Traces and analyzes the history of product design since 1750, beginning with the design and marketing innovations of Josiah Wedgwood, and examines how product design came into existence, how it influences our choices, and what is says about society

OBJECTS OF DESIRE

Science & Math

Forty, Adrian

Technology

Pantheon

Traces and analyzes the history of product design since 1750, beginning with the design and marketing innovations of Josiah Wedgwood, and examines how product design came into existence, how it influences our choices, and what is says about society

Arts & Photography

Decorative Arts & Design

Objects of desire: Design and society, 1750-1980

Architecture

Thames and Hudson

"One of the most significant contributions to design history in recent years."―Financial TimesObjects of Desire looks at the appearance of consumer goods in the 200 years since the introduction of mechanized production, whether in Josiah Wedgewood's use of neo-classicism for his industrially manufactured pottery or the development of appropriate forms for wirelesses. The argument is illustrated with examples ranging from penknives to computers and from sewing machines to railway carriages. In opening up new ways of appraising the man-made world around us, Objects of Desire is required reading for anyone who has any involvement with design and a revealing document about our society. 272 black-and-white illustrations

Objects of Desire: Design and Society Since 1750

Reference

Thames&Hudson

Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture

The words we use when we talk and write about architecture describe more than just bricks and mortar--they indicate the ways we think of and live with buildings. This original and thoughtful study provides the first thorough examination of the relationship between architecture and language as complex social practices. The first section of the book consists of six rigorously argued essays that investigate the language of modernism, language and drawing, "masculine and feminine" architecture, language metaphors, science in architecture, and the social properties of architecture. The second part provides a vocabulary of key words, providing rich analyses of critical terms such as Character, Form, History, and Space. Each investigation locates a word's modern meaning within a framework of historical enquiry and theoretical discussion, setting out clearly the term's invention and treatment by architects, historians, philosophers, critics, and the people who actually use buildings. This wholly original study changes and enriches the way we think and talk about architecture, and will prove indispensable to anyone concerned with architecture and culture in the modern era.

This book is the most comprehensive survey and analysis of Brazilian modern architecture to date, written by a young generation of Brazilian architects and historians for an international audience. Examining the works from the 'inside', and with different critical perspectives, they offer new and compelling readings of the country's architecture. Discussing the works of Oscar Niemayer and Lucio Costa, as well as those by less known but equally respected architects such as Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Vilanova Artigas and Jorge Machado Moreira, they show how modernist ideals were incorporated into a country with a legacy of contrasts and contradictions. The nation that saw the creation of of Brasilia, one of the most utopian projects of the Modern Movement, also witnessed the formation of its built environment at one of the fastest rates in the world, while large parts of the population still lived in precarious accommodation. Charting post-Brasilia developments, Brazil's Modern Architecture describes how architects today have adapted to the conditions of an increasingly polarized society by developing new strategies that are no less creative, even if sometimes less demonstrative. Illustrated with drawings, historical black and white, and new colour photographs, it also portrays the recent works of young practices, such as MMBB Arquitetos and Una Arquitetos, through a series of case studies.

Brazil's Modern Architecture

Andreoli, Elisabetta

Phaidon

Concrete has been used in arches, vaults, and domes dating as far back as the Roman Empire. Today, it is everywhere—in our roads, bridges, sidewalks, walls, and architecture. For each person on the planet, nearly three tons of concrete are produced every year. Used almost universally in modern construction, concrete has become a polarizing material that provokes intense loathing in some and fervent passion in others. Focusing on concrete’s effects on culture rather than its technical properties, Concrete and Culture examines the ways concrete has changed our understanding of nature, of time, and even of material. Adrian Forty concentrates not only on architects’ responses to concrete, but also takes into account the role concrete has played in politics, literature, cinema, labor-relations, and arguments about sustainability. Covering Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, Forty examines the degree that concrete has been responsible for modernist uniformity and the debates engendered by it. The first book to reflect on the global consequences of concrete, Concrete and Culture offers a new way to look at our environment over the past century.

Concrete and Culture: A Material History

Reaktion Books

Architectures du béton: Nouvelles vagues, nouvelles recherches

Picon, Antoine

Nordenson, Guy

Williams, Tod

Tsien, Billie

G. Martin Moeller Jr.

Ulm, Franz-Josef

Legault, Réjean

COHEN, Jean-Louis

Essays & Commentary

MONITEUR

The pragmatic Anglo - Saxon method of competition (reliability, track record, ability to get on with the client) is hardly the environment to encourage creative young architects, or to give them the opportunity to acquire the skills of their craft or the experience of developing and testing ideas through construction. It is no surprise therefore that the young partnership of Jonathan Sergison and Stephen Bates looks towards Europe for its inspiration. These are architects not interested in pursuing the spectacular, nor are they interested in concentrating their energies in the evolution of strategies to win commissions in the commercial market. Instead they would like the opportunity to practise architecture that has social relevance and physical meaning. They are inspired by the European architecture of the last 30 years (Rafael Moneo, Alvaro Siza, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Herzog &de Meuron, Roger Diener), as well as a younger generation of European contemporaries. Along with some of their London colleagues, especially Tony Fretton and Caruso St John, they share a fascination for the work of Peter and Alison Smithson. Since setting up in practice together in the early 1990s, Sergison Bates has carved out a distinctive, more European - style niche in the UK. They are to be respected for their commitment to a rigorous way of working and a challenging body of work. The achievement of this young practice lies not with any singular work, rather in the fact that they have accumulated both a convincing way of working and talking about architecture and, as this monograph of "2G" review testifies, a body of work to be admired.

2G N.34 Sergison Bates

Bates, Stephen

Allison, Peter

Ursprung, Philip

Sergison, Jonathan

Chipperfield, David

Woodman, Ellis

Photography & Video

Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.L.

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