Books

by Lella and Massimo Vignelli

Mulgrave, Australia: Images Publishing Group, distributed by Antique Collectors' Club, $25 228 pages

At just 5 by 7 inches, here's a little book about a medium-size firm of giant import. Lella and Massimo Vignelli founded the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan in 1960, then moved to the U.S. in 1966. During the course of that 45-year professional history, the firm produced a panoply of inventive but pristine interiors, furniture, exhibitions, graphics, and products. They're presented here chronologically, with early highlights including melamine dinnerware for Heller, 1964, later ones a book for Australia-based architect Harry Seidler, 2003.

With typical directness, Massimo Vignelli explains the attitude behind the work: "Design is one: Subjects change, materials change, processes change, but the creative and investigative mind proceeds relentlessly. . .toward the relative solution of the given problems." Design today owes an immeasurable debt to the relentlessly creative and investigative minds of this inimitably talented couple.

R. Scott Bromley

A partner in Bromley Caldari Architects and member of the Interior Design Hall of Fame

Waterfront Retreats

edited by Ana G. Cañizares, New York: Harper Design International, $40, 176 pages

Paging through this portfolio of beautiful photography by Ken Hayden, Scott Frances, et al., Bromley discovered projects from all over the world, with at least eight pages set aside for each one. "It was the title that first caught my eye," says Bromley, whose New York apartment and Fire Island beach house both enjoy water views. "Residential architecture is my passion. If it's near the water—that really does it for me."