by Saxon Henry

In a world that concentrates all too often on which titles are ranked highest by blockbuster booksellers, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to ask independent booksellers around the country to mention a few of their favorite books relating to design and architecture, and why they chose them. If you're a fan of beautiful books with lush photography, you're going to enjoy these.

 

Anderson Books in Larchmont, NY:

 

Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists by Leslie Umberger

This book is art, architecture and design all rolled into one. It chronicles the homes of over 20 vernacular artists. These spaces are offbeat and oh-so-personal. While you might not love each and every space, you cannot help but be impressed by the work that went into each one.

 

Lyn Peterson’s Real Life Kitchens by Lyn Peterson

This is a wonderful book to glean ideas on redoing your kitchen. It is full of practical advice on renovating the most used space in your home. Think of it as a head-to-toe guide (and it’s beautiful to boot). The illustrations are simply wonderful.

 

Rainy Day Books in Fairway, KS:

Farrow & Ball: The Art of Color by Brian Coleman (Author) and Edward Addeo (Photographer)

Brian Coleman provides an inspiration for designers, homeowners, and everyone who appreciates the importance of the role of color in interior design. Coleman hosts a tour of cottages, castles, lofts; then illustrates how paint and wallpaper are paramount to a room’s overall design and feel. From a classically furnished pre-war Manhattan apartment to a post-modern glass and concrete home in Toronto, Edward Addeo’s visually stunning photography of the interiors reveals how color is being taken to a new level of art. This is a must-have for someone considering redecorating, and designers also love it.

Bunny Williams' Point of View: Three Decades of Decorating Elegant and Comfortable Houses by Bunny Williams

World-renowned decorator and gardening expert Bunny Williams makes this observation: “You learn from people with great taste.” As a novice, Williams worked for the legendary decorators Sister Parrish and Albert Hadley, absorbing everything she could about their peerless design sense. Our customers are especially fond of her books—like the best-selling An Affair with a House—in part because they are as much memoir as how-to manual. This luxe volume includes sections on color, windows and other design-related topics with well-illustrated examples. Each example lives up to Williams’ claim that interiors should fit each client “like a couture suit.” The rooms she showcases in her books are chic but not to the point of being museum pieces. We especially like the fact that many of the rooms are filled with books!

Stone & Feather: Stephen Holl Architects / The Nelson-Atkins Museum Expansion by Jeffrey Kipnis

Architecture in Kansas City has a more prestigious history than many outsiders think; Frank Lloyd Wright designed a local church as one of his last commissions, and in 2007 our well-established museum, the Nelson-Atkins, reopened after a lengthy intermission with an addition by Stephen Holl that made every best-of architecture list from the New York Times to Time magazine. So naturally, this full-color documentation history has been the prize find for our proud readers. The book takes you inside the process and reveals the decisions made by the “starchitect” in ways that amateurs and art-lovers can follow, if not fantasize about their own dream houses. (Isn’t that what books are for?)

 Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

Speaking of Wright, perhaps the most popular architecture book at our store in a long while has been this novel about the youthful Frank Lloyd Wright. The historical novel tells the little-told chronicle of Wright’s early romance with one Mamah Cheney (no relation to the Vice President), the one woman who was, well, man enough to keep up with the burgeoning modernist. Horan’s years of research are handled transparently so that the Chicago landscape and other settings might as well be fictional—though knowing that we are reading about real people and historical affairs makes the story all the more compelling for our readers, who can combine their two great loves: art and gossip!

 

Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, MA:

101 Things I Learned In Architecture School by Matthew Frederick

This is a gem as it demystifies things made complicated in the classroom.  It starts with "How To Draw," for example. The author is an architect and instructor who wishes he'd had such a book while in school. Anyone interested in design on any level will benefit from this nifty tome (and the book itself is wonderfully designed!).

Natural Architecture by Alessandro Rocca

Rocca is an architect, architecture critic and professor at Milan Polytechnic. He is also the author of numerous books and articles. The book is elegant with fabulous photographs of architecture in nature, natural and/or manmade environments around the world.

The Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka

The subtitle says it well: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live. With great photos and clear text, the book shows how to maximize space in reasonably sized houses while creating beautiful interiors.

Eco Design, The Sourcebook by Alastair Fuad-Luke

This revised edition—to acknowledge the huge growth in efforts to go green—shows how to live sustainably with style. From the smallest item to an entire structure, the information you need is here.

 

 Tattered Cover in Denver, CO:

The Architecture of the Absurd: How 'Genius' Disfigured a Practical Art by John Silber

In this book, Silber examines some of the extreme examples of public architecture (such as Gehry's museums) and concludes that these are not always wonderful improvements.

Green Homes : New Ideas for Sustainable Living by Sergi Duran

This has been a big seller in the growing field of sustainable building & greener lifestyles.

Simple Home : the Luxury of Enough by Sarah Nettleton

We are seeing this as another growing trend: simple, open spaces decorated with few, but carefully selected objects.

 

Bookloft in Great Barrington, MA:

Houses of the Founding Fathers by Hugh Howard, photographs by Roger Straus III

This book goes a long way to show us—beyond our 7^th-grade knowledge of say, Mt Vernon—how the homes and places of the founding fathers informed and inspired their patriotism, their deeds and their writings. It’s a lovely book with great text by Hugh Howard, whose previous book was Mr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson, about Fiske Kimball—an important architectural historian who first reveled that Thomas Jefferson was in fact also a great architect.

 Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA:

Julia Morgan: Architect of Beauty

This groundbreaking female architect designed more than 700 buildings, many in California, and the beautiful book offers an overview of Morgan's work. It also explores the historical and cultural settings in which her buildings were created.

California Romantica by Diane Keaton.

This visually dramatic book features homes in the California Mission and Spanish Colonial style.

Linda Applewhite's Architectural Interiors: Transforming Your Home with Decorative Structural Elements

The ideas illustrated in this book provide lots of inspiration with their rich sun-washed colors and interesting use of architectural elements inside the home.

California Country Style by Diane Dorrans Saeks

This book showcases comfortable, casually elegant homes.

 

 Sundog Books in Seaside, FL:

The New Civic Art: Elements of Town Planning by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk & Robert Alminana

As one of the earliest and best-known examples of New Urbanism, this book was an easy choice for us here in Seaside.

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I've visited Seaside regularly over the years and I do believe the buildings nestled into the coastline of the panhandle of Florida represent some of the most serenely beautiful beachside architecture I've ever seen.

  by Saxon Henry

Audrey Hepburn once said, “Some people dream of having a big swimming pool. With me, it’s closets.” Were she still alive, Ornare’s closets would likely make the iconic actress swoon! The Brazilian company that migrated from South America to Miami is known for its exceptional detailing and luxurious appointments. A stroll through the Miami showroom brings great sensory pleasure. There’s something about the sleekly polished woods, which have managed to retain their textural personalities, combined with a peppering of undulant furniture that creates an air of allure.

 

I believe it’s safe to say that the populous of the vibrant country of Brazil can’t help but produce provocative products; and though Rio de Janeiro often gets blamed for Brazil’s tantalizing reputation, it’s not just the cariocas, or natives of Rio, that birth designs exuding sexy charm. São Paulo stakes its own claim here. During a recent trip to the city, Jason Richard Adams, director of Max Strang Architecture in Miami, noticed. “São Paulo was a city of absolute contrasts: lush rolling hillscapes with concrete towers rising up out of the canopy,” he explains. “There was a great vibe about the streets, and my favorite area was the libertage, or Japanese freedom district.”

 

He also noticed the sultry quality of the products being manufactured there. “What makes Brazilian design so inherently sexy is the mentality of the people,” he remarks. “They are in touch with nature, and prefer their designs to follow that path.”

 

Marcos Zucaratto, a Brazilian-born, Miami-based interior designer for Artefacto—a luxury Brazilian brand that has exploded in the U.S. in the past several years, couldn’t agree more. “We have so many natural resources that we work with, all of which link us to the organic,” he says. “We don’t limit our designs to straight edges; we create a balance between the organic, or natural elements, and the sensual.”

 

The designer, who designed the living room in the photo above, believes that Miami is a great place for Brazilians to strut their stuff. “It’s a natural place for us to put our creativity out there,” he explains. “I am a true carioca—was born and raised in Rio, which is an incredible city full of contrasts and beautiful people. This helped me to be who I am, and it is my constant inspiration.”

 

Designer Thomas Bina, the creative director of Los Angeles-based Environment Furniture, is a native Angeleno, but he’s been living in Brazil for the past five years in order to cultivate resources and designer relationships. He spotted a green trend coming out of Brazil, which is why he moved there. As is the case with most other aspects of life there, the environmentally friendly products pouring out of the South American country are far from boring. Case in point is the Giramundo swivel chair, which is covered in yarn scraps that were collected in Rio. And who can forget the playful wares of the Campana Brothers with their knack for envisioning spirited environmentally friendly products?

 

Ornare has also made a commitment to sustainable design. “Their factories were impeccably clean, modern and environmentally green in their re-use programs,” says Adams, who visited the company’s facilities while in Brazil. “As is the case with many of their products, the aspects I loved the most about Brazilian design was the use of reclaimed wood, and the stylistic ways architects and designers utilized this material.”

 

The company has just launched Linah, a new line of kitchen products, in the U.S. Why Miami for its first U.S. outlet? “Miami was a great choice because we felt that the city is home to the perfect combination of design innovation and luxury,” Ornare’s Director Esther Schattan remarks. “The city is filled with cosmopolitan citizens that are open-minded when it comes to embracing new ideas.”

 

Though certainly not a new idea, Adams’ last comment about the Brazilian’s penchant for the provocative is far from an afterthought: “It doesn't hurt that there is an abundance of sexy people in that country!” For other sexy design stories, visit my ezine DesignCommotion.

Everyday I am amazed to find that design is absolutely everywhere. I would like to share my discoveries with you. As I'm interviewing design visionaries, they never cease to amaze me in their depth and talent. Ross Lovegrove claims the road to success for any designer is paved with stamina. “Thou shalt not waffle,” he proclaimed. To read interviews with Lovegrove, the Campana Brothers and Piero Lissoni, visit my ezine Design Commotion. Lissoni claims that design for him is close to child’s play. “I still play everyday,” he explained. “I have just changed the scale of the things I am playing with!” Lovegrove designed the Swarovski Crystal Palace at Design Miami/ this year. See an interview about his design of Liquid Space here.