Architecture + Design

This encyclopedia explores the hidden meanings of visual symbols across time and geography, from the sun to whales and the human hand. Spanning different eras and cultures, over 800 beautiful images combine with expert illuminations of symbol history, meanings, and psychic associations, offering readers a precious and fascinating resource for thoughtful interpretations of life, art, and spirituality.

Hardcover, 6.6” x 9.4”, 808 pages

For Fuller, nature is the most exquisite technology we know; and what underlies all of his work is the quest to uncover nature’s fundamental principles—in order to foster their manifestation as a pattern integrity 'for successfully regenerating all life aboard our planetary spaceship.'" –Jaime Lawrence Snyder, Lars Müller Fuller Series Editor

A Los Angeles Times 2021 holiday gift guide pick

The work of R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) is among the most extraordinary and inventive in 20th-century design and architecture, not least for its incorporation of a range of intellectual and technical disciplines. Fuller described himself as an “engineer, inventor, mathematician, architect, cartographer, philosopher, poet, cosmogonist, comprehensive designer and choreographer.''

R. Buckminster Fuller: Pattern-Thinking is a major reassessment of Fuller’s legacy in the context of design, examining his singular vision of new conceptual models for design and architecture, alongside his ideas on their potentially world-altering consequences. Drawing extensively on his archive and with over 300 images, the book follows Fuller’s explorations of geometry, language and intellectual property in their relation to design principles and pedagogy, organizing its survey of Fuller’s work through parallel conceptual threads rather than in a linear chronology of his career.

From Paper Tube Emergency Shelters and his Nomadic Museum built with containers to the Swatch/Omega Campus and the Centre Pompidou-Metz, discover the altruistic practice of the Pritzker Prize–winning architect Shigeru Ban, who is lauded for his “curiosity, commitment, endless innovation, infallible eye, and acute sensibility.”

Incorporating both formal details and welcoming elements, a sophisticated and balanced look tailored to a sense of home, as shown through the portfolio of Foley & Cox

Foley & Cox is a New York-based interior design firm renowned for serene spaces subtly layered with color and texture that create a sense of welcome and comfort. Taking creative cues directly from their clients–their perceptions, preferences, and passions–the firm creates serene interiors infused with personal style.

This elegant book presents 24 homes, ranging from elegant prewar apartments in Manhattan to retreats in the Hamptons and summer places along the coast of New England and in Europe, and even to a private jet and a yacht that cruises the Mediterranean. What unites these spaces is an overall balance and elegance, infused with luxurious fabrics in subtle tonal variations and a judicious use of highlight color, often in the artwork and accessories. Founder Michael Cox is a master at creating settings for art collections and selecting distinctive vintage pieces that add a sophisticated touch to the rooms.

Specifications:

• Format: Hardback
• Size: 304 × 241 mm (12 × 9.5 in)
• Pages: 248 pp
• Illustrations: 220 illustrations
• ISBN: 9781580936163

How design can help foster the conditions for global peace: an intersectional visual conversation between activists, designers, architects and theorists

How might we collectively put our creative forces together to envision a future we want to live in and take action to create it now? Designing Peace is an intersectional snapshot of the actions—culturally diverse and wide-ranging in scale—that are currently in play around the world.

Offering perspectives on peace through essays, interviews, critical maps, project profiles, data visualizations and art, this book conveys the momentum that design can gain in effecting a peace-filled future. From activists, scholars and architects to policymakers and graphic, game and landscape designers, Designing Peace flips the conversation: peace is not simply a passive state signifying the absence of war, it is a dynamic concept that requires effort, expertise and multidimensional solutions to address its complexity.

Designers engage with individuals, communities and organizations to create a more sustainable peace—from creative confrontations that challenge existing structures to designs that demand embracing justice and truth in a search for reconciliation. This publication aims to expand the discourse on what is possible if society were to design for peace.

This illustrated biography tells the story of Gropius's life, beginning with his shattering experiences in World War One, his turbulent marriage to the notorious Alma Mahler, the establishment of the Bauhaus, and the tragic death of their daughter Manon.

After Gropius's agonized decision to leave Nazi Germany in 1933, the book explores his life in exile in London and then his move to America in 1937, where he lived and worked until his death in 1969.

Features more than 375 illustrations including letters, telegrams, sketches, drawings, photographs, posters, brochures, and other ephemera. The authors present the life of Walter Gropius as not just a key figure of 20th-century architecture, but as an extraordinarily generous person - a connector, protector, and benefactor who improved the lives and careers of all those with whom he came into contact.

This is the first comprehensive illustrated biography of one of Modern architecture's most important figures.

Specifications:

• Format: Hardback
• Size: 305 × 238 mm (12 × 9 3/8 in)
• Pages: 320 pp
• Illustrations: 377 illustrations