A critical contribution to the burgeoning field of Spanish colonial art, this catalog to the exhibition Behind Closed Doors reveals how art and luxury goods signaled the identity and status of Spanish Americans struggling to claim their place in a fluid New World hierarchy. Essays lead the reader through the elite Spanish American home, illuminating a dazzling array of both imported and domestic household goods. There, visitors encountered European-inspired portraiture, religious paintings used as signifiers of status as well as for private devotion, and objects that spoke to the owner's social and racial identity.

Behind Closed Doors Art in the Spanish American Home, 1492-1898

Aste, Richard (ed.)

The Monacelli Press

Farm: The Vernacular Tradition of Working Buildings

Every building and structure on a farm tells a story. Traveling through time and seasons, countries and regions, this book documents various cultural traditions, styles, and influences reflected in the overall layout of the farm complex (in relation to the landscape) and in the individual structures and building materials. Over 200 color photos.

Arts & Photography

Larkin, David

Architecture

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown are among the world's leading contemporary architects. Their writings, including the seminal books Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966; Venturi) and Learning from Las Vegas (1972; Venturi, Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour), have profoundly influenced architectural thought. The built work of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates of Philadelphia has had an equally great impact. Through a commitment to a creative understanding of history and the everyday environment and to the use of visual references in the design of buildings, this firm has changed the face of modern architecture. Guild House (1963), the Vanna Venturi House (1963), and Franklin Court (1976), all in Philadelphia, are key examples of a new outlook on the art of building. This landmark monograph -- assembled in collaboration with the architects -- illustrates the firm's work between 1986 and 1998. In his main text, Stanislaus von Moos analyzes the architects' understanding of tradition in relation to the social and urban complexities of our post-industrial, multicultural era. Featured are acclaimed buildings such as the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London; the Seattle Museum of Art; buildings for such universities and colleges as Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, UCLA, and Dartmouth; and new works, including the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, the hotel and recreation center in Nikko Kirifuri, Japan, and the administration building for the Département de la Haute-Garonne in Toulouse, France.From the Hardcover edition.

Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates: Buildings and Projects, 1986-1997

Moos, Stanislaus

Art of Kosovo: The Sacred Land

Subotoc, Gojko

History & Criticism

Introduction by Peter Blake. text by Susan Doubilet.

Private Architecture: Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century

Schezen, Roberto

Doubilet, Susan

Photographs of the five boroughs of New York City includes, busy streets and avenues, parks and botanical gardens, bridges, skyscrapers, churches, historic homes, and island geography

New York: City of Islands

Rajs, Jake

Photography & Video

Before the White House, there was Mount Vernon, the home of this nation's first president -- George Washington. Profiled here for the first time in full color by award-winning photographers Robert Lautman and Edward Owen and thoroughly documented in eight essays by eminent historians, the fascinating story of Mount Vernon -- from Washington's life to the finely furnished home that he and his wife, Martha, created over the years to the struggle and perseverance of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association to save this national treasure -- is presented in this exceptional volume. From the time Washington first leased the house and farm in 1754 until his death in 1799, he increased the estate from 2,126 acres to more than 8,000. Every aspect of Mount Vernon -- from the expansion and decoration of the house to the purchase of the silver and china, planting of the gardens, and management of the plantation -- was personally handled by Washington. The estate's elegant simplicity has been likened to the personality that so diligently shaped it. Celebrated leaders from all walks of life -- including Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and almost every American president since Washington -- make brief but important appearances in the Mount Vernon saga. In addition to historical significance, the rescue and subsequent restoration of Mount Vernon represent a milestone in America's preservation movement. The exemplary research and implementation of preservation techniques employed in the restoration of Mount Vernon, many of which are detailed here, have set precedents in the field.

George Washington's Mount Vernon

History

Garrett, Wendell

Americas

The island nation of Indonesia -- the largest and most populous country in Southeast Asia -- balances equal parts of custom and change. As gleaming skyscrapers rise in major cities, traditional design and ways of living remain extremely important. This visual paean to Indonesia's visual and artistic culture is both a wonderful source of design inspiration and a fascinating armchair tour of the multifaceted nation. Lavish new color photography of houses and interiors, bazaars and markets, mosques and temples, festivals and celebrations, shadow puppet theater and masked dance, gives the reader a sense of daily life in Indonesia. The book is divided into four major island regions: Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Bali. At the heart of each is a presentation of houses, more than twenty in all. The house in Indonesia, as in many other countries, is considered a complete environment. The many faces of residential design shown in the book, from humble cottages in agricultural areas to royal palaces, evoke personal stylistic sensibilities, encompassing both age-old local traditions and contemporary trends with a Southeast Asian flair. Furnishings, fabrics, objects -- all are featured as part of these remarkable works. Interviews with the owners and detailed commentary offer a comprehensive insider's tour of the principles of Indonesian design.

Indonesia : Design and Culture

Pearson, Clifford A.

The loft is increasingly the residential image most identified with New York. Originally popularized by artists and designers, the enormous raw spaces, most often in old industrial buildings in lower Manhattan, have been laboratories for the creativity of architects. Some of the most striking and important residential design of the latter part of the twentieth century has been created for lofts. Celebrated design arbiter Mayer Rus has had unparalleled access to the most exceptional new projects. He has gathered a great variety of architects and designers -- all widely published in popular and trade magazines -- for the book: Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Hawkinson, Peter Stamberg and Paul Aferiat, Architecture Research Office, and Deborah Berke. Paul Warchol's exquisite photographs, most taken especially for this volume, capture not only the design and details but the qualities of light, context, and history that make each loft unique. The engaging text highlights the designers, owners, and their residences, in addition to evoking the dramatic qualities of loft living.

Loft

Mayer Rus

American architect Louis I. Kahn left behind a legacy of great buildings: the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas; and the Indian Institute for Management in Ahmedabad. Yet he also left behind an equally important legacy of designs that were never realized. This exceptional volume unites those unbuilt projects with the most advanced computer-graphics technology—the first fundamentally new tool for studying space since the development of perspective in the Renaissance—to create a beautiful and poignant vision of what might have been. Author Kent Larson has delved deep into Kahn's extensive archives to construct faithful computer models of a series of proposals the architect was not able to build: the U.S. Consulate in Luanda, Angola; the Meeting House of the Salk Institute in La Jolla; the Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia; the Memorial to Six Million Jewish Martyrs in New York City; three proposals for the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem; and the Palazzo dei Congressi in Venice. The resulting computer-generated images present striking views of real buildings in real sites. Each detail is exquisitely rendered, from complex concrete textures to subtle interreflections and patterns of sunlight and shadow. Kahn's famous statement—"I thought of wrapping ruins around buildings"—is borne out by the views of his unbuilt works; his rigorous exploration of tactility and sensation, light and form, is equally evident. Complementing the new computer images is extensive archival material—rough preliminary drawings, finely delineated plans, and beautiful travel sketches. Larson also presents fascinating documentation of each project, often including correspondence with the clients that shows not only the deep respect accorded the architect but the complicated circumstances that sometimes made it impossible to bring a design to fruition. Not only a historical study of Kahn's unbuilt works, this volume is in itself an intriguing alternative history of architecture.

Louis I. Kahn : Unbuilt Masterworks

Scully, Vincent

Mitchell, William J.

Larson, Kent

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