Zaha Hadid

Sample

Michael Stern and Alan Hess

"A visionary artist who has achieved worldwide fame, Julius Shulman transformed the face of architectural photography - has, in truth, changed the very nature of how we see architecture - demanding that his work be so much more than the cold documentation of buildings. From the earliest photographs till those taken today, in a prolific and still vibrant career, his work demonstrates a profound sensitivity to and appreciation for the spaces in which actual people live, spaces that, as seen through his lens, are at once luminous and profoundly shadowed, spaces that are sometimes wonderfully mannered and yet still strangely, deeply personal, spaces of intrigue and ultimately extraordinary beauty, into which the observer - Shulman's passionate audience - longs to enter." "This volume, published in association with the Palm Springs Art Museum to accompany the exhibition, Julius Shulman: Palm Springs, tells the brilliant, decades-long story of the legendary photographer's symbiotic relationship with this oasis of Modernism on which so much of his photography is focused, an architectural landscape the formation of which he has simultaneously observed and helped bring to be."--BOOK JACKET.

Sample

Text, Wolfgang Pehnt

"Early in the 20th century, Robert Bosch, the founder of the Stuttgart technology business, built a villa on the hills east of the city. It was half Palladian, half in the reform style of the period before the First World War. The building was to meet the head of the company's need for prestige, and to provide a private refuge thanks to the pleasant qualities of its large park and open position. The foundation of the same name is now housed in the Villa Bosch, but the space available has not been adequate for some time. As the company also needed rooms for seminars and other events, a decision was taken to build new accommodation next to the villa." "Seven well-known teams took part in a restricted competition, including Tadao Ando, Richard Meier and Richard Rogers. The commission went to Peter Kulka, based in Cologne and Dresden. He found a convincing solution to the problem of leaving the dominance of the old building untouched and at the same time making the new accommodation attractive in its own right. He came up with a second >>villa<< slightly below the first one, precise in its volume and minimalist in its resources. The building responds impressively to the challenges of the topography, the landscape around it and its neighbouring building." "Kulka's work combines transparency with physical presence, structural austerity with poetry. This villa suburbana represents a milestone in his career. Kulka, born in 1937, was a pupil of Selman Selmanagic and worked with Hermann Henselmann, Hans Scharoun and in various partnerships before setting up his own practice in 1979. He has been seen as a member of the German architectural avant-garde since his Dresden parliament building (1991-94)."--BOOK JACKET.

Sample

Nancy Frazier

"The Penguin Concise Dictionary of Art History presents a new perspective on art history. In keeping with today's students, who are interested in more than just the details of connoisseurship and provenance, it takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon literature, history, psychology, geography, economics, and other areas to set important artistic advances in a cultural context. With more than 1500 entries, ranging in length from 150 to 600 words, this is a concise yet highly readable work.". "It also differs from similar references, which tend to be Eurocentric, by giving relatively more space to American art, artists, and architects; to the work of women artists; to sometimes controversial post-modern ideas; and to the words of the artists themselves, quoted in most of the major entries."--BOOK JACKET.

Sample

Steven Roger Fischer

When Lost's Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashed, the survivors found themselves on a seemingly deserted island. In Defoe's novel, Robinson Crusoe spends twenty-eight years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, while in the movie Castaway Tom Hanks survives over four years on a South Pacific island. And Jurassic Park kept its dinosaur population confined to an island off the coast of Central America. Islands often find themselves at the center of imagined worlds, secluded and sometimes mystical locales filled with strange creatures and savage populations. The cannibals, raptors, and smoke monsters that exist on the islands of popular culture aside, the more than one million islands and islets on the planet are indeed small , geological, biological, and cultural laboratories. From Britain to Japan, from the Galapagos to Manhattan, this book roams the planet to provide the first global introduction to these waterlocked landforms. Longtime island dweller Steven Roger Fischer shows that, since time began, islands have been one of the primary birthplaces for plants, animals, and proto-humans. These eyots of stone and sand--whether in ocean, lake, or river--fostered the human race, and Fischer recounts how humanity then exploited these remarkable habitats as stepping stones to global dominion. He explores island economics, warfare, and politics, and he examines the role they have played in literature, art and psychology. At the same time, he sparks our imagination with visions of islands--from Atlantis to Tahiti, Treasure Island to Hawaii. Ultimately, he reveals, these isolated mini-worlds are a measure of humankind itself. An engaging account of the islets that have enriched, lured, terrified, and inspired us, Islands shines new light on these cradles of earth--and human--history.