has survived earthquakes, devastating fires, and at least three revolutions. Its very name is a byword for enduring power. From Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin, generations of Russian leaders have sought to use the Kremlin to legitimize their vision of statehood.

Drawing on a dazzling array of sources from hitherto unseen archives and rare collections, renowned historian Catherine Merridale traces the full history of this enigmatic fortress. The Kremlin has inspired innumerable myths, but no invented tales could be more dramatic than the operatic successions and savage betrayals that took place within its vast compound of palaces and cathedrals. Today, its sumptuous golden crosses and huge electric red stars blaze side by side as the Kremlin fulfills its centuries-old role, linking the country’s recent history to its distant past and proclaiming the eternal continuity of the Russian state.

More than an absorbing history of Russia’s most famous landmark, Red Fortress uses the Kremlin as a unique lens, bringing into focus the evolution of Russia’s culture and the meaning of its politics.

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Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis - Robert M. Edsel

New York Times Bestseller

"A poignant, fascinating story, bringing to life the soldier-scholars who saved Italy's treasures."—Evan Thomas, best-selling author of Ike’s Bluff and Sea of Thunder

When Hitler’s armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind’s greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire.

On the eve of the Allied invasion, General Dwight Eisenhower empowered a new kind of soldier to protect these historic riches. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes—artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt—embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars of missing art, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Caravaggio, and Botticelli.

With the German army retreating up the Italian peninsula, orders came from the highest levels of the Nazi government to transport truckloads of art north across the border into the Reich. Standing in the way was General Karl Wolff, a top-level Nazi officer. As German forces blew up the magnificent bridges of Florence, General Wolff commandeered the great collections of the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace, later risking his life to negotiate a secret Nazi surrender with American spymaster Allen Dulles.

Brilliantly researched and vividly written, Saving Italy brings readers from Milan and the near destruction of The Last Supper to the inner sanctum of the Vatican and behind closed doors with the preeminent Allied and Axis leaders: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Churchill; Hitler, Göring, and Himmler.

An unforgettable story of epic thievery and political intrigue, Saving Italy is a testament to heroism on behalf of art, culture, and history.

60 illustrations; maps

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Robert M. Edsel is the New York Times best-selling author of the non-fiction books, Rescuing Da Vinci, The Monuments Men and Saving Italy. Mr. Edsel is also the co-producer of the award-winning documentary film, The Rape of Europa. Mr. Edsel published Beyond the Dreams of Avarice: The Hermann Goering Collection by Nancy Yeide, the first study devoted to Goering's entire paintings collection. In addition, he is the Founder and President of the nonprofit, Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, which received the National Humanities Medal. Mr. Edsel has been awarded the "Texas Medal of Arts" Award; the "President's Call to Service" Award; and the "Hope for Humanity" Award, presented by the Dallas Holocaust Museum. He also serves as a Trustee at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. Academy Award winner George Clooney will direct and star in a film based on Mr. Edsel's book, The Monuments Men. The film, which also stars Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Hugh Bonneville, Jean Dujardin and Bob Balaban, is set for theatrical release on December 18, 2013.

Mario Buatta: Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration - Mario Buatta

The eagerly anticipated first monograph to celebrate the fifty-years-and-counting career of decorating legend Mario Buatta. Influenced by the understated elegance of Colefax and Fowler and the doyenne of exuberant American decor, Sister Parish, Buatta reinvented the English Country House style stateside for clients such as Henry Ford II, Barbara Walters, Malcolm Forbes, and Mariah Carey, and for Blair House, the President’s guest quarters. The designer is acclaimed for his sumptuous rooms that layer fine antiques, confectionary curtains, and sublime colorations, creating an atmosphere of lived-in opulence. This lavishly illustrated survey—filled with images taken for the foremost shelter magazines as well as many unpublished photographs from the designer’s own archive—closely follows Buatta’s highly documented career from his professional start in the 1950s working for department store B. Altman & Co. and Elisabeth Draper, Inc. to his most recent projects, which include some of the country’s finest residences. Buatta shares exclusive insights into his process, his own rules for decorating, and personal stories of his adventures along the way.

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Decorating in Detail - Alexa Hampton

>> Saturday, December 28, 2013

The celebrated designer and author of The Language of Interior Design takes readers deeply into her process of selecting the details for elegant, classic homes with inviting living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, kitchens, and other spaces.

In her first book, Alexa Hampton shared the basics of interior design--Contrast, Proportion, Color, and Balance--to rave reviews from readers and the media. In Decorating in Detail, Alexa shares the development process for eight elegant homes in locations from New York City to New Orleans. Walking readers through each room, she describes how she and the homeowners chose all of the elements, from textures to fabrics to furniture.

Sidebars on the best placement for lamps, outlets, and more (inspired by her popular Wall Street Journal "Where-to" column) and Sharpie drawings that show how she visualized the room's transformations help the reader build an unprecedented understanding of interior home design as a whole.

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The Houses of Louis Kahn - George H. Marcus

Louis Kahn (1901–1974), one of the most important architects of the postwar period, is widely admired for his great monumental works, including the Kimbell Art Museum, the Salk Institute, and the National Assembly Complex in Bangladesh. However, the importance of his houses has been largely overlooked. This beautiful book is the first to look at Kahn’s nine major private houses. Beginning with his earliest encounters with Modernism in the late 1920s and continuing through his iconic work of the 1960s and 1970s, the authors trace the evolution of the architect’s thinking, which began and matured through his design of houses and their interiors, a process inspired by his interactions with clients and his admiration for vernacular building traditions.

Richly illustrated with new and period photographs and original drawings, as well as previously unpublished materials from personal interviews, archives, and Kahn’s own writings, The Houses of Louis Kahn shows how his ideas about domestic spaces challenged conventions, much like his major public commissions, and were developed into one of the most remarkable expressions of the American house.

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Axel Vervoordt: Living with Light - Axel Vervoordt

Following the best seller Axel Vervoordt: Timeless Interiors, this volume of twenty new interiors expands on the Vervoordt vision for creating exceptional homes that combine natural elements, antiques, and fine art. The art of harmonious living is extolled in this volume through twenty bespoke interiors designed by the Axel Vervoordt company. Each room incorporates natural elements—light, water, metal, wood—blended with a modern aesthetic and punctuated with fine art. The Vervoordt concept of the home is revealed through a refined balance between art and nature to create timeless living spaces. The range of featured properties includes homes by the sea as well as in urban and rural locations, demonstrating a breadth of styles possible within the essential Vervoordt design principles. Photography by Laziz Hamani brings into focus both the unique design details and the carefully constructed interiors that fuse to create each striking setting. These exceptional residences are rich with inspirational ideas to incorporate into your own home so that you can celebrate your living space in the singular Vervoordt style.

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The Welcoming House: The Art of Living Graciously - Jane Schwab

The owners of the acclaimed stores and decorating firm Circa Interiors present eight stylish, beautiful homes blending comfort, beauty, and function with classic Southern hospitality. A house with an open door is like a friend with an open heart: inviting, generous of spirit, and constant at the core. In their first book, Jane Schwab and Cindy Smith present beautifully arranged interiors in which the trademarks of their style—subtle color palettes, graceful furniture, an emphasis on comfort and entertaining—harmonize to create fresh yet classic rooms. Walking the reader through each home with their characteristic Southern charm, they share their vision and process, from big-picture topics such as room flow and furniture plans, to the importance of entryways and setting a beautiful table. The lessons also extend from the interior to the garden, as Schwab and Smith discuss how outside spaces can become natural extensions of the home for entertaining. Throughout, they share specific ideas for arranging rooms to welcome one, two, or four people as comfortably as fifty, establishing multifunctional, adaptable gathering places that are both gracious and functional for the family of the house as well as their guests.

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The Death and Life of Great American Cities (50th Anniversary Edition) (Modern Library) - Jane Jacobs

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