Stone by Design: The Artistry of Lew French
by Lew French
from Gibbs Smith, Publisher
More than 125 gorgeous photographs showcase the beauty of award-winning stonemason Lew French's work in eight different homes, illustrating how rounded fieldstone, gray slate, rough granite, and even curvy driftwood can be incorporated into stunning pieces of functional art.
Vanishing America: The End of Main Street Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops, and Other Everyday Monuments
by Michael Eastman
from Rizzoli
Think of the quirky buildings you pass every day but whose quiet beauty you take for granted—the moviehouses, juke joints, soda fountains, barbershops, roadside diners, and storefront churches. You don’t miss them until they’re gone. As suburban sprawl and strip malls conquer the country, these vestiges of a lost way of life are falling under the wrecking ball. Here the photographer Michael Eastman has made the ultimate road trip, crisscrossing the nation dozens of times, to capture these buildings on film before they vanish. These dreamy images call us to question what we choose to let go in the wake of contemporary life, with a cool melancholy that evokes the work of Edward Hopper, Jack Kerouac, and William Eggleston. There is a wry sense of humor here as well. The book delights in the idiosyncracies of America’s vernacular styles, ranging from Depression Deco to New England clapboard in random juxtapositions that accrue over time in a town’s landscape. Countless visual puns arise among the book’s many detailed images of signs and statuettes. Vanishing America catalogues great everyday American architecture and design. But it also offers a provocative portrait of the silent emptiness that has descended upon vanishing small communities everywhere.
Casa Mexicana Style
by Annie Kelly
from "Stewart, Tabori and Chang"
In 1521, when the Spanish arrived in Mexico, they were amazed at the spectacular architecture and complex urban planning they encountered in the great city of Tenochtitlán (modern-day Mexico City). To the native Mayan, Aztec, and Olmec traditions that had flourished throughout Mexico, the Spanish brought their own influences, resulting in an extraordinarily rich design heritage that survives to this day.
Acclaimed architectural photographer Tim Street-Porter vividly captures this enduring passion for design in Casa Mexicana Style, the follow-up to his best-selling Casa Mexicana (more than 100,000 copies sold). In this gorgeous new book featuring more than 250 photographs, Street-Porter takes us on an insiderÂ’s tour of 30 stunning homes, from urbane city apartments and modernist beach houses to stately rural haciendas and lovingly restored colonial townhouses.
All of the residences showcased here are enlivened by a natural blending of indoors and outdoors, a vibrant palette shaped by the sun-drenched surroundings, and an artful incorporation of the countryÂ’s celebrated crafts and handiwork. Whether large or small, historical or contemporary, Mexican houses are artistic statements, expressing the unique and inimitable lifestyle of their creators. Casa Mexicana Style is a welcoming invitation to bask in the beauty of these homes, to enjoy their charm and sophistication.
The Illustrated Alamo 1836: A Photographic Journey
by Mark Lemon
from State House Press
The most iconic historic place in America may also be the most misunderstood.
For more than 170 years, the true nature and appearance of the Alamo, the cradle of Texas liberty, has eluded historians and artists alike. Partially demolished soon after the famous battle, the mission/fortress's appearance grew more and more indistinct. Even more recently, Hollywood has itself compounded the problem by redesigning the place to suit the artistic purposes of the dramatic script.
But the truth was lurking all along, in old sketches, plats, diagrams, and later archeological digs. Now for the first time, all of the available sources have been meticulously consulted and brought together to create the most accurate illustrated book on the true appearance of the Alamo in 1836 ever produced.
The reader is taken through the entire compound, inside and out, room to room, and shown areas never before depicted. For clarity, the compound is divided into sectors, each chapter covering a sector, which is then explored in detail. Through extremely realistic photo-illustrations, as well as dramatic original artwork with explanatory text, the author breathes new life into the 1836 Alamo, and makes it real.
Scholars, students, artists, and readers of history all will find this a fascinating journey back in time.
The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World
by Guillaume de Laubier
from Harry N. Abrams
All of the libraries in the world-whether small or large, public or private-serve the same purpose: to preserve, cherish, or show off the riches of human knowledge. Now, for the first time, an internationally renowned photographer takes the reader on a journey to more than 20 of the most historic of these magical places, all architectural treasures. From the dramatic, baroque Library of the Institut de France in Paris, to the splendid Vatican Library in Rome; from the majestic Royal Library in El Escorial, Spain, to the famed New York Public Library, a Beaux-Arts masterpiece-here are some of the most exquisite libraries of the Western world.
Included are national, scholarly, and religious libraries from 12 countries, which have in common a distinguished heritage and an architectural setting that emphasizes art and culture. The accompanying text traces the history of libraries to the present day, and describes how they came to serve famous personalities and men of letters. Libraries must be counted among civilization's crowning achievements; this elegant book is a fitting tribute to that accomplishment.
Angkor: Cambodia's Wondrous Khmer Temples, Fifth Edition (Odyssey Illustrated Guide)
by Dawn Rooney
from Odyssey
The great legacy of the ancient Khmer civilization, the temples of Angkor were built between the ninth and 15th centuries and cover an area stretching across 77 square miles in northwest Cambodia. This beautifully illustrated book contains a comprehensive monument-by-monument guide to the sites, detailed maps and plans, plus information about ten newly accessible temple complexes.
• Ten new temple sites; an additional 180 pages with 86 new color images
• Foreword by His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni of Cambodia
• Extensive accounts of temples and pre-Angkor sites
• Profiles the Phnom Penh National Museum
• The hip town Siem Reap—the base for exploring Angkor
• Unique flora and fauna around the great lake, Tonle Sap
• 158 color photos, 44 maps & plans.
Luxury Private Islands (Luxury Books)
by Misc.
from teNeues
No man is an island. But almost all of us have dreamed of owning one at some time or other. A slice of paradise, where we could set the rules and create a vision of the world as it should be. Few ever realize this fantasy. Yet now you're invited to take a peek at some of the world's most exclusive real estate. Set in a variety of climates and cultures, these heavenly hideaways boast a range of topographies and vegetation in some of the most beautiful settings on earth. This guide will inspire and amaze you.
Luxury Hotels Beach Resorts (Luxury)
by Misc.
from teNeues
Distinguished by masterly architecture and exemplary interior design, the beach hotels introduced in the pages of this lavishly illustrated coffee-table book are the ultimate refuge for those needing respite from their hectic lives and every-day routines. Whether well-established names or hidden gems, the reader is presented with a visual tour of ocean side resorts that range across continents and around the world - luxurious places where tastefulness and simplicity are often valued over richly decorated formality.
Approaching Nowhere: Photographs
from W. W. Norton
Evocative images of buildings and places, seen from the American road.
Like many who grew up during the spread of sprawl—with its predictable landscape of housing developments, shopping malls, interstate highways, and big-box construction—acclaimed photographer Jeff Brouws is drawn to places that still embody the vernacular past as well as to those that starkly portray the soulless, franchised American landscape. What began as cultural geography of Main Streets became a visual critique of the myth of upward mobility that created this car-centered, paved-over universe. Some images look outward to the edges of suburbia where sprawl is encroaching upon nature. Others turn inward, documenting the devastated inner cities. All the stunning color photographs reflect the complex beauty and desolation of visual life in our time. 100 color photographs.
Cottages by the Sea, The Handmade Homes of Carmel, America's First Artist Community
by Linda Leigh Paul
from Universe Publishing
While much about Carmel has changed since the days when Robinson Jeffers could be seen strolling the beach, the area remains one of America's most beautiful. It is also home to many of America's most charming but rarely seen cottages. In Carmel's residential district-- a very private, heavily wooded area surrounding the shops and tourist attractions of the town's often busy main street-- there are no sidewalks or streetlights. The U.S. Postal Service does not offer mail delivery. Homes have no addresses; they are simply known by name. Here, it is not uncommon for tourists, so intrigued by the uniqueness of the local architecture, to climb the fences of private homes in order to get a closer look or snapshot of the house on the other side. Now, for the first time, 34 of these homes can be seen more advantageously, in more than 270 specially commissioned and archival exterior and interior photographs.
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