Landscape architect and urban designer Diana Balmori: Balmori Associates (New York)
book list
Diana Balmori sees landscape architecture as an art that balances formal precision with what she calls the “unfixity” of nature, saying that “there is an element of wildness that needs to enter into our lives.” In her recent book A Landscape Manifesto, she lays out her ideas—which include the philosophical and the poetic—in 25 precisely numbered points. (Three of our favorites, by the way, are #1, “Nostalgia for the past and utopian dreams for the future prevent us from looking at our present”; #23, “The edge between architecture and landscape can be porous”; and #24, “Landscape can be like poetry, highly suggestive and open to multiple interpretations.”)
Newest Posts and Book Lists
162 blog entries
Sep 6, 2011
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Aug 23, 2011
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Architecture and design curator Zoë Ryan: Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago)
book list
When Zoë Ryan—as of this July, the John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design and Chair of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago—gave us her list of books for product designers, she emphasized that she found it hard to be limited by disciplines or categories and that her view of design was an expansive one.
Aug 16, 2011
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Aug 9, 2011
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Architect Philip Freelon: The Freelon Group (Durham, NC)
book list
One look at Philip Freelon's varied portfolio of architectural work—his most recent high-profile commission is the Smithsonian's new National Museum of African American History and Culture (with David Adjaye and Davis Brody Bond Aedas), planned for the Mall in Washington, D.C.—and it becomes clear that this decidedly public work is as much about stimulating insights and constructing cultural bridges as it is about the skillful interweaving of artful forms and technology.
Aug 2, 2011
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Architect Winka Dubbeldam: Archi-Tectonics (New York)
book list
In an interview earlier this year, Winka Dubbeldam recalled that her parents enjoyed buying and building new homes—an obsession that resulted in her moving 15 times in the 17 years she lived with them. It isn’t really a surprise, then, that she ended up as an architect with a particular interest in progressive residential work. Her worldwide reputation now also extends to office tower, commercial, hospitality, and interior design work.
Jul 26, 2011
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Interior design editor and author Stanley Abercrombie: Interior Design magazine (Sonoma, CA)
book list
For someone whose long career has been devoted in large part to words, Stanley Abercrombie has some impressive numbers: In his more than 50 years at the forefront of reading and writing on architecture and interiors, he has been editor in chief of three eminent design magazines (Interiors, Abitare in America, and Interior Design—which he ran for 14 years, beginning in 1983); authored 11 books; written over 1,500 articles for 46 different magazines; and has roughly 12,000 books in his personal library. In addition, he currently serves as books editor at Interior Design magazine, reviewing a steady stream of books each year.
Jul 19, 2011
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Graphic designer Harry Pearce: Pentagram (London)
book list
Describing the talk that he’s frequently asked to deliver—which he does from one corner of the earth to the other: in the U.K., Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the U.S.—Harry Pearce says: “It’s about being a Pentagram partner , an eternal optimist, a failed vegetarian , a human rights activist, a dream diary keeper , an occasional nudist , a graphic designer , and an accidentalist.”
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Jul 12, 2011
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Product design executive Alberto Alessi: Alessi S.p.A. (Crusinallo, Italy)
book list
Alberto Alessi belongs to the third generation of one of the world’s great family dynasties in design. For over 40 years he has been at the center of managing the business and strategic affairs of Alessi S.p.A.—known for bringing innovative design to housewares—as well as coordinating the company’s product development relationships with notable architects and designers from around the world. He answered some questions from Designers & Books about his book list and about his life, which has had design at its center.
Jul 5, 2011
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Fashion designer Christian Lacroix (Paris)
book list
Like his acclaimed couture designs, the life and career of Christian Lacroix can be described as sumptuously adventurous, explosively colorful, grandly visionary, and endlessly inventive. “I never loved the world around me as it was,” he says, reminiscing about his childhood in a recent interview with The Guardian (London). “I re-designed it all in my own style.”
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Jun 28, 2011
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Graphic designer Chip Kidd: Alfred A. Knopf (New York)
book list
As a book jacket designer turned novelist, Chip Kidd is keenly attuned to the power of both the visual and the verbal. In an interview with Véronique Vienne for Designers & Books, he talks about the interplay of images, words, and ideas within the framework of his second novel, The Learners (2008), whose main character is a graphic designer working in advertising during the 1950s. In addition to his novels, Kidd, an art director at Alfred A. Knopf, has authored a number of books on comic-strip art.
