Matali Crasset’s Book List
Books have always accompanied me to help me clarify my thoughts, reflect on my practice. Although in my practice I work with mental images, words and texts are still very important to me. With reading my interests widen. My sensitivity to social thought, anthropology, and ethnology is affirmed. However, I feel very small in the face of the knowledge that the written word contains. I have only climbed a few steps of what is an imposing mountain, yet I find that it is a never-ending joy.
Les livres m'ont toujours accompagné pour préciser mes pensées, réfléchir sur ma pratique. Même si dans ma pratique je travaille à partir d'images mentales, le mot, le texte sont toujours cependant très importants pour moi. Après les centres d'intérêts se sont élargis. Ma sensibilité pour les pensées sociales, l'anthropologie, l'ethnologie s'est affirmée. Je me sens cependant très petite face aux connaissances de l'écrit. J'ai juste gravi quelques pas de cette imposante montagne, donc c'est un bonheur sans fin.
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As a teenager, I often read and reread Emile Zola, whose novel about the happiness of women was one of my favorite books, depicting an entire mural of society. I don’t know how to account for my fascination with this book today, but along with the love story between Denise Baudu and Octave Mouret, I think it was the social portrait that so enthused me.
Adolescente, j'ai beaucoup lu et relu Emile Zola, dont le roman au bonheur des dames était un de mes livres de chevet, la description de cette fresque sociale en regard de l'évolution de la société. Je ne sais pas comment regarder cette fascination pour ce livre aujourd'hui, mais plus que l'histoire d'amour entre Denise Baudu et Octave Mouret, je crois que c'est le tableau social qui m'a enthousiamé.
I became acquainted with this book by wine expert and father of natural wine-making Jules Chauvet through the publisher, John Paul Rocher, who produced a remarkable and politically astute reissue of a 1981 interview with Chauvet. While it may be a very technical book, it appeals to my interest in our relationship with nature and my interest in biodynamics. The world of wine is probably also a parable of our society. Wine is an encounter between vine, soil, and man.
This book also introduced to many other readings—that’s also the magic of books: it expands one’s network of knowledge.
Ce livre de Jules Chauvet, que j'ai connu par l'éditeur jean Paul Rocher a et qui a fait un travail de réédition remarquable et politique - est peut-être un livre très technique, mais il illustre mon rapport à la nature, mon intérêt pour la biodynamie. Le monde du vin est sans doute aussi une parabole de notre société. Un vin c'est la rencontre entre une vigne, un sol et un homme.
Ce livre m'a ouvert vers beaucoup d'autres lectures, c'est aussi cela la magie des livres, d'élargir son réseau de connaissance.
Perec is an author I always read with relish and this book was the first by the author that I devoured. Beyond the issues it addresses, my fascination with Perec’s work perhaps lies in the echo that I see in my practice as a designer: within the very specific and restrictive rules of writing, you can always find the freedom to invent, similar to the way the product designer creates something inventive within the constraints of industry.
C'est un auteur que je lis toujours avec délectation--ce livre car il fut le premier de Perec que j'ai dévoré. Au delà des sujets qu'il aborde, ma fascination pour l'écriture de Perec est peut-être l'écho que j'y vois dans ma pratique de designer : avec des règles d'écriture très précises et contraignantes, on peut toujours trouver une liberté et inventer, s'inventer, comme le designer avec les contraintes industrielles.
A superb, fascinatingly poetic text. Some phrases have remained with me like enigmas but possessing a terrible beauty. This book accompanied me during my final-year diploma project at the Ateliers where I worked with water, light, and fire on my “Domestic Trilogy.” “The house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows us to dream in peace.”—Gaston Bachelard
Un superbe texte d'une poésie fascinante, certaines phrases me sont restés comme des énigmes mais d'une beauté redoutable. C'est un livre qui m'a accompagné pendant mon projet de fin de diplôme aux Ateliers où je travaillais sur l'eau, la lumière et le feu autour du projet de la Trilogie domestique. “La maison abrite la rêverie, la maison protège le rêveur, la maison nous permet de rêver en paix.”
My interest in Jane Addams was born after an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago where I discovered her work, including Hull House, which is the expression of Addams’s social thought and political action. I am very interested in any social thought that has been developed in parallel with the industrial revolution, at a time when the word “design” came to be constructed, and when thinkers including Thomas More and Charles More proposed alternative social models—utopias. It seems to me that the same questions now inspire us, society offers the same choices. This is not a matter of nostalgia, but rather a reflection on what seems to be a fundamental issue.
Mon intérêt pour Jane Addams est né à la suite d'un exposition à Chicago à l'Art Institute ou j'ai découvert son oeuvre et notamment les Hull house, qui sont l'expression de sa pensée sociale et de son action politique. Jane Addams exprime mon vif intérêt pour la pensée social. Je suis très intéressée par toute la pensée sociale qui a été developpé en parallèle de la révolution industrielle, au même moment où le mot design se construit et où des penseurs, citons Thomas More, Charles More… s'interrogent sur la société et proposent d'autres modèles - des utopies - ; il me semble que les mêmes questionnements nous animent actuellement, les mêmes choix se sociétés se proposent. Il ne s'agit pas d'ici de nostalgie, mais au contraire réfléchir sur ce noeud qui me semble fondamental.
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman
Love Letter to a Garden
By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025
From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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