Books

Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Houses

8 September 2019 in Books Comment

A groundbreaking global survey of the finest mid-20th-century homes – one of the most popular styles of our time.

A fascinating collection of more than 400 of the world’s most glamorous homes from more than 290 architects, the Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Houses showcases work by such icons as Marcel Breuer, Richard Neutra, Alvar Aalto, and Oscar Niemeyer alongside extraordinary but virtually unknown houses in Australia, Africa, and Asia. A thoroughly researched, comprehensive appraisal, this book is a must-have for all design aficionados, Mid-Century Modern collectors, and readers looking for inspiration for their own homes.

Format: Hardback
Size: 340 x 240 mm (13 3/8 x 9 1/2 in)
Pages: 500 pp
Illustrations: 250 illustrations
ISBN: 9780714876740

Phaidon

Atlas of Brutalist Architecture

15 August 2019 in Books Comment

Atlas of Brutalist Architecture

This is the only book to thoroughly document the world’s finest examples of Brutalist architecture. More than 850 buildings – existing and demolished, classic and contemporary – are organized geographically into nine continental regions.

878 Buildings, 798 Architects, 102 Countries, 9 World Regions, 1 Style BRUTALISM

Presented in an oversized format with a specially bound case with three-dimensional finishes, 1000 beautiful duotone photographs throughout bring the graphic strength, emotional power, and compelling architectural presence of Brutalism to life.

From 20th century masters to contemporary architects, much-loved masterpieces in the UK and USA sit alongside lesser-known examples in Europe, Asia, Australia, and beyond – 102 countries in all.

Twentieth-century masters included in the book: Marcel Breuer, Lina Bo Bardi, Le Corbusier, Carlo Scarpa, Ernö Goldfinger, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Oscar Niemeyer, and Paul Rudolph.

Contemporary architects featured include Peter Zumthor, Alvaro Siza, Coop Himmelb(l)au, David Chipperfield, Diller and Scofidio, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, SANAA, OMA, Renzo Piano, Tadao Ando, and Zaha Hadid.

From the publisher of This Brutal World.

Format: Hardback
Size: 340 x 240 mm (13 3/8 x 9 1/2 in)
Pages: 560 pp
Illustrations: 1000 illustrations
ISBN: 9780714875668

Phaidon

Young American by Marie Tomanova

5 August 2019 in Books Comment

Young American
Marie Tomanova

Marie Tomanova’s debut monograph Young American celebrates an idea of an “America” still rife with dreams and possibilities, hope and freedom. As a Czech immigrant struggling in a new environment to belong, to come to terms with her repressive past and her uncertain future, the portraits taken between 2015 and 2018 in New York City visualize an America in which individuality is valued as uniqueness and not judged as a lack of sameness.

Young American resonates with directness, presence, and the ability to see deeply an individual with whom we can somehow identify. It is about optimism, youth, and the connection between people—the humanness that is essential to us all. To look deeply at Tomanova’s portraits and to see them looking deeply back at you is the heart of this work. Young American asserts the hope for a better future as an antidote to an oppressive and intolerant social and political situation in the United States and, perhaps, globally. Young American points not only to youth empowerment and the potent voice and presence that has emerged with it, but also to the welcome disintegration of any sort of set idea about identity. One could contextualize Tomanova’s Young American in the increasingly important and powerful voice of youth culture that is in the process of vitally reshaping gender, society, culture, and igniting a much-needed ideological revolution.

As photographer Ryan McGinley writes in his introduction to Young American, “This is a future free of gender binaries and stale old definitions of beauty. In Marie’s world people can just simply be. I wish all of America’s youth culture looked like Marie’s photos of Downtown, diverse and inclusive.

9” x 10.5” / 144 pages / Softcover
UV Offset Printing & Smyth-sewn binding
ISBN: 978-1-7322746-9-3
First edition of 350
Printed in the Czech Republic

Paradigm Publishing

Gene Beery

19 July 2019 in Books Comment

Gene Beery

Edited by Balthazar Lovay
Texts by Kenneth Goldsmith, Balthazar Lovay, Jo Melvin, Gregor Quack

“Many years ago, on the way to England to work on a museum project, I was seated in the plane next to a young man who was a classical lute player. We got to talking, and I asked him what he was listening to on his Discman. He showed me the CD and began to talk about the music. It was a collection of a minor composer’s music played from transcriptions of broadsides that were sold on the street for pennies in the Middle Ages. The composer, however, was clever and included beautifully handdrawn images on his scores. Over the ages, they were framed and preserved, not so much because of the music but because of how beautiful and distinctive they were as objects. While his peers’ music—printed and distributed in the same form without decoration—vanished, this composer’s scores remain as the only examples of the genre. By default, they are now considered classics. And in the same way, Beery’s scribbles remain one step ahead of the curve, anticipating a future reception in which they too will be considered classics.” — Kenneth Golsdmith

For more than 60 years, Gene Beery has interrogated the moment of esthetic experience with humor and irony. What are the stakes of an encounter between a viewer and the work? What does the surface of the canvas promise to whoever looks at it? Beery positions himself with pictures to be read, whose phrases announce the arrival, the impossibility or the absurdity of such an experience. Behind the apparent lightness and sarcastic distance of his practice emerges a deep reflection on the existence of art and the role of the artist.

Gene Beery is the first monograph dedicated to this American artist and offers an in-depth investigation of his work. It assembles more than 65 artworks and three essays, by Kenneth Goldsmith, Jo Melvin and Balthazar Lovay, as well as an interview with Gene Beery by Gregor Quack.

2019
English
172 pages
Hardcover, 21 × 28 cm
ISBN: 9788867493746

Mousse Publishing

What is Universal Everything?

6 July 2019 in Books Comment

What is Universal Everything?
Editors: Adrian Shaughnessy, Tony Brook
Essays: Adrian Shaughnessy, Antonia Lee
Design: Spin

Limited Edition of 2000 – unique ‘tipped-in’ image on each cover

Matt Pyke, founder and creative director of Universal Everything, calls his studio a “digital art and design collective”. And after 15 years of revolutionary work in the digital realm, UE has its first book – What is Universal Everything?

Working closely with Pyke, the Spin design team of Tony Brook and Claudia Klat have designed a book that successfully brings Universal Everything’s vivid on-screen work to the printed page. The book is printed using a unique salmon pink fluoro colour that has been specially created and mixed for the project.

What is Universal Everything? examines 24 of the studio’s most exciting projects, from work for clients such as Microsoft, Hyundai and MTV, through to projects for Radiohead and the Science Museum in London. For each piece of work, Pyke collaborates with a pool of international creative talent from his base in Sheffield in the north of England.

The book also focuses on several of UE’s self-initiated projects that keep the studio pushing forward. These speculative explorations, says Pyke, are concerned with “trying to invent the future before we get there”.

The book also includes two essays and extensive interviews throughout, 90 pages of Pyke’s hand-drawn sketches, as well as detailed listings of the studio’s numerous sources of inspiration – from music to literature; from places to food.

In keeping with the book’s high production values, nearly all the work featured in the book has been re-rendered at high res, allowing the full majesty of Universal Everything’s screen-based work to be captured on the printed page.

Furthermore, every cover of What is Universal Everything? is unique: a different tipped-in image graces the cover of each edition. As Pyke notes: “We developed software to generate random combinations of shapes, colours and sizes with collision detection. Thousands of unique graphic compositions have been generated…. Everyone will own a one-off.”

About UE

“The company creates gorgeous visual spectacles on screen that, while they will never be attained in physical reality, reinterpret the nuances of natural human motion and seem to have a soul, a heartbeat, and the breath of life.”
The Creators Project, Vice

“Universal Everything proves how effective a flexible, collaboration-based agency model can be to deliver awe-inspiring projects on a global scale.”
Creative Bloq

“The studio’s desire to uncover new forms and aesthetic ideas produces profound experiences; often blurring the line between the art world and the commercial world of brands… as digital artists, their output is ahead of the rest.”
Highsnobiety

“Artists love to portray technology as the villain, as a force for evil that makes short work of our humanity… Matt Pyke isn’t one of them. The artist – who, it should be noted, works out of a log cabin in Sheffield, England – is an unabashed techno-optimist.”
Fast Company

Size: 240mm × 338mm
Pages: 384 (plus 4pp cover)
Format: Hardback, black foil-blocked type on cover
Printing: Litho
Colours: CYK + one special
Special colour: Salmon fluoro (THSX0339 Unit Ed. – Universal Fluoro Red
Inks: Toyo Ink LED-UV
Cover image: 2,000 unique tipped-in images; high gloss lamination
Colours: CYK + one special
Typeface(s): GT Cinetype by Grilli type
Printer: GöteborgsTryckeriet, Mölndal
ISBN: 978-1-9164573-3-1

Unit Editions

Post Medium: Catalogue for the 2019 Chaumont Graphic Design International Biennale

5 July 2019 in Books Comment

Post Medium: Catalogue for the 2019 Chaumont Graphic Design International Biennale

A catalog of images and essays—for designers, students, enlightened enthusiasts, image sympathizers, poster collectors, and graphic design historians—documenting the 28th International Poster Competition and 2019 International Graphic Design Biennale in Chaumont, France.

Recognizing the best international poster designs—both printed and animated—and celebrating contemporary graphic design, this publication addresses itself to an array of media: digital, textile, and three-dimensional.

Includes texts by The Rodina, “Abolish the Stage of Precarity on Performance Design”; Vanina Pinter, “Basic”; Yann Owens, “Frédéric Teschner, Rue De Paris”; Camille Trimardeau, “Gynographie”; Thierry Chancogne, “Karl Nawrot, Phénoménes”; Jean-Michel Géridan, “Post Medium”; Virginie Vignon, “The Poster Factory”; and an interview between Notamuse (Lea Sievertsen and Claudia Scheer) and Jean-Michel Géridan, Director of le Signe, Centre National Du Graphisme.

Published by le Signe, Centre National Du Graphisme, 2019
Bilingual, text in English and French

Softcover, 240 pages, color images, 4.15 × 6.7 inches

ISBN 979-1-09-738920-8

Draw Down Books