Announcements
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Forthcoming: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
By Per Olaf Fjeld and Emily Randall Fjeld
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: October 4, 2019
A new and personal reading of the architecture, teachings, and legacy of Louis I. Kahn from Per Olaf Fjeld’s perspective as a former student. The book explores Kahn’s life and work, offering a unique take on one of the twentieth century’s most important architects. Kahn’s Nordic and European ties are emphasized in this study that also covers his early childhood in Estonia, his travels, and his relationships with other architects, including the Norwegian architect Arne Korsmo.
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
Teaching Graphic Design History by Steven Heller
Teaching Graphic Design History
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: June 2019
An examination of the concerted efforts, happy accidents, and key influences of the practice throughout the years, Teaching Graphic Design History is an illuminating resource for students, practitioners, and future teachers of the subject.
Recent Articles




Stanley Abercrombie
Stanley Abercrombie received a B.S. in Architecture from Georgia Tech, a B.Arch. from MIT, and an M.Arch from Columbia University. He was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University where he also taught a seminar on “Theories of Architectural Evaluation.”
Abercrombie worked as a draftsman in the New York office of Marcel Breuer & Associates for three and a half years and as a designer in the New York office of John Carl Warnecke for five years. While practicing architecture he began writing (first for the Wall Street Journal) reviews of architecture-related books and exhibitions. In 1953 he became a Senior Editor at a new magazine, Architecture Plus. When that ceased publication a year later he became Senior Editor, Architecture, at the AIA Journal, later renamed Architecture. He became Editor-in-Chief of three design magazines, first of Interiors, then of Abitare in America (a short-lived American supplement to the Italian Abitare), and then, for 14 years, Interior Design. In all, he has written a dozen books and published more than 1,500 articles in 46 different magazines and newspapers.
He has served as a Director of the Society of Architectural Historians, as a lecturer at the Smithsonian Institution, as curator of the exhibition "Industrial Elegance" at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo (1993), and as a visiting critic at many architecture and design schools. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the New York School of Interior Design. Abercrombie is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and an Honorary Fellow of the American Society of Interior Designers.
Largely retired, he now lives in Sonoma, CA, where he is active with the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art as both a curator and exhibition designer.
Contributed Articles
Architecture and interior design editor and author Stanley Abercrombie has been been “dipping into Finnegans Wake for half a century,” favors poetry, and admires Rizzoli’s series of Richard Meier monographs and their design by Massimo Vignelli. Stanley gives these and 10 more answers to The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition.
More...