Book picks similar to
Mexicasa: The Enchanting Inns and Haciendas of Mexico by Melba Levick
mexico
latin-america
travel
photography
Ruin: Photographs of a Vanishing America
Brian Vanden Brink - 2009
He is also drawn to the mystery and unexpected beauty found in abandoned architecture. Here Vanden Brink captures and illuminates in stunning black and white images abandoned structures such as mills, bridges, grain elevators, churches, and storefronts-structures that once were important and useful. With text by historic preservation expert Howard Mansfield, this collection of photos grants permanence to places that may soon vanish forever.
Lotta Jansdotter's Handmade Living: A Fresh Take on Scandinavian Style
Lotta Jansdotter - 2010
Now she shares her recipe for a stylish home: take a whole lot of Scandinavian influence, mix in a dash of flea-market finds, and then top it all off with expressive handmade touches. The result? An entirely fresh approach to home dcor and contemporary living. In this lavishly illustrated book, Lotta shares her decorating secrets, design resources, entertaining tips, and family traditions. Tucked away at the back shes included stencil pages and perforated recipe cards featuring classic Swedish dishes. Equal parts inspiration and how-to, this charming book shows readers how to create a warm home with elements of simple Scandinavian-influenced style.
Residential Landscape Architecture: Design Process for the Private Residence
Norman K. Booth - 1991
The text provides a thorough, how-to explanation of each of the steps of the design process--from initial contact with the client to a completed master plan. The text's numerous illustrations and useful case study examples offer a rich learning experience for students. Whether you are just starting your design career or are a current practitioner, this valuable resource is sure to enhance your skills and knowledge.
France is a Feast: The Photographic Journey of Paul and Julia Child
Alex Prud'Homme - 2017
Paul and Julia moved to Paris in 1948 where he was cultural attaché for the US Information Service, and in this role he met Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Brassai, and other leading lights of the photography world. As Julia recalled: “Paris was wonderfully walkable, and it was a natural subject for Paul.”Their wanderings through the French capital and countryside, frequently photographed by Paul, would help lead to the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Julia’s brilliant and celebrated career in books and on television. Though Paul was an accomplished photographer (his work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art), his photographs remained out of the public eye until the publication of Julia’s memoir, My Life in France, in which several of his images were included. Now, with more than 200 of Paul’s photographs and personal stories recounted by his great-nephew Alex Prud’homme, France is a Feast not only captures this magical period in Paul and Julia’s lives, but also brings to light Paul Child’s own remarkable photographic achievement.
Horses of the Sun
Robert Vavra - 1995
As in Vavra's most popular books, all are alone and running free in glorious natural settings: a white Arabian in a sun-washed desert; a black Friesian galloping in snowdrifts; a gray Andalusian amid violet flowers; a chestnut Arabian prancing in autumn leaves.These lush photographs are accompanied by poetry and are followed by text and drawing that profile each breed, highlighting the particularly outstanding traits of each horse depicted. Vavra pays special attention to the Andalusian, providing an essay on its romantic history. Presented on natural, handmade paper, Horses of the Sun fuses the beautiful simplicity of Vavra's earlier works with a new, fresh image of horses. For anyone who loves horses or simply appreciates the finest of photography, Horses of the Sun is a lovely gift -- a paean to this most beloved of animals.
Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York
James T. Murray - 2008
But for how long?Are New York City's local merchants a dying breed or an enduring group of diehards hell bent on retaining the traditions of a glorious past? According to Jim and Karla Murray the influx of big box retailers and chain stores pose a serious threat to these humble institutions, and neighborhood modernization and the anonymity it brings are replacing the unique appearance and character of what were once incredibly colorful streets.Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York is a visual guide to New York City's timeworn storefronts, a collection of powerful images that capture the neighborhood spirit, familiarity, comfort and warmth that these shops once embodied.
Yosemite and the Range of Light
Ansel Adams - 1979
Full page B&W photos
The Road Less Graveled (Kindle Single)
Wendy Laird - 2013
<br><br>Part Tuscan idyll and part cautionary tale, Wendy Laird’s latest Kindle Single tells the flip-side story of expat existence, what it takes to make it happen, and how a life on a well-mapped trajectory can veer off course in the process. Laird’s beautiful prose and acerbic wit keep the book, if not her own agenda, on the right track.
The Finer Things: Timeless Furniture, Textiles, and Details
Christiane Lemieux - 2014
Just as a home’s foundation should be built to stand the test of time, so, too, should the furniture, objects, and elements of our rooms speak to an enduring sense of beauty and comfort. They should outlast trends and our loving day-to-day use. But how does one recognize quality and judge whether something is well made?Christiane Lemieux set out to answer this question by interviewing the world’s greatest experts. Weaving together the insights and guidance of dozens of wallpaper and paint specialists, textile fabricators, accessories artisans, and interior designers, Lemieux has curated an unparalleled education in recognizing the hallmarks of timeless, heirloom-quality pieces. Hundreds of elegant home interiors—both iconic examples from the past and stunning residences today--represent the range of luxurious and customized environments that can be created with fine décor.
Rothko: The Color Field Paintings
Christopher Rothko - 2017
This collection presents fifty large-scale artworks from the American master's color field period (1949–1970) alongside essays by Rothko's son, Christopher Rothko, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curator of painting and sculpture Janet Bishop. Featuring illuminating details about Rothko's life, influences, and legacy, and brimming with the emotional power and expressive color of his groundbreaking canvases, this essential volume brings the renowned artist's luminous work to light for both longtime Rothko fans and those discovering his work for the very first time. A textured case and large-scale tip-on on the front cover round out this sumptious package.
An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration From the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers
Danny Gregory - 2013
We want to feel like explorers, adventurers in undiscovered territory. And that's exactly what sketching can bring to the travel experience.An Illustrated Journey captures the world through the eyes of 40 talented artists, illustrators and designers. You'll experience the wonder of seeing familiar sights through a fresh lens but, more important, you'll be inspired to set pen to paper and capture your own vistas.The really wonderful thing about a sketchbook is that it can be totally private. You don't have to have an ounce of talent to enjoy learning how to really see what's in front of you. But lucky for us, the sketchbooks captured here are lovely, creative, intimate windows into each artist's mind.So, whether you're just returning to the art of drawing, abandoned by most of us after childhood, or you're looking for inspiration to take your illustration work in a new direction, An Illustrated Journey will take you on a wonderful trip of the imagination. All you need to pack are a pencil and a piece of paper.
Siteless: 1001 Building Forms
François Blanciak - 2008
Others may think of it as the last architectural treatise, for it provides a discursive container for ideas that would otherwise be lost. Whatever genre it belongs to, SITELESS is a new kind of architecture book that seems to have come out of nowhere. Its author, a young French architect practicing in Tokyo, admits he "didn't do this out of reverence toward architecture, but rather out of a profound boredom with the discipline, as a sort of compulsive reaction." What would happen if architects liberated their minds from the constraints of site, program, and budget? he asks. The result is a book that is saturated with forms, and as free of words as any architecture book the MIT Press has ever published.The 1001 building forms in SITELESS include structural parasites, chain link towers, ball bearing floors, corrugated corners, exponential balconies, radial facades, crawling frames, forensic housing--and other architectural ideas that may require construction techniques not yet developed and a relation to gravity not yet achieved. SITELESS presents an open-ended compendium of visual ideas for the architectural imagination to draw from. The forms, drawn freehand (to avoid software-specific shapes) but from a constant viewing angle, are presented twelve to a page, with no scale, order, or end to the series. After setting down 1001 forms in siteless conditions and embryonic stages, Blanciak takes one of the forms and performs a "scale test," showing what happens when one of these fantastic ideas is subjected to the actual constraints of a site in central Tokyo. The book ends by illustrating the potential of these shapes to morph into actual building proportions.
Flea Market Style
Emily Chalmers - 2005
Emily Chalmers and Ali Hanan explain how to find fresh and unexpected uses of second-hand pieces and antiques, and reveal how to mix old and new with flair and panache. The first part of the book, Flea Market Finds, looks at household goods, from fabrics and furniture to china, kitchenware, glass and lighting, and describes how to find special objects and indentify them on the basis of their quality, character, resillience, colour, and texture. The authors advocate a subtle mixing of styles, patterns, and colours, and emphasize the beauty of objects that have seen a bit of life. They explain how to locate bargain copies of modern classics--or the real things--and how to mix flea-market or thrift-store finds with high-end basics. The second part of the book, Putting It All Together, shows how to incorporate the style in every room--from the spaces where you cook, eat, sleep, or relax to bathing spaces and work spaces. The book ends with an extensive directory of suppliers. -Add a large dose of originality to your home--at low cost. -Lively text illustrated with Debi Treloar's inspirational photographs.
You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination
Katharine Harmon - 2003
But maps need not just show continents and oceans: there are maps to heaven and hell; to happiness and despair; maps of moods, matrimony, and mythological places. There are maps to popular culture, from Gulliver's Island to Gilligan's Island. There are speculative maps of the world before it was known, and maps to secret places known only to the mapmaker. Artists' maps show another kind of uncharted realm: the imagination. What all these maps have in common is their creators' willingness to venture beyond the boundaries of geography or convention.You Are Here is a wide-ranging collection of such superbly inventive maps. These are charts of places you're not expected to find, but a voyage you take in your mind: an exploration of the ideal country estate from a dog's perspective; a guide to buried treasure on Skeleton Island; a trip down the road to success; or the world as imagined by an inmate of a mental institution. With over 100 maps from artists, cartographers, and explorers, You are Here gives the reader a breath-taking view of worlds, both real and imaginary.