Twenty-one houses in and around Marfa, Texas, provide a glimpse at creative life and design in one of the art world’s most intriguing destinations. When Donald Judd began his Marfa project in the early 1970s, it was regarded as an idiosyncratic quest. Today, Judd is revered for his minimalist art and the stringent standards he applied to everything around him, including interiors, architecture, and furniture. The former water stop has become a mecca for artists, art pilgrims, and design aficionados drawn to the creative enclave, the permanent installations called “among the largest and most beautiful in the world,” and the austerely beautiful high-desert landscape. In keeping with Judd’s site-specific intentions, those who call Marfa home have made a choice to live in concert with their untamed, open surroundings. Marfa Modern features houses that represent unique responses to this setting—the sky, its light and sense of isolation—some that even predate Judd’s arrival. Here, conceptual artist Michael Phelan lives in a former Texaco service station with battery acid stains on the concrete floor and a twenty-foot dining table lining one wall. A chef’s modest house comes with the satisfaction of being handmade down to its side tables and bath, which expands into a private courtyard with an outdoor tub. Another artist uses the many rooms of her house, a former jail, to shift between different mediums—with Judd’s Fort D. A. Russell works always visible from her second-story sun porch. Extraordinary building costs mean that Marfa dwellers embrace a culture of frontier ingenuity and freedom from excess—salvaged metal signs become sliding doors and lengths of pipe become lighting fixtures, industrial warehouses are redesigned after the area’s white-cube galleries to create space for private or personally created art collections, and other materials are suggested by the land itself: walls are made of adobe bricks or rammed earth to form sculptural courtyards, or, in one remarkable instance, a mix of mud and brick plastered with local soils, cactus mucilage, horse manure, and straw.

"Part armchair travel, part project book, Southwest Modern highlights the wide-open spaces and beautiful vistas of West Texas and celebrates the rich culture of New Mexico. Featuring 15 quilt patterns and three smaller projects author, Kristi Schroeder, celebrates five separate regions, one in each chapter. Each quilt is photographed on location with an accompanying color story to support the design. Included is a list of the author's favorite places to shop, eat, and play in each location. This book will appeal to anyone who has ever been so moved by their surroundings that they felt inspired to create."--

First survey of modernist and contemporary architecture and interiors in the richly layered architectural history of Santa Fe Santa Fe Modern reveals the high desert landscape as an ideal setting for bold, abstracted forms of modernist houses. Wide swaths of glass, deep-set portals, long porches, and courtyards allow vistas, color, and light to become integral parts of the very being of a house, emboldening a way to experience a personal connection to the desert landscape. The architects featured draw from the New Mexican architectural heritage--they use ancient materials such as adobe in combination with steel and glass, and they apply this language to the proportions and demands exacted by today's world. The houses they have designed are confident examples of architecture that is particular to the New Mexico landscape and climate, and yet simultaneously evoke the rigorous expressions of modernism. The vigor and the allure of modern art and architecture hearten each other in a way that is visible and exciting, and this book demonstrates the synergistic relationship between art, architecture, and the land.

A compelling survey of Texas houses that draw both on the heritage of pioneer ranches and on the twentieth-century design principles of modernism. Helen Thompson and Casey Dunn, the writer/photographer team that produced the exceptionally successful Marfa Modern, join forces again to investigate Texas modernism. The juxtaposition of the sleek European forms with a gritty Texas spirit generated a unique brand of modernism that is very basic to the culture of the state today. Its roots are in the early Texas pioneer houses, whose long, low profiles express an efficiency that is basic to the modern idiom. This Texas-centric style is focused on the relationship of the house to the site, the materials it is made of--most often local stone and wood--and the way the building functions in the harsh Texas climate. Dallas architect David R. Williams was the first to combine modernism with Texas regionalism in the 1930s, and his legacy was sustained by his protégé O'Neil Ford, who practiced in San Antonio from the late 1930s until his death in the mid 1970s. Their approach is seen today in the work of Lake/Flato Architects and a new generation of designers who have emerged from that distinguished firm and continue to elegantly merge modernism with the vocabulary of the Texas ranching heritage. Twenty houses are included from across the state, with examples in major urban centers like Dallas and Austin and in suburban and rural areas, including a number in the evocative Hill Country.

Welcome to the desert. Welcome home. This visually stunning tour of the world’s most amazing desert homes will inspire you to create an oasis with “desert vibes” wherever you are. Creatives are drawn in by the extreme landscapes and limited resources of the desert; in fact, they’re inspired by them, and the homes they’ve built here prove the power of an oasis. From renovated Airstreams to sprawling, modern stucco, desert has become the new beachfront. In Oasis, artist iO Tillett Wright captures the best of this specific culture that emphasizes living simply, beautifully, and in connection with the earth. He highlights the homes that define this desert mindset, featuring the classics like Georgia O’Keefe’s in Abiquiu, New Mexico, alongside more modern homes such as Michael Barnard’s Solar House in Marfa, Texas. With Casey Dunn’s stunning photography, Oasis will transport you to these relaxing refuges, where you’ll learn what elements create the balance of intentionality, ease, style, and function that these homes exude.

This inviting book explores how small-town Marfa, Texas, has become a landmark arts destination and tourist attraction, despite--and because of--its remote location in the immense Chihuahuan desert.

216-page, hardcover book detailing the special architectural features fround in the Dallas metropolitan area. The book features beautifully reproduced photography and incisive editorial illustrating the exceptional examples of unique architecture found in this Texas community

A treasure trove of essays, recipes, and images exploring the people and food of Marfa and its premier restaurant, The Capri Cooking in Marfa introduces an unusual small town in the West Texas desert and, within it, a fine-dining oasis in a most unlikely place. The Capri excels at serving the spectrum of guests that Marfa draws, from locals and ranchers to artists, museum-board members, and discerning tourists. Featuring more than 80 recipes inspired by local products, this is the story of this unique community told through the lens of food, sharing the cuisine and characters that make The Capri a destination unto itself.

A beautiful book on the famed Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas The Chinati Foundation, a world-famous destination for large-scale contemporary art, was founded by Donald Judd (1928-1994) to preserve and present a select number of permanent installations that were inextricably linked to the surrounding landscape in Marfa, Texas. This handsome publication, first published in 2010 and now available with a new chapter devoted to the permanent installation by Robert Irwin that was inaugurated in 2016 and a new foreword by Jenny Moore, director of the Chinati Foundation, describes how Judd developed his ideas of the role of art and museums from the early 1960s onward, culminating in the creation of Chinati. The individual installations featured here include work by John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, David Rabinowitch, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Ingólfur Arnarsson, Carl Andre, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen, and John Wesley, as well as by Judd himself. The book also features a complete catalogue of the collection and writings by Judd relating to Chinati and Marfa. Published in association with the Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati

The New Yorker staff writer and Filterworld author Kyle Chayka examines the deep roots-and untapped possibilities-of our newfound, all-consuming drive to reduce. “Less is more”: Everywhere we hear the mantra. Marie Kondo and other decluttering gurus promise that shedding our stuff will solve our problems. We commit to cleanse diets and strive for inbox zero. Amid the frantic pace and distraction of everyday life, we covet silence-and airy, Instagrammable spaces in which to enjoy it. The popular term for this brand of upscale austerity, “minimalism,” has mostly come to stand for things to buy and consume. But minimalism has richer, deeper, and altogether more valuable gifts to offer. In The Longing for Less, one of our sharpest cultural critics delves beneath the glossy surface of minimalist trends, seeking better ways to claim the time and space we crave. Kyle Chayka's search leads him to the philosophical and spiritual origins of minimalism, and to the stories of artists such as Agnes Martin and Donald Judd; composers such as John Cage and Julius Eastman; architects and designers; visionaries and misfits. As Chayka looks anew at their extraordinary lives and explores the places where they worked-from Manhattan lofts to the Texas high desert and the back alleys of Kyoto-he reminds us that what we most require is presence, not absence. The result is an elegant synthesis of our minimalist desires and our profound emotional needs. With a new afterword by the author.