Design Book List – July 2015

Looking for new books about design? Then consider adding some of these releases to your summer reading list! Books on landscape design, architecture, textile design and more are included in this month's list. All are new to book shelves and are sure to enlighten and entertain.

Included in this month’s list of design book is “Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks,” “Women Garden Designers: 1900 to the Present,” “The Pattern Base,” “The Good Garden: The Landscape Architecture of Edmund Hollander Design,” “Thomas Heatherwick: Making,” “Andrew Geller: Deconstructed: Artist and Architect,” and “Frida Kahlo’s Garden.”

“Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks”

From irrefutable icons (Broadway theaters, Central Park, Carnegie Hall), to lesser-known structures including the Cyclone rollercoaster on Coney Island, roughly 100 street lampposts, and seven cast-iron street clocks located throughout the city, much of what makes New York City unique owes its existence to the New York City Landmarks Law. Born out of the destruction of McKim, Mead & White’s monumental Pennsylvania Station, the Landmarks Law established the parameters for protecting the places that represent New York City’s rich cultural, social, political, and architectural history. Today there are over 31,000 landmark properties. Many are located within 111 historic districts in Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens.

“Saving Place” coincides with the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Landmarks Law and a major exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York (“Saving Place” is on view through September 13, 2015).

Told in essays by notable New Yorkers and preservationists, contributors include Robert A.M. Stern, Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Andrew S. Dolkart, Françoise Bollack, Anthony C. Wood, and Claudette Brady. The book includes specially commissioned photography portfolios revealing views of historic districts and landmark buildings by Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan.

BASIC FACTS: “Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks” is written by Andrew S. Dolkart and Donald Albrecht. Published by The Monacelli Press. Release Date: April 21, 2015. Hardcover; 208 pages; $50.00.

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“Women Garden Designers: 1900 to the Present”

“Women Garden Designers” presents 27 important and influential women garden designers and their gardens from around the world, showing their finest commissions and gardens designed for themselves. The book also examines their influences and their legacy to garden design.

Beginning with Gertrude Jekyll and Beatrix Farrand, who worked simultaneously on different sides of the Atlantic, the book moves into the 20th century to feature international designers as diverse as Florence Yoch and Vita Sackville-West.

Women designers were quick to embrace the ecological garden movement, particularly in Germany and Sweden in the middle of the 20th century, according to the author. Designers Herta Hammerbacher and Rosemary Weisse in Germany, Ulla Bodorff in Sweden, and Isabelle Greene in California represent this movement.

The modern movement includes Monica Gora and Topher Delaney, for whom spirituality and landscape as works of art are important. Penelope Hobhouse and Rosemary Verey, who began creating gardens later in their lives, represent a conventional and structured approach to garden design. Haruko Seki from Japan and Isabel du Prat from Brazil express their own special cultural qualities in their trans-global practices.

BASIC FACTS: “Women Garden Designers: 1900 to the Present” is written by Kristina Taylor. Published by Antiques Collectors Club Dist. Release Date: May 22, 2015. Hardcover; 288 pages; $69.50.

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“The Pattern Base: Over 550 Contemporary Textile and Surface Designs”

“The Pattern Base” is a beautiful sourcebook of inspiration for international textile and fabric design by the founders of the Chicago-based design studio and tumblr, The Pattern Base. Textile design has been liberated and democratized by digital media, according to the authors. With new technology allowing for more precise manipulation and larger variation of materials and patterns, textile designers have found new ways to create ambitiously, experiment, and be inspired. At the same time, the rise of digital processes has led to a renewed appreciation of traditional craftsmanship, the handmade, and of the tactility and construction of textiles and surfaces.

In “The Pattern Base,” Kristi O’Meara and Audrey Victoria Keiffer,  showcase over 550 textile, surface, fashion, and print designs from over 150 designers working around the world.

Part One is a sourcebook of these designs, organized by type of pattern: Geometric, Floral, Representational, Digital Abstract, Illustrative, and Fabric Swatches. Part Two presents profiles of fifteen artists, constituting the hottest up-and-comers in the field. The book includes 697 illustrations.

BASIC FACTS: “The Pattern Base: Over 550 Contemporary Textile and Surface Designs” is written by Kristi O’Meara and Audrey Victoria Keiffer. Published by Thames & Hudson. Release Date: June 16, 2015. Paperback; 368 pages; $35.00.

 

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“The Good Garden: The Landscape Architecture of Edmund Hollander Design”

Since its founding in Manhattan in 1989, Edmund D. Hollander Landscape Design, led by principals Edmund Hollander and Maryanne Connelly, has created hundreds of breathtaking landscapes, both public and private. Most designs are within 200 miles of New York City with many located in The Hamptons. This volume presents dozens of gorgeous estate gardens throughout the Northeast, divided by design feature (gateways, paths, pool terraces, groves, borders, and more) to show home gardeners the ways plants can add dimension, texture, and sensuality to gardens of all sizes.

New York Times and Landscape Architecture columnist Anne
 Raver describes the way the firm works to create landscape environments that feel as a singular experience. The book contains over 300 color photographs of estate gardens in the Hamptons, Connecticut, and Upstate New York. Each is accompanied by a detailed caption explaining the plant selection and how each species contributes to the landscape as a whole.

Scientific plant names are included to assist home gardeners in choosing appropriate species for similar terrain or effect, allowing owners of gardens of all sizes to enjoy their land to the fullest.

BASIC FACTS: “The Good Garden: The Landscape Architecture of Edmund Hollander Design” is written by Edmund Hollander and Anne Raver. Published by The Monacelli Press. Release Date: June 30, 2015. Hardcover; 320 pages; $60.00.

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“Thomas Heatherwick: Making”

British designer Thomas Heatherwick is widely known as one of the great innovators of our era. His projects—feats of technical wizardry, combined with inspired flights of fancy—creatively blur the boundaries that divide architecture, design, urban infrastructure, and sculpture. This publication provides an inside look at the creation and development of his projects.

Established in 1994, Heatherwick Studio's designs often combine novel engineering with new materials and cutting-edge technology to create unusual and original building forms.

Covering the studio's complete output since inception, each of the 140 projects presented in "Making ideas" explains the design question the project posed and the creative and practical processes used to answer it in Thomas Heatherwick's own words.

The book expands on the 2012 monograph that presented  Heatherwick's most ambitious projects to date. The 2015 book publication coincides with the first museum presentation of Heatherwick’s work to the American public. “Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio” will be exhibited at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City from June 24, 2015 to January 3, 2016. The exhibition is organized by the Nasher Sculputure Center in Dallas.

BASIC FACTS: “Thomas Heatherwick: Making” is written by Thomas Heatherwick. Published by The Monacelli Press. Release Date: July 7, 2015. Paperback; 640 pages; $50.00.

 

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“Andrew Geller: Deconstructed: Artist and Architect”

Over the course of a career that lasted over 50 years, Andrew Geller—architect, artist, and designer—quietly produced a large and culturally significant body of work, leaving an invaluable mark in his field. Geller is known for his whimsical, modern beach houses including the Pearlroth House, Elizabeth Reese House, Esquire Weekend House, and the Leisurama development in The Hamptons. In “Andrew Geller: Deconstructed,” Geller's grandson, Jake Gorst, celebrates the life and work of his grandfather. Many of his modernist beach houses still exist and reveal design that was innovative, unconventional, and saturated with a delight for beauty and form.

“Andrew Geller: Deconstructed,” brings together two decades of interviews, formal and informal, with artifacts and treasures culled from Geller's vast personal collection of drawings and photographs. The book includes stories and images of Geller's famous beach houses along with lesser-known buildings and early artworks, resulting in a definitive volume which renders a vivid portrait of a man whose main drive in life was to create beauty in whatever he did.

BASIC FACTS: “Andrew Geller: Deconstructed: Artist and Architect” is written by Jake Gorst with photographs by John M. Hall. Published by Glitterati Incorporated. Release Date: April 15, 2015. Hardcover; 200 pages; $40.00.

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“Frida Kahlo’s Garden”

Accompanying the exhibition "Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life" at The New York Botanical Garden (on view through November 1, 2015), this book provides a new perspective to appreciate Frida Kahlo's paintings--the backdrop of her home and garden. Frida Kahlo created a natural paradise in her home at the Casa Azul in Mexico City. The plants cultivated there were vital components of some of her most original work, and an important part of her fascination with indigenous Mexican history and culture.

From early paintings dating from the 1920s to her last known work, Kahlo's use of botanical imagery reflects not only a love of the natural world, but also an evolving iconography. By focusing attention on this aspect of her art and its relationship to her garden sanctuary, the book demonstrates how the natural world provided Kahlo with inspiration.

In addition to full-page reproductions of Kahlo's paintings and works on paper, the book includes essays revealing Kahlo as an avid collector of artifacts, animals, books, and plants. Archival photos trace the evolution of the Casa Azul over the course of the artist's lifetime. Additionally, the book explores Mexican architecture, landscape design, and gardens of the early 20th century.

BASIC FACTS: “Frida Kahlo’s Garden” is written by Adriana Zavala. Published by Prestel. Release Date: May 12, 2015. Hardcover; 136 pages; $34.95.

 

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The Design Book List is published monthly at Hamptons Art Hub. For our list on new art books, check out the column Art on the Shelf.

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