World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
THU—SAT 12—6 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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World Food Books Gift Voucher
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1977, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 27.5 x 18.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Penguin Books / London
$90.00 - Out of stock
Cyber-communard and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand's 1977 visionary compendium, "Space Colonies". A special book edition of Brand's legendary CoEvolution Quarterly, Space Colonies took up the question of whether space might be colonized by the year 2000, going to where no media on the subject of space travel has gone before. A visionary and controversial assemblage of articles, illustrations, information and opinions on space colonies, inspired by the culture of the Whole Earth Catalog, with contributions from Buckminster Fuller, Richard Brautigan, Ant Farm, Carl Sagan, Lynn Margulis, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, David Browner, Paolo Soleri, Eric Drexler, Rusty Schweickart, and many more... interviews with Jacques Cousteau, Gerard O'Neill, Carl Sagan, Lynn Margulis, and many more, all organized into three sections - Vision, Debate and Space.
"This book is about how to take Space personally. Gerard O'Neill's vision of Space Colonies has turned the universe inside out for people. Instead of seeing the space program as a "boondoggle for scientists" (Herman Kahn), suddenly they can see Space as a path, or at least a metaphor, for their own liberation. And those who are critics of high technology — who abound in this book — can leverage their arguments from Space industrialization as the quintessence of what they are fighting. What's new is that people are extrapolating from the future and outside instead of just from the past and inside."
Very Good copy, with some light tanning/wear.
1973 / ?, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 27 x 38 cm
Reprint,
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Shelter Publishing / California
$60.00 - In stock -
Reprint of 1973 edition from possibly 2000?
From the early days of the environmental movement that began in the 1970s, this book attempted to find "a responsive & sensitive balance between the still-usable skills & wisdom of the past & the sustainable products & inventions of the 20th century. About simple homes, natural materials, & human resourcefulness."
Shelter is many things — a visually dynamic, oversized compendium of organic architecture past and present; a how-to book that includes over 1,250 illustrations; and a Whole Earth Catalog-type sourcebook for living in harmony with the earth by using every conceivable material.
First published in 1973, Shelter remains a source of inspiration and invention. Including the nuts-and-bolts aspects of building, the book covers such topics as dwellings from Iron Age huts to Bedouin tents to Togo's tin-and-thatch houses; nomadic shelters from tipis to "housecars"; and domes, dome cities, sod iglus, and even treehouses.
By the same guys who brought you the earlier "Domebook" 1 and 2, this is a wonderful design resource, illustrated with black-and-white & color photographs, sketches, & plans throughout.
The authors recount personal stories about alternative dwellings that illustrate sensible solutions to problems associated with using materials found in the environment — with fascinating, often surprising results.
"It's an inspiring celebration of indigenous, handmade, personal-statement building. Oughta be the first book a freshman architecture student sees." — J. Baldwin, Whole Earth Review
"It's time to educate the architects. To that extent this book on shakes and wattle and daub is the most revolutionary architecture book around..." — Architecture in Australia
Good copy with knocks, pinches to covers/corners/extremities, otherwise Very Good clean copy throughout.
1978, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 21 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Shelter Publishing / California
$40.00 - In stock -
First printing from 1978 of Shelter II, the follow-up book to Shelter, published in 1973.
Shelter II is about people building their own homes in different parts of the world. Heavily illustrated with photographs and plan drawings, the contents span "Indigenous Builders"; "North American Houses and Barns"; "Design"; "Small Buildings"; "Construction"; "Materials"; "Homes"; "Cities" and "Industrialized Housing" encompassing Greenhouses, English Cottages, Nomadic settlements in Rendille, The Urus floating reed islands, Turkish Yurts, Bungalows, Barns, Alternative Energy, Sod Roofs, Foam Domes, Gypsy Vans, Amsterdam Houseboats, Space Colonies, to name but a few!
The principles outlined in Shelter, published almost 40 years ago, seem even more important today: relearning the still-usable skills of the past and doing more hand work in providing life's necessities. Shelter II provides a basic manual of design and construction for the first time house-builder. The book begins with simple shelters still being built and lived in by people with minimal resources. They can be viewed for historical or anthropological interest, or as sensible, instructive examples of efficient construction by those who lack the choices available in industrialized societies. There are also personal accounts and seasoned advice from builders in different climates, with a variety of design approaches, construction techniques, and building materials. A home is still a place for working, resting, sharing, healing, dreaming . . . some things haven't changed that much.
Good copy with some general wear/rubbing to covers, light foxing/tanning.
1973, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 27 x 38 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Shelter Publishing / California
$95.00 - Out of stock
First printing from 1973.
From the early days of the environmental movement that began in the 1970s, this book attempted to find "a responsive & sensitive balance between the still-usable skills & wisdom of the past & the sustainable products & inventions of the 20th century. About simple homes, natural materials, & human resourcefulness."
Shelter is many things — a visually dynamic, oversized compendium of organic architecture past and present; a how-to book that includes over 1,250 illustrations; and a Whole Earth Catalog-type sourcebook for living in harmony with the earth by using every conceivable material.
First published in 1973, Shelter remains a source of inspiration and invention. Including the nuts-and-bolts aspects of building, the book covers such topics as dwellings from Iron Age huts to Bedouin tents to Togo's tin-and-thatch houses; nomadic shelters from tipis to "housecars"; and domes, dome cities, sod iglus, and even treehouses.
By the same guys who brought you the earlier "Domebook" 1 and 2, this is a wonderful design resource, illustrated with black-and-white & color photographs, sketches, & plans throughout.
The authors recount personal stories about alternative dwellings that illustrate sensible solutions to problems associated with using materials found in the environment — with fascinating, often surprising results.
"It's an inspiring celebration of indigenous, handmade, personal-statement building. Oughta be the first book a freshman architecture student sees." — J. Baldwin, Whole Earth Review
"It's time to educate the architects. To that extent this book on shakes and wattle and daub is the most revolutionary architecture book around..." — Architecture in Australia
Very Good with light wear. Rarely seen in first edition so well preserved.
1981, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 199 pages, 27 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Timber Press / London
$100.00 - Out of stock
First 1981 hardcover edition of Mediaeval Gardens by John Harvey, published by Timber Press, a collectible book that begins with the legacy of classical gardening left by the Romans in Britain and Western Europe and tracing its development to the early Tudor period. This is one of the finest illustrated accounts of gardening in mediaeval times.
Very Good copy. Some sunning to dust jacket, light wear.
1980, Italian
Softcover, 72 pages, 24 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Studio Forma / Turin
Studio Alchymia / Milan
$280.00 - In stock -
Very rare, very early volume published on the occasion of the exhibition "Elogio Del Banale" at the Venice Biennale, 1980, as part of the 1st International Architecture Exhibition. Conceived by Alessandro Mendini, Daniela Puppa, Paola Navone, this collection and book (directed by Andrea Branzi and designed by Michele de Lucchi) is heavily illustrated throughout with the work and studies of radical Italian design group Studio Alchimia, including many rarely seen early exhibition designs, interiors, furniture, objects, even catalogue decor for Fiorucci. Accompanying texts are by founding members Alessandro Mendini and Franco Raggi, and with an introduction by Barbara Radice. Includes patterns by Paola Navone and photographic studies by Ettore Sottsass throughout. An exceptional piece of printed radical design history, featuring many future Memphis members, published by Studio forma in Turin and Studio Alchymia in Milan.
Studio Alchimia was an iconoclastic, radical design group founded in Italy in 1976 by the Italian Architect Alessandro Guerriero. The Studio Alchimia was composed of designers, whose aim was to design and manufacture exhibition pieces, rather than consumer orientated products. Their products were to be regarded as prototypes / one-offs, leading the way from the principles of modernist design to a bold, new, experimental design style. This style would lead to the formation and popularity of Italian design groups in the 1980′s such as the Memphis Group and the new directions taken by the Alessi company.
Very Good copy.
2021, English / Japanese
Softcover, 64 pages, 26 x 37 cm
Published by
A.D.A Edita / Tokyo
$78.00 $50.00 - In stock -
One of the finest architecture series ever published, the world renowned GA (Global Architecture) series, presented by the highly esteemed publishing house that also published the GA Document, GA Houses, and GI (Global Interior) architectural publications.
Each over-sized photographic folio issue of the special GA Residential Masterpieces series highlights a renowned international architect and takes a detailed look into their creations for residence.
Absolutely stunning and vivid large-format architectural photography of the selected building’s interiors, exteriors and architectural details, along with texts (in English and Japanese) and floor-plans/elevation drawings make up the profiles on each featured architectural project. The visual generosity of these handsomely designed and beautifully printed over-sized publications make them a treasure for any architecture or interior design enthusiast or collector.
An icon of the modern movement and De Stijl, the Rietveld Schröder House in the Netherlands was designed by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964) and completed in 1924. In 2000 the house was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Built together with his client, it was Rietveld’s first architectural manifestation, and would prove to be the key work for his entire oeuvre. The relationship between interior and exterior, for instance, would continue to play a major role in the form and situation of his houses. Another fascination of Rietveld’s was the open floor plan. Photographer Yoshio Futagawa pays tribute to a pioneering monument of experimental residential design.
Printed in Japan.
2022, English
Softcover, 158 pages, 23 x 32 cm
Published by
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art / Denmark
The Danish Architectural Press / Denmark
$110.00 $50.00 - In stock -
English architect and writer Sir Peter Cook, renowned for his free-thinking spirit translated into architectural lines and shapes, is perhaps most well-known as the co-founder of the avant-garde architectural group Archigram in the 1960s. This beautiful volume presents a large selection of his works on paper as part of the exhibition series “Louisiana On Paper” at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Cook believes that visions of the future – whatever it might offer – are most clearly expressed and can best be discussed in drawings. In his work we encounter kaleidoscopic colours and spiralling shapes, voluntary architectural mutations, and twisting and turning buildings transforming into escapist dreamscapes.
2007, English
Hardcover (clothbound), 220 pages, 23.5 x 16 cm
Special private edition,
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
The Edwin Mellen Press / Wales
$140.00 $50.00 - In stock -
Special private issue edition of this seldom seen hardcover collection of academic essays in antipodean identity through architecture, edited by Michael J. Ostwald & Steven Fleming, awarded the Adele Mellen Prize for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship. Preface by architect Lindsay Johnston. Texts by Stephen Frith, Philip Goad, Harriet Edquist, Michael Linzey, William Taylor, Ali Mozaffari, Naomi Stead, Mike Austin, Davina Jackson, Michael J. Ostwald and Steven Fleming.
In the years since the completion of Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House countries throughout the South Pacific have displayed a particular fascination with the possibility that architecture may be able to embody regional cultural identity. This book examines a number of major museums, art galleries and cultural centers that have been constructed in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific regions. The majority of these buildings, landscapes or structures have been completed in the last few years and all have employed different architectural strategies to shape their designs. This collection of nine critical essays by leading scholars of contemporary architecture provides an important survey and assessment of Antipodean cultural architecture. Emphasizing common traits, the introduction to the text asks how this phenomenon might be understood and why it may be relevant in different regions around the world. Acknowledging the pluralistic nature of Antipodean architecture, the conclusion offers an alternative hermeneutical framework, one that accepts the fragmentary nature of the contemporary cultural landscape.
“There is, in fact, a hint of mild amusement amongst the architects of the Antipodes that the world has discovered that their other [hemisphere] is so interesting. There is a reassurance that maybe the real truth is being ‘dug with the other foot’. Irish poet Seamus Heaney speaks of his writing as “digging with the pen” and the essays that follow are turning over the sods of the cultural soil of Antipodean architecture in a way that may reveal new comprehensions, comprehensions beyond the scale of the domestic.”—Professor Lindsay Johnston, Head of the School of Architecture and Planning, The University of Auckland
“The depth and breadth of the authors’ writings reflects the multi-valence of a region that defies generalization. Through their attention to buildings and their attendant theoretical concerns, each author opens our eyes to another facet of this vast region of the world, revealing more of its rich cultural and intellectual heritage as the volume unfolds.”—Dr. Mark A. Reynolds, Instructor in Geometry, Academy of Art University
“This book, edited by Michael J. Ostwald and Steven Fleming, is a much-needed and engaging collection of essays from a group of pre-eminent Australasian architectural writers and thinkers ... The volume deals with museums, cultural centers, gardens, art galleries and public space and as such it is likely to be of interest to not only architects, urban designers and architectural teachers and students but also to art historians, cultural theorists and those engaged in museum practice.”—Dr. Sarah Treadwell, Deputy Head of School, University of Auckland
Dr. Michael J. Ostwald is Professor of Architectural Analytics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney (Australia) where he was previously Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture and in the Faculty of the Built Environment.
As New, light cloth wear.
1994 / 1998, French
Softcover, 158 pages, 28.7 × 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fondation pour l'Architecture / Brussels
$220.00 - In stock -
The great "L'Utopie du Tout Plastique 1960-1973", first published in Brussels and France in 1994 by Fondation pour l'Architecture and Norma Editions. Long out of print, this comprehensive volume quickly became an invaluable bible of sorts for plastic collectors of the 1960s, 1970s period. In 1994, on the occasion of a major exhibition in Brussels, editors Philippe Decelle, Diane Hennebert, and Pierre Loze compiled the most detailed printed survey of plastic products to date, from Art, Functional Furniture, Fiberglass, Inflatable PVC, Transparent PMMA, Pop and Radical Design, Cookware, Electronics, Mod Fashions, Utopian Architecture. Heavily researched and lavishly illustrated throughout with close to 200 of the finest examples, L’ Utopie has become the standard reference on 1960s plastic design - an essential aid in identifying the designers, companies and manufacture details of many classic plastic objects from this era.
Includes detailed biographies of the artists, designers, architects, manufacturers, plus a chronology and bibliography.
Translated blurb:
"The sixties are marked by unprecedented prosperity and technological progress. To this optimism corresponds an extraordinary freedom of creation until the oil crisis of 1973 which tempers this enthusiasm. The vogue of plastic is linked to this society of abundance. Yellow, red, orange, soft, hard, inflatable, it identifies with cheap, serial and disposable productions. Starting from a private collection unique in the world, the book offers a selection of plastic objects created between 1960 and 1973. Tupperware box, Kelton watch, Courrèges dress, Ettore Sottsass portable typewriter Valentine for Olivetti, first chair of Verner Panton, Joe Colombo ABS plastic chair, Niki de Saint Phalle's Nana, Caesar's Compression, cupola of the United States Pavilion by Richard Buckminster Fuller at the Montreal World's Fair or Frei Otto and Günter Behnisch overhead roof for the stadium of the Olympic Games in Munich, all show their diversity, their spirit and sometimes their beauty of the inventiveness of the time."
Features the work of Pierre Paulin, Sergio Mazza, Vico Magistretti, César, Studio 65, Nicola L, Piero Gilardi, Verner Panton, Arman, Gianfranco Frattini, Jonathan De Pas, Donato d'Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi, Gae Aulenti, Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Joe Colombo, Enzo Mari, Iseo Hosoe, Mario Bellini, Dorothée Maurer-Becker, Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi, Günter Beltzig, Maurice Calka, Eero Aarnio, Wendell Castle, Alberto Rosselli, Quasar Khanh, Rossi Molinary, Ennio Lucini, Ugo la Pietra, Ettore Sottsass, Superstudio, Archizoom, Roy Adzak, Studio Gruppo 14, Dieter Rams, Reinhold Weiss, Marco Zanuso, Rodolfo Bonetto, Roger Tallon, Pierre Cardin, Courreges, Frei Otto, Buckminster Fuller, Jean Maneval, Paolo Soleri, Archigram, and many more.
Second edition, published in 1998 on the occasion of Plastiques: Matieres e créér at l'lnstitut Claude-Nicolas Ledoux a la Saline Royale de Arc et Senans-France, October 1997—March 1998. Rare and immediately out-of-print. Very good copy with some light tanning, ageing.
1981, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 24 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Quick Fox / New York
$190.00 - In stock -
The now rare, first, only edition of one of the greatest interior design books ever published by one of the greatest interior design photographers ever. Tim Street-Porter (Domus, Underground Interiors, et al), compiled this, his first and most iconic book, in 1981. A wild book of his personal interior photographs with a fantastic design to match the fantastic interiors within. Capturing a multitude of architectural and interior styles, Interiors really is one of the rarest looks inside the homes you'd not usually see in glossy magazines nor coffee table books. From London, Los Angeles, New York, even Australia, from pop artists, stage designers, architects, animators, art dealers, stylists, textile designers, actresses... including the homes of Frank Gehry, Allen Jones, Zsa Zsa Gábor, Ward Bannett, Thea Porter, Duggie Fields, Harry Nilsson, James Coburn, Rudi Stern, Moira Lister, Luciana Martínez, Sally Sirkin Lewis, Lloyd Ziff, Philip Castle, Max Clendinning, Ralph Adron, and many more, including the photographer himself. A very rare, interior classic.
Very Good copy with light wear.
1964 , French
Hardcover, 192 pages, 30.5 x 24.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Pont Royal Del Duca - Laffont
Paris
$100.00 - Out of stock
First 1964 hardcover edition of Histoire de l'insolite (History of the Unusual) by Romi. Preface by Philippe Soupault, artistic design by Pierre Chapelot. An incredible visual survey of the weird and wonderful from the history of occultism to the absurd, the cabinet of curiosities to the voyages of science fiction, demonology to psychosis, the Fin de siècle, Futurists, Surrealists, Dadaists, Pataphysicians, the visionaries, the mediums, the curios, the macabre, the bizarre. Profusely illustrated in mono and duotone with many pasted-in lush colour plates, this is a beautiful visual reference of the fantastic throughout history. Chapters include (translated from French): The Sources of the Unusual - A Legendary Bestiary - Fantastic Voyages - The Design to Surprise - Unusual Enterprises, featuring Alfred Jarry, Giuseppe Arcimbaldo, P.T. Barnum, Edward Lear, Hélène Smith, Raymond Roussel, Alessandro Cagliostro, Stanislao Lepri, Hieronymus Bosch, Ferdinand Cheval, and hundreds of other artists, poets, mystics and unknowns. With a preface by none other than Surrealist founder, Dadaist, writer, poet, novelist, critic, political activist, Philippe Soupault (1897-1990).
Very Good copy, highly recommended.
1979, Japanese / English / Italian
Softcover (w. illustrated wax dust jacket), 320 pages, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Kodansha Int / Tokyo
$400.00 - In stock -
Very rare first edition copy of the best, most comprehensive book on the work of renowned Japanese graphic designer, sculptor, and poster artist Shigeo Fukuda (1932-2009), published in Tokyo in 1979. Fukuda was known for his striking optical illusions and provocative socially conscious work, particularly his anti-war and environmentalist posters. He was a pioneer in Japanese graphic design and the first Japanese designer inducted into the Art Director's Club Hall of Fame. This 350 page survey of his greatest works to date is profusely illustrated in vivid colour and b/w with his logo and display designs, posters, stage designs, environmental design, toys, illustration and graphic art, sculptures, picture books, calendars, ceramics, textiles, and so much more. Multi-lingual texts in Japanese and English/Italian by none other than Paul Rand, Bruno Munari, André Francis, and Yusuke Nakahara, plus a full chronology and list of works, all beautifully wrapped in the original publisher's wax paper jacket illustrated by Fukuda and original title bookmark/obi insert, all seldom preserved. THE book on this iconic Japanese designer.
Very Good copy in Good dust-jacket with wear and tear to spine/general age/tanning.
2025, English
Softcover, 728 pages, 22 x 14 cm
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$78.00 - Out of stock
The collected writings of artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz, along with the stories behind them told by Alexis Vaillant.
Marc Camille Chaimowicz was an acclaimed visual artist known for his performances, installations and curatorial flair. He was also a writer. This volume, the first comprehensive collection of writings by the artist, includes seminal interviews, chitchats, jokes, performance reports, insightful statements and letters in essay form, as well as rare documents, such as early surviving leaflets, typewriter handouts and hard-to-find articles. Spanning 1971–2023, the book unlocks the work of an artist considered to be a refreshing role model for a new generation of culture mavens and style savants. Drawing from literature, modernist architecture, interior design, art theory, glam rock and camp culture, the collection reveals the artist's inner self alongside the art, social flânerie and the goings-on of his time. Entertaining and witty, the texts stand out brilliantly with their early acumen and inclusivity, while setting a new template for an expression of queerness through writing. With access to Chaimowicz's personal material and photographs, curator and editor Alexis Vaillant is a guide to the artist's writings. Vaillant provides behind-the-scenes commentary and context—a time capsule of pleasure featuring Andy Warhol, Des Esseintes, Josef Frank, David Bowie, Vito Acconci, Eileen Gray, Alex Kapranos, Jean Cocteau, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jean Genet, Bob Dylan, Emma Bovary and Roger Cook, among others. This book presents readers with an in-depth look into Chaimowicz's quixotic shaping of his written work, which comes to life as a knowing and longing prose for the twenty-first century.
Embarked on a pursuit of pleasure, Marc Camille Chaimowicz addresses a multiplicity of topics that range from the agility of a jumping dog and the evocation of the color orange as torture, to the idea of feminized architecture and the description of Vienna as a rare city in which we can both work and dream. This source book provides a unique insight into the artist's pioneering aesthetics of camp. Randomly witty and humorous, and overtly charged and frivolous, the non-conclusive, compelling "writings" of Marc Camille Chaimowicz set a new template for the expression of queerness through writing. They are not only remarkable for the singularity of their wording and their acumen to inclusivity, but for the skillful way in which they illuminate the range of thinking of their author. First, in close dialogue with his work and the self-contained interiority that is in it; then, in connection with the fragmented cultural context the artist has taken part in from 1971 onwards; but ultimately, as points of contact with the socio-political dimension of the present.
Born in Paris in the aftermath of World War II of a Polish father and a French mother, Marc Camille Chaimowicz (1947-2024) moved as a child to the United Kingdom. He studied at Ealing, Camberwell, and the Slate School of Art in London. In new artistic times, careful to bring art and life closer, often using performance, the life of Marc Camille Chaimowicz has become a great workshop. Living in the exhibition spaces, he sets up hotels entrances, decorates them with his own artefacts, and serves there some tea to visitors with musical background. When it became an official art practice which was no longer subversive, Chaimowicz abandoned performance art. From 1975 to 1979, he designed the interior of his Approach Road flat. Wallpapers, curtains, videos he made while performing in his own decor: everything had been tailored-imagined, drawn, and conceived to turn his interior into a room conducive to reverie. From the 1980s onwards, decors and furniture set like in a theatre scenography took their place in museums. Since then, hundreds of exhibitions have featured the interiors series of this international artist.
Former Chief Curator at CAPC, Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux, Alexis Vaillant is a curator, writer, and editor based in Lisbon. His publications with Sternberg Press include- Legend (2008); Jean-Luc Blanc- Opera Rock (2009); Options With Nostrils (2010); Big Minis- Fetishes of Crisis (2011); Mark von Schlegell's New Dystopia (2012); On Things As Ideas (2016).
1986—1994, English
Softcover (12 issues), approx 50-80 pages ea., 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
International Synergy Institute / Los Angeles
$600.00 - In stock -
"A thrice yearly exploration of ambiguous borders and dynamic (intellectual/artistic) frontiers."
Exceptionally rare lot of 12 issues (1986—1994) of the trail-blazing subscription-only one-of-a-kind journal published by the International Synergy Institute, a intermedia think-tank active in Hollywood between 1986—1987. IS was founded by American actress and philanthropist Andra Akers (Charlie's Angels, Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard...), edited by experimental composer, researcher and Harry Partch Ensemble member David Dunn, with a cast of incredible contributors spanning these issues that includes media theorist Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema...), Australian composer, poet and performer Chris Mann, American ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, American artist Bill Viola, American landscape architect Bonnie Sherk, parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake, mathematician Ralph Abrahams, composer Kenneth Gaburo, Australian experimental composer Warren Burt, early media artist visionaries Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (Mobile Image, the Electronic Café...), Science Fiction theorist, philosopher and writer for Marvel comics Allyn B. Brodsky, American composer and writer Elaine Barkin, visionary Czech author Lukáš Tomin, aeronautical engineer and astronaut Russell Schweickart, mathematician and polymath Tim Poston, climate crisis artists Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, American composer John Bischoff, cultural historian William Irwin Thompson, ecological philosopher and author Boleslaw Rok, essayist and activist Tomaž Mastnak, Chilean biologist and philosopher Francisco Varela, artist Michael Kalil, systems theorist Will McWhinney, percussionist and composer Stuart Saunders Smith, mathematician Gottfried Mayer-Kress, alternative broadcaster Jay Levin, British-American futurist Hazel Henderson, actress Debra Clinger (The Love Boat, The Krofft Supershow, Midnight Madness, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour...), musician Mark Trayle, artist Sheila Pinkel, VFX pioneer Mimi Gramatky (LOST, Miami Vice, Star Trek, Tron, Damnation Alley...), sonic healer Jill Purce, robot dance choreographer Margo K. Apostolos, American psychedelic artist Alex Grey, social critic and historian Morris Berman, futurist Riane Eisler, poet James Bertolino, British zoologist, anthropologist and author John Heathorn Huxley, multi-media artist Todd Siler, American philosopher of science Ervin László, Budapest dissident magazine Magyar Narancs, and more.
Issues present: #0, #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14 (12 issues total, not all pictured)
"INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY consists of a global network of vanguard artists, scientists, and meta-physicians who are united by a deep sense of commitment to crossing the boundaries of their individual disciplines. Integral to this awareness is a reconciliation between advanced technological resources and a sense of the planet's sanctity. INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY is dedicated to the premise that such an understanding can form the basis of a creative matrix for responsible action in the information age."
"At this hinge of history, it seems appropriate that we should publish a journal where the passion of the individual scientist/artist can meet in sovereign association with global concerns — spinning the wheel of knowledge so that each of us can create our own theoretical magic." [...] "I am deeply moved by the creative commonwealth in this community, filled with explorers of topology, morphology, chaos dynamics, cognition, mind video, the revisioning of nature and art, telecommunications, sonics, cybernetics, cultural history, fractal politics, and what it now means to be deeply human. The provocative interaction of these ideas cannot help but to create a new and uniquely meaningful story. Come with us."—Andra Akers
Most Good—Very Good, with a couple of issues Average (mostly due to cover rubbing or creasing), all with light wear/age.
1986, Japanese
Hardcover (w. plastic slipcase), 280 pages, 22 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Libro Port Publishing Co. Ltd. / Tokyo
$70.00 - In stock -
Incredible hardcover, slipcased anthology of essays, Biological Ruins Theory, by esteemed Japanese art historian and media theorist Toshiharu Ito, published in Tokyo in 1986. Housed in lavish screen-printed plastic slipcase and metallic silver engraved hardcover with various paper-stocks and films used throughout, Biological Ruins Theory collects Ito's diverse essays relating to the intersection of the biological human body and the machine — from robots to fascists to fetishists to body alchemy to freaks to abnormal electric babies to cargo cult to photographic violence and much more, lavishly illustrated and featuring Marcel Duchamp, H.R. Giger, Pierre Molinier, Hans Bellmer, Rudolf Schlichter, Cindy Sherman, Ed Paschke, Robert Longo, Lucas Samaras, Steven F. Arnold, Joel Peter Witkin, Francis Picabia, Jeffrey Silverthorne, Miron Zownir, Arnolf Rainer, Issey Miyake, and so many more. Ito wrote the introduction to Giger's Necronomicon Japanese edition, reproduced in full here with many of Giger's artworks,
Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1953, Toshiharu Ito is an art historian, art and communication theorist and exhibition curator. He was professor at the Tama Art University of Tokyo from 1990 to 2001, and at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music since 2001. He is Artistic Director at the Intermedia Institute of Osaka since 1995, and from 1992 to 1998 curator at the Inter Communication Center of Tokyo; he worked as Artistic Director at Tokyo AAD Studio from 2000 to 2003. A selection of his published works includes the following titles: History of 20th Century Photography (Tokyo, Chikuma Shobo Pub., 1988); Machine Art (Tokyo, Iwanami Pub., 1991); Electronic Art (Tokyo, NTT Press, 1999).
VG—Near Fine copy.
1971, English / French
Hardcover, 240 pages, 33 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Societe Detudes Et De Publica / Paris
$780.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1971 edition of this must-have for any interior design enthusiast. Maison Jansen was the pre-eminent Paris interior design house of the mid-century. In 1971 they produced this exquisite, highly coveted company monograph documenting their illustrious work to date with magnificent photography and insight. Renowned for their sophisticated and luxurious style, Jansen was one of the first global interior design firms, and this magnificent book showcases their historical projects from around the world, documenting their innovative and timeless interior designs, making it a valuable item for interior designers, furniture designers, and art collectors alike.
Maison Jansen, founded in 1880 by Dutch-born Jean-Henri Jansen, was one of the first global interior design firms, renowned for its blend of traditional and modern styles. Headquartered in Paris, the firm quickly became a symbol of high-end, luxurious interior design, serving royalty, aristocrats, and the world's elite over nearly a century. Maison Jansen’s signature approach combined classical European styles with contemporary influences, creating interiors that were opulent yet tasteful, timeless yet modern. The firm was particularly known for its eclecticism, seamlessly incorporating elements from different periods and cultures to create sophisticated and harmonious interiors. Its work spanned various styles, from Louis XVI and Empire to Art Deco and modernist influences, allowing Maison Jansen to cater to the varied tastes of an elite clientele. Maison Jansen’s interiors were characterized by their attention to detail, impeccable craftsmanship, and the use of luxurious materials such as fine wood, marble, silk, and gilding. The firm employed highly skilled artisans and collaborated with talented craftsmen and artists, ensuring the highest standards of quality in every project. Though Maison Jansen officially closed its doors in 1989, its work continues to be highly regarded. Its influence is still felt in the world of interior design, with pieces and styles created by the firm fetching high prices at auctions and being sought after by collectors worldwide. The firm's legacy lies in its ability to harmonize tradition and modernity, creating timeless designs that are as relevant today as they were in the 20th century.
Edited by Jean Leveque, Antoinette Berveiller & Gerard Bonal
Foreword by G. Van Der Kemp
Good copy lacking dust jacket, some light age/wear to gilded cloth covers. One small cloth split, otherwise tight, well preserved copy.
1970, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 236 pages, 26 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Paul Hamlyn / Sydney
$200.00 - Out of stock
First, only hardcover edition of the incredible "Australian Style", one of the great unsung interior books of the 1960s/70s. Published in 1970 this heavily-illustrated volume aims to survey what the "new" (c. 1970) Australian style of modern architecture and interior design looked like through profiles on prominent Australian decorators, designers, innovators and architects of the time, including Harry Seidler, Robin Boyd, Gordon Andrews, Babette Hayes, Neville Marsh, Florence Broadhurst, Marion Hall Best, Leslie Walford, Barry Little, Ken Woolley, and Neville Gruzman, amongst many others, lavishly illustrated with photographic reproductions by Rodney Weidland of their interiors, buildings, furniture, textiles, and more. Edited by April Hersey and Babette Haynes, Australia's first Design Stylist of the burgeoning 1960s decor scene.
"Australia is developing a style of living which is as unique as the country itself. With growing affluence and the aggressive assault of mass media on our sensibilities, we have emerged from the era of composite nothingness drawn from remembered lands across the sea, and are presently finding our own standards and our own likes and dislikes in everything from pepper grinders to fifty-storey buildings. This book opens communication with the people who are making the new Australia liveable. It shows in 236 pages of magnificent colour and black and white illustration just what is happening on the frontiers of our sophistication. It voices the opinions of the experts who create our shelters. Architects like Robin Boyd, Harry Seidler and Neville Gruzman; designers like Gordon Andrews and Florence Broadhurst; interior designers like Marion Hall Best, Leslie Walford and Barry Little and the dozens of other innovators and creators who are daily adding to our knowledge and our comfort. In compiling the text, April Hersey has drawn our domestic development briefly to this time and place and then pin-pointed the rooms of a house and the work of the various designers and architects. Babette Hayes and Rodney Weidland have found the perfect illustrations for everything, from the smallest device to the most extravagant decor, to show Australian homes as they look today."
Very Good copy, with G—VG dust jacket.
2014, English
Hardcover, 202 pages, 30 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) / Victoria
$250.00 - In stock -
First edition of this fast out-of-print, important hardcover survey of Australian Mid-Century furniture design, edited by Kirsty Grant and published on the occasion of the exhibition, Mid-Century Modern, Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square, 30 May–19 October, 2014. Covering the 1940s to 1970s, Mid-Century Modern comprises the first major survey of Australian furniture and designers, including Grant Featherston, Douglas Snelling, Fred Lowen, George Korody, Clement Meadmore, and Michael Hirst. Profusely illustrated with photographic documentation of the iconic pieces, this volume included essays by prominent collectors, academics, architects and designers provide in-depth analysis of this uniquely innovative and influential period in Australian design. Contributors include Denise Whitehouse, writing on Grant Featherston, and Peter Atkins reflecting on the careers of Clement Meadmore and Michael Hirst. Neil Clerehan, Mary Featherston, Suzanna Shaw, and Dean Keep each examine the subject from a different perspective — that of the architect, designer, conservator, and collector respectively. Complete with time-line and bibliographical references.
Near Fine copy.
1972, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 176 pages, 29 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Viking Press / New York
$140.00 - Out of stock
Published in 19672 by New York’s Viking Press and edited by the great editor Barbara Plumb, who also brought us "Young Designs in Living" (1969) and later "Houses That Architects Live In" (1977), "Young Designs in Color" is a rich showcase of vibrant, imaginative interiors where bold use of colour transforms spaces into stunning, personal statements. From compact city apartments to sprawling country estates, this book offers a diverse collection of homes that embrace colour in innovative and functional ways. Through striking, colour saturated, large photographs and insightful descriptions, Plumb explores how furnishings, paint, wall coverings, fabrics, lighting, and art are combined to achieve dramatic and harmonious effects. One of the finest interior books of the period, and now quite scarce.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
1981, English
Softcover, 378 pages, 23.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Vintage Books / New York
$40.00 - Out of stock
A Pulitzer Prize Winner and landmark book from one of the truly original scholars of our time: a magnificent revelation of turn-of-the-century Vienna where out of a crisis of political and social disintegration so much of modern art and thought was born.
"Not only is it a splendid exploration of several aspects of early modernism in their political context; it is an indicator of how the discipline of intellectual history is currently practiced by its most able and ambitious craftsmen. It is also a moving vindication of historical study itself, in the face of modernism's defiant suggestion that history is obsolete."—David A. Hollinger, History Book Club Review
"Each of [the seven separate studies] can be read separately....Yet they are so artfully designed and integrated that one who reads them in order is impressed by the book's wholeness and the momentum of its argument."—Gordon A. Craig, The New Republic
"A profound work...on one of the most important chapters of modern intellectual history"—H.R. Trevor-Roper, front page, The New York Times Book Review
"Invaluable to the social and political historian...as well as to those more concerned with the arts"—John Willett, The New York Review of Books
"A work of original synthesis and scholarship. Engrossing."—Newsweek
G—VG copy with light age/wear to extremities.
2024, English
Flexibound hardcover housed in an embossed black sleeve, 448 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 cm
Published by
Judd Foundation / New York
MACK / London
$150.00 - Out of stock
"The art of a chair is not its resemblance to art, but is partly its reasonableness, usefulness, and scale as a chair."
Donald Judd Furniture includes more than one hundred pieces of his furniture, spanning 1970 to 1991, designed for his living and working spaces at 101 Spring Street and in Presidio County, Texas. The publication introduces readers to Donald Judd’s furniture designs, initiated during the renovation of his home and studio at 101 Spring Street in New York, and as the result of the difficulty Judd later had in furnishing his home in Marfa, Texas. These furniture designs exemplify the directness of form and presence for which his artworks are celebrated, as well as offering a distinct and unadorned functionality. In this book they are presented through detailed drawings and breakdowns of materials, and color photography exploring their placement and function within these spaces. As well as surveying a central aspect of his work, Donald Judd Furniture details Judd’s understanding of functionality, form, and his deep interest in the possibilities of design in a world of mass-production.
2020, English / French / Italian / Dutch
Softcover (3 volumes in slipcase), 400 pages, 24 x 16.9 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$300.00 - In stock -
At 400 pages, this is the definitive overview of the great and influential pioneers of Italian radical architecture, Superstudio. Immediately out-of-print and now collectible.
The avant-garde Italian architecture collective Superstudio was founded in 1966 by Adolfo Natalini (1941–2020) and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia (1941–2019), and quickly leaped to the forefront of the 1960s radical architecture movement alongside the likes of Archigram and Haus-Rucker-Co. Through their architectural projects (housing, industrial buildings, banks, interiors), design objects, photocollages, drawings, texts, installations, models, films and exhibitions, Superstudio found brilliant and highly inventive ways in which to inhabit a world transformed by capitalist forces and technological evolutions. This beautifully produced, slipcased, 400-page volume explores their oeuvre through the lens of “migrations” (migrazioni). Borrowed from Superstudio’s vocabulary, this term serves as a conceptual and poetic key to the group’s architecture and their works in all mediums.
Presented in 3 books, the first is a collection of critical essays and interviews with three prominent figures in architecture who have been in close contact with Superstudio over the past 50 years; By examining their personal and theoretical careers, these different voices show the great influence of the small group, bringing to life this “journey to the higher realms of reason.” The second book proposes a thematic journey through the work: it shows the rich iconography through a series of concepts from Superstudio’s vocabulary. They reveal the richness of the projects and images produced over the active years of the group that go beyond the narrative contained in some of the quasi-iconic photo collages. The last book presents previously unpublished letters from the archive of Adolfo Natalini. The exchanges between the members of Superstudio and the letters to prominent architects from the second half of the twentieth century form a collective autobiography in which architecture and life increasingly converge. In addition to the group’s oeuvre, the publication also presents work by 9999, Archizoom, Hiromi Fujii, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, Ugo La Pietra, Leonardo Ricci, Aldo Rossi, Leonardo Savioli, Ettore Sottsass Jr. and Bernard Tschumi.
Edited with text by Emmanuelle Chiappone-Piriou. Text by Beatrice Lampariello, Gabriele Mastrigli, Frédéric Migayrou. Interviews with Veronique Patteeuw, Rem Koolhaas, Aurelien Vernant, Bernard Tschumi, Yûki Yosikawa, Hiromi Fujii.
As New sealed copy. Out-of-print.
2014, English
Hardcover, 320 pages 25 x 18 cm
Published by
University of Chicago Press / Chicago
$65.00 $50.00 - In stock -
German writer, critic, and theorist Paul Scheerbart (1863–1915) died nearly a century ago, but his influence is still being felt today. Considered by some a mad eccentric and by others a visionary political thinker in his own time, he is now experiencing a revival thanks to a new generation of scholars who are rightfully situating him in the modernist pantheon.
Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is the first collection of Scheerbart’s multifarious writings to be published in English. In addition to a selection of his fantastical short stories, it includes the influential architectural manifesto Glass Architecture and his literary tour-de-force Perpetual Motion: The Story of an Invention. The latter, written in the guise of a scientific work (complete with technical diagrams), was taken as such when first published but in reality is a fiction—albeit one with an important message. Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is richly illustrated with period material, much of it never before reproduced, including a selection of artwork by Paul Scheerbart himself. Accompanying this original material is a selection of essays by scholars, novelists, and filmmakers commissioned for this publication to illuminate Scheerbart’s importance, then and now, in the worlds of art, architecture, and culture.
Coedited by artist Josiah McElheny and Christine Burgin, with new artwork created for this publication by McElheny, Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is a long-overdue monument to a modern master