An alluring glimpse into magnificent Cornell-like boxes created by some of the world’s leading architects and designers Inspired by the idea of the wunderkammer—“wonder-room” or “cabinet of curiosities”—that originated during the Renaissance, world-renowned architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien invited 35 celebrated architects and designers from around the world to create their own wunderkammers, filling boxes with objects that inspire them. This delightful book gathers together the varied, evocative wunderkammers along with accompanying statements by their architect-creators, including such luminaries as Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Peter Eisenman, Steven Holl, Richard Meier, Murray Moss, Diébédo Francis Keré, Juhani Pallasmaa, Elias Torres, and Peter Zumthor.
An introduction by Williams and Tsien explains their fascination with the wunderkammer and looks at their own history of collecting. The boxes, each spotlighted in its own section, are explored through each architect’s essay; working drawings and sketchbook pages; construction and installation photos; a list of the items contained; and a photograph of the final box. Wunderkammer offers a new way to think about art and inventiveness, collection and meaning in everyday objects.

Wunderkammer

Arts & Photography

Williams, Tod

Tsien, Billie

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

The screenplay for the major motion picture The Door in the Floor, based on the #1 national bestseller A Widow for One Year by John Irving In Irving’s introduction to Tod Williams’s screenplay, John Irving calls the script “the most word-for-word faithful translation to film of any of the adaptations written from my novels—including my own adaptation of The Cider House Rules.” Yet Williams has made a radical and insightful choice: namely, to tell only the first third of Irving’s long, dark novel. In this part of the story, sixteen-year-old Eddie O’Hare, an aspiring writer, believes he has landed the perfect summer job when he is hired as the personal assistant to the successful children’s book illustrator and author Ted Cole. But the Coles are a family marked by tragedy. Their two teenage sons were killed in a car accident; Marion Cole, the boys’ mother, has never recovered from their loss. Ted and Marion have temporarily separated, and their living arrangements, which involve their four-year-old daughter, Ruth, are—especially to Eddie’s limited experience—baffling. Ted seems to be having an affair with his model, the acerbic Mrs. Vaughn, and Marion and Eddie increasingly find themselves alone together or alone with Ruth. The Door in the Floor is a smooth and vivid adaptation of the darkest, most disturbing part of A Widow for One Year.

The Door in the Floor: The Screenplay

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Ballantine Books

A comprehensive description and behind-the-scenes look into the architectural evolution of the Barnes Foundation’s new building in downtown Philadelphia. In 2007, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects received the commission to design the new Barnes Foundation building, an enviable project that was surrounded both by controversy and the excitement of increasing access to one of America’s premier collections of post-impressionist art, amassed by Dr. Albert C. Barnes in the early twentieth century. The book presents photographs and drawings highlighting the new building’s sensitivity to the ideology of Dr. Barnes and the creativity of Paul Cret, who designed the foundation’s gallery in Merion. In the new facility, the Merion galleries are faithfully reproduced at the same scale with similar materials and are seamlessly integrated into the larger new building—a refined modernist masterpiece surrounded by grounds designed by landscape architect Laurie Olin.

The Architecture of the Barnes Foundation: Gallery in a Garden, Garden in a Gallery

Reference

Skira/Rizzoli

As one of Miami’s most influential architects, Rene Gonzalez revolutionizes the way luxury buildings are equipped for climate change. Tactile, experiential, and holistic, the work of his namesake office demonstrates a belief in the inseparable connection between nature and architecture, creating spaces that are memorable and timeless. Surveying fourteen residential, commercial, and cultural projects in Florida, marking the first phase of his career, Rene Gonzalez Architects: Not Lost in Translation illustrates Gonzalez’s ability to distill the essence of place, distinguishing his work both in his home state of Florida and in the global landscape of contemporary architecture. Projects featured in the book include three Alchemist boutiques, the first of which won the 2011 National AIA Institute Honor Award; the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, whose one million glass mosaic tiles create the illusion of a jungle oasis on the exterior; the eighteen-story GLASS Residential Tower in Miami Beach; the “pocket sanctuary” that is vegan restaurant Plant Food + Wine; and the North Beach Oceanfront Center, which serves as an inviting gathering ground to the North Miami Beach community. Gonzalez is especially attuned to environmental issues that are affecting the world, and which will drastically alter design practice in the coming years. RGA is receiving widespread attention for its efforts to respond to these emerging conditions, and these projects reveal Gonzalez’s commitment to embrace and celebrate the environment, seizing the opportunity to enhance our future. Rene Gonzalez Architects: Not Lost in Translation is a deeply personal book that illustrates Gonzalez’s fascination with the world that surrounds him. Featuring a conversation with Gonzalez’s colleagues Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, essays by journalists Caroline Roux and Beth Dunlop, as well as his own photographs of Miami’s vernacular architecture, this book documents Gonzalez’s progressive and responsive architecture that is of its place yet universally resonant.

Rene Gonzalez Architects: Not Lost in Translation

Dunlop, Beth

González, René

Roux, Caroline

Architecture

The Monacelli Press

Architectures du béton: Nouvelles vagues, nouvelles recherches

Science & Math

Forty, Adrian

Picon, Antoine

Nordenson, Guy

G. Martin Moeller Jr.

Ulm, Franz-Josef

Legault, Réjean

COHEN, Jean-Louis

Essays & Commentary

MONITEUR

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Books by Williams, Tod