Long a prominent design aesthetic, Japanese minimalism stands at the core of Wabi Sabi, both a world view and aesthetic based on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. In recent years this has fueled the desire for raw interiors, modern spaces that bridge East and West and soothe the soul with their beautiful simplicity and eclectic decor. This book features approximately 30 international projects that exemplify this modern approach to Wabi Sabi, ranging from houses and apartments to commercial spaces, restaurants and hotels and featuring some of the most influential architects and interior designers in the world.

Encompassing everything from townhouses and farmsteads to mountain cabins and beach houses, this beautifully illustrated and comprehensive reference will inspire both first-time decorators and experienced interior designers. Explore 100 exemplary private homes through 600 lavish images, from Manhattan and Marrakech to Madrid and Melbourne, with stops in Los Angeles, Miami, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Paris, Milan, and Rio de Janeiro—in styles ranging from Art Deco to modern. This rich resource for the imagination is divided into ten chapters devoted to color, composition, setting, and other specific elements of interior style. Each chapter is illustrated with interiors designed by some of the most original and creative designers and architects working today: Bates Masi, Alexander Gorlin, Jonathan Adler, Rose Tarlow, Pierre Frey, Vicente Wolf, Tsao & McKown, Frederic Mechiche, Fearon Hay, David Collins, Winka Dubbeldam, and many more. A double-page spread reveals the most spectacular space in each home, followed by a list of key concepts, numbered close-ups that highlight aspects of the design, and expert write-ups to explain how each element serves the design as a whole. With practical design ingredients, advice, and ideas throughout—from materials to furniture design, texture, pattern, and light—Interiors in Detail is an essential sourcebook for anyone seeking inspiration for his or her own space. No matter their tastes and aspirations, readers will find a style to catch the eye and engage the creative mind.

Presenting 55 projects whose designers used the existing historic substance as the basis for their creative processes - the magic of patina and traces of the past are maintained and deliberately integrated into the design concept.

In the quarter century from San Francisco's devasting fire of 1906 to the beginning of the Great Depression, as automobiles exploded in popularity, new buildings had to be conceived and constructed to provide parking space and repair facilities. This book studies a number of the resulting public garages that featured facade designs based on historical architectural styles. Considering the garages' function, the facades exhibit a surprising grace and nobility. Through an analysis complemented by photographs (including sixty by noted architectural photographer Sharon Risedorph) and drawings, the author dissects the architectural and cultural factors that lie at the heart of this unexpected merit. Addressing the discrepancy between the buildings' beauty and the assumption that old garages are unsightly and disposable, the book examines them as cultural artifacts of the dawn of the Motor Age. The garage is presented as a new form of transportation depot, employing architectural symbolism to celebrate the ascendancy of the automobile over the train. Today, the surviving buildings are vulnerable to real estate development, in part because their quality is misunderstood. The book--a fresh perspective on the value of older utilitarian buildings--concludes with a call to preserve these structures and adapt them to compatible new uses.

The Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons is undoubtedly one of the world's major fashion designers. In 2017 she was the second living designer to ever be given a retrospective at the renowned Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her work exerts an extraordinary influence over succeeding generations of designers and is a major point of reference for all those wishing to explore the place of fashion in contemporary culture. The 14 essays in this collection, written by eminent fashion theorists from around the world, ask what is the relationship of Kawakubo's work to art, philosophy and architecture, and ultimately illustrate how Kawakubo's creative output allows us to understand the very notion of fashion itself.

In Latin America, Scandinavian housing experts explained that "housing is too important a commodity to be subjected to the same general market conditions as other goods", but the Americans ridiculed such a stance. The Cold War was fought with bricks and mortar, not just small, hot wars in poor places and the threat of nuclear Armageddon. Privatisation began in Malaysia in the 1940s; in West Germany, Taiwan, Burma and South Korea in the 1950s; India in 1964; Jordan in 1965; Brazil in 1966; Guatemala and Nigeria in 1967; and the Philippines (again) in 1968. In the 1960s, the US granted loans to expand the private housing sectors in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. They began housing projects in Rhodesia, Zambia and Mali. They moved into Senegal in 1972, Botswana in 1973, Tanzania in 1974 and Kenya in 1975 - all the while spreading the American dream.

“A hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American history” (The New York Times Book Review), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound—Leo Fender and Les Paul—and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built. In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock ’n’ roll—and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender’s tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an “axe” that would make Fender’s Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul—whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought—to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world’s most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo. While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman, Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s—including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton—adopted one maker’s guitar or another. By 1969 it was clear that these new electric instruments had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable. In “an excellent dual portrait” (The Wall Street Journal), Ian S. Port tells the full story in The Birth of Loud, offering “spot-on human characterizations, and erotic paeans to the bodies of guitars” (The Atlantic). “The story of these instruments is the story of America in the postwar era: loud, cocky, brash, aggressively new” (The Washington Post).

Completely updated, the new edition of this acclaimed guide brings us 33 tours of public art, covering the length of the island, from the Cloisters and Harlem in northern Manhattan, to Central Park and the museum mile, to Rockefeller Center and Chelsea, and all the way down to the southern tip at Battery Park City. This indispensable guide also covers the outer boroughs, from Snug Harbor, Staten Island to the Socrates Sculpture Park and the Noguchi Museum in Queens, from Wave Hill in the Bronx all the way to the botanical gardens in Brooklyn. The perfect guidebook for residents and tourists alike, Harrison and Rosenfeld uncover nooks and crannies off the beaten track alongside favored treasures, reminding us all why New York City is the art capital of the world. Artwalks in New York contains: Completely revised and updated entries, including seven new walks, reflecting the ever-changing city Includes over 25 walking tour maps, directions, and suggested visitation hours Listings of museums, art and auction galleries, art-filled public spaces, hotel lobbies, gardens, restaurants, subway stations, public sculpture and murals, and more Hundreds of interesting facts, anecdotes, and tidbits about New York City art from two expert guides