Product/industrial and lighting designer Inga Sempé: Inga Sempé (Paris)
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French product designer Inga Sempé—known for her pleated paper and pendant lamps, ruched sofas, and other distinctive twists on everyday objects—credits her parents in ways both large and small when it comes to what she reads and how she looks at books. “Almost 95 percent of the books I have read were given to me by my mother,” she admits in the introduction to her list for Designers & Books.
Newest Posts and Book Lists
100 blog entries
Jun 18, 2013
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Jun 4, 2013
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Architecture critic Julie Iovine: The Wall Street Journal (New York)
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“I look to books for everything imaginable, and unimaginable. They shape my outlook, but also throw open spaces I could never have found on my own. The chance to consider an essential list is wonderfully engrossing, and also a bit of a nasty parlor trick. Must I commit?” is how Wall Street Journal architecture critic Julie Iovine begins her book list for Designers & Books.
May 28, 2013
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Architect Hugh Hardy: H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture (New York)
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Designers & Books caught up with architect Hugh Hardy, known for his design of some of New York's most celebrated theaters—from Broadway houses to Radio City to Lincoln Center—on the occasion of the recent release of his new book, Theater of Architecture (April 2013, Princeton Architectural Press). We asked a few questions about his latest title (his third), as well as about the selections on his book list, which he describes as “a mixed bag of gifts and explanations: history, architecture, urban affairs, and theater.”
May 21, 2013
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Architect, interior and product/industrial designer Matteo Thun: Matteo Thun & Partners (Milan)
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Matteo Thun needed something that functions like “a phone book” * to show the varied work for which he has become known over the course of his career. That work includes co-founding (with Ettore Sottsass) Memphis—the industrial design collective that defined Italian design in the 1970s and 1980s—and also the hotels, private residences, housewares, and lighting designed by his own firm, Matteo Thun & Partners.
May 14, 2013
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Textile design firm executive Michael Maharam: Maharam (New York)
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As CEO of his family’s over 110-year-old textile firm, Michael Maharam has introduced the work of modern and contemporary graphic, fashion, and industrial designers to the company’s commercial fabric lines. Hella Jongerius, Maira Kalman, Abbott Miller, and Paul Smith, among many others, have all designed for Maharam, which has become known for the progressive design and engineering of its textiles for architects and interior designers.
Apr 23, 2013
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Architect Craig Dykers: Snøhetta (New York and Oslo)
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“What gets me up in the morning,” says architect Craig Dykers in the introduction to the list of 21 books he sent us, is “knowing . . . that the places where we live are not bound by catalogues of definitions—they are so much more.” Dykers is the co-founder of the New York and Oslo-based firm Snøhetta,
Apr 9, 2013
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Product/industrial designer Jens Martin Skibsted: KiBiSi and Biomega (Copenhagen)
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Jens Martin Skibsted designs ahead-of-the curve bicycles for Biomega, a company he founded, and electronics, household products, and furnishings for the top Scandinavian industrial design studio KiBiSi, another firm he founded—along with Bjarke Ingels (BIG) and Lars Larsen (Kilo Design). He has been named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader for his design thinking and runs Skibsted Ideation, a design and branding agency.
Apr 2, 2013
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Design curator Aric Chen: M+ (Hong Kong)
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Design writer Zara Arshad: Design China (Beijing)
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The recently appointed Curator of Design and Architecture at M+, the new museum for visual culture that will be a centerpiece of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, Aric Chen looks forward to developing a design and architecture permanent collection, including a library, for the museum.
Mar 26, 2013
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Product/industrial designer Carl Magnusson: CGM Design LLC (New York)
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Design, believes Carl Magnusson, “must evoke an experience physically and culturally beyond its core function.” The eminent industrial designer—the winner of Contract magazine’s 2012 Legend Award for lifetime achievement—was talking about the “central message that stuck” from Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s Experiencing Architecture, on his book list for Designers and Books, but he was really talking about all of design.
Mar 19, 2013
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Graphic designer Peter Mendelsund: Alfred A. Knopf Books, Pantheon Books, Vertical Press (New York)
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“How I became a designer is anyone’s guess, but it certainly had nothing to do with reading design books,” says Peter Mendelsund, the book designer who created 11 of the winning book covers for the “50 Books/50 Covers” competition of 2011 and whose covers for Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy have been described by the Wall Street Journal as being “the most instantly recognizable and iconic book covers in contemporary fiction.”
