Books
edited by Stanley Abercrombie -- Interior Design, 7/1/2003 12:00:00 AM
David Chipperfield: Architectural Works 1990-2002
By David Chipperfield, with a foreword by Kenneth Frampton
New York: Princeton Architectural Press, $85
343 pages, 500 illustrations
(350 color)
David Chipperfield is a master of minimalism but also a master of materials, a combination leading naturally to comparisons with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Architectural historian Kenneth Frampton characterizes Chipperfield as "categorically opposed…to the idea that architecture is nothing more than art writ large. He insists instead on its irreducible materiality and…the poetics of fabrication."
After working for Douglas Stephen, Richard Rogers, and Norman Foster, Chipperfield opened his own London firm in 1985. This book's first examples of his work are the Air Frame tables, desks, and seating that he designed with lightweight aluminum-faced honeycomb panels for Cassina IXC in Japan. The first built interior shown is a London apartment, a spare composition of polished-plaster walls and ceilings, pietra serena flooring, and cabinetry in American black walnut. For Dolce & Gabbana boutiques, he used silk panels laminated to glass for screens and burgundy velvet for fitting-room curtains. Elsewhere, we see virtuosic applications of brick, wood, poured-in-place concrete, and stainless-steel mesh.
Biographer and journalist Jonathan Keates contributes essays on Chipperfield's residences, museums, public spaces, and shops. And former David Chipperfield Architects project architect Rik Nys interviews his old boss on publication strategies, among other topics. Also included are a brief biography and lists of teaching assignments, awards, projects, furniture and product designs, competitions, exhibitions, and staff members.
Art Deco Textiles: The French Designers
By Alain-René Hardy
New York: Thames & Hudson, $45
256 pages, 316 illustrations (304 color)
The opening page of this book cites Raoul Dufy's remark that, in the robustly creative days of French art deco, modern paintings "spilled from their frames, onto our clothes and our walls." More than 300 examples follow, many of them full-page. Over a dozen of Dufy's own textile designs include a spirited Roses and Leaves With Elephants from 1912. Sonia Delaunay, Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, Maurice Dufrène, Louis Süe, André Mare, and Paul Poiret are also represented.
Four chronological sections furnish an exemplary compilation of data: name of designer, title or description of fabric, date of manufacture (1910 to 1945), name of manufacturer, fiber composition, fabric type (damask, satin, etc.), application (clothing or furnishing), production technique (print or weave), repeat size, the museum or archive that owns the fabric, and the exhibitions or publications in which it has appeared.
Great Museums of Europe
Introduction by Antonio Paolucci
Milan: Skira Editore, distributed by Rizzoli International Publications, $50
256 pages, 200 color illustrations
In his foreword, Antonio Paolucci—Italy's former minister of cultural services and author of books on Michelangelo, Piero della Francesca, and Luca Signorelli—tells us that the European art museum "organizes and catalogs the world…ensures a sensation of…continuity [and] is destined to…play a necessary and irreplaceable function." Comprehensive virtual tours follow, conducting us through the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Musei Vaticani in Rome, the British Museum in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and the Museumsinsel Berlin. All eight chapters include not only illustrations of artwork but also plans and annotated aerial perspectives to clarify the often sprawling layouts. Boxes highlight special assets such as "The Rooms of Raphael" in the Vatican and "Las Alhajas del Delfin" at the Prado.
What They're Reading...
Joe D'Urso
Designer of interiors and furniture, Interior Design Hall of Fame member, and founder of a namesake studio in East Hampton, New York.
Samaritan
By Richard Price
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, $25
377 pages
While D'Urso is currently designing residential interiors in both New York and the Hamptons, he's reading a book concerned less with how to design well than with how to live well. The novel Samaritan follows a white TV writer who returns to his predominantly black New Jersey hometown and falls victim to a violent crime. "It deals with the good and bad of serving, giving, and extending oneself," D'Urso says. The author, Richard Price, is a client, having recently hired D'Urso and New York's Form Architects to build a waterfront house in East Hampton.
We would love your feedback!
VIEW ALL GALLERIES