This essential travel guide to Southern India’s varied heritage covers all the major Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and European historical monuments and sites in Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. There are amazing descriptions of forts and palaces, temple architecture, sculpture and painting, mosques and tombs, churches and civic buildings. Plan trips by using the travel-friendly itineraries, accompanied by useful location maps. This essential travel guide contains comprehensive coverage of the region’s cities and monuments, museums, and archaeological sites. It includes all the major sites the great port cities of Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi; the citadels of Golconda, Vijaynagara and Gingee; the rock-cut sanctuaries at Ajanta and Ellora; the temples at Badami, Halebid and Thanjuvar; the mosques of Hyderabad and Bijapur; and the cathedrals at Goa and hundreds of less well-known places.
Swan & Maclaren were the most prominent and prestigious architectural practice working in Singapore during the latter part of the British era, that is to say, from 1892, when the firm was founded, through to independence in 1965. As such, the history of Singapore architecture, during that period, is very much the history of Swan & Maclaren. Of course there were other important players, local Singaporeans as well as British, working in Singapore at this time, but there is no denying that Swan & Maclaren were the key players during this era, representing the architects of choice for those who could afford them – their list of clients during the period we are considering reads like a litany of the good and the great of Singapore.
The output of the firm was extraordinary, too, ranging from corporate blockbusters like the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank and the Union Building of the 1920s, to factories, shophouses, department stores, hotels, schools and university buildings, railway stations, churches, mosques, a synagogue, bungalows, even the odd cattle shed! And not just in Singapore, but also in Peninsular Malaya (later Malaysia), Bangkok, Rangoon and the east Bornean state of Sarawak, once the fiefdom of the White Rajahs, later a Crown Colony.
The names of partners and senior members of staff are also among the most famous in Singapore’s architectural record: the eponymous Messrs Swan and Maclaren who founded the firm, Regent Alfred John Bidwell, one of the most talented architects of the British era, famous for having designed Raffles Hotel, the Victoria Memorial Hall and Theatre, the Chased-el Synagogue, the Teutonia Club (today’s Goodwood Park Hotel), Stamford House and much else besides; Arts and Crafts maestro, Scotsman David McLeod Craik; the 1920s and thirties triumvirate of “starchitects”, Frank Lundon, Denis Santry and Frank Brewer; Serbian Slobodan Petrovitch who designed the Tanjong Pagar Railways Station, and C. Y. Koh, author of everyone’s favourite early Modernist masterpiece, the Water Boat House on Fullerton Road. Similarly in the postwar era, when we see the emergence of a new generation of local Singaporean architects who would lead the practice through to independence.
The scope of the book covers the period from the mid-1880s, when the two eponymous founding partners, Archibald A. Swan and J. W. B. Maclaren first came to Singapore, and continues through to the end of the British era in 1965.
Masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance are in churches and museums throughout Italy. This book follows Leonado da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and others from place to place – Milan, Florence, the Vatican, Urbino and elsewhere – noting the great works as well as those found in less celebrated locations.
Contents: Introduction; The Spring of the Renaissance; Leonardo in Florence: The Workshop of Verrocchio; Raphael: From the Onset in Urbino to the Early Masterpieces; Leonardo in Milan: the Sforza’s Court; The Wonders of the Codex Atlanticus; The Cenacle, One of the Most Beautiful Paintings in the World; The Triumph of Raphael: the Room of the Segnatura and the First Roman Masterpieces; Raphael Towards the Room of Heliodorus; Michelangelo Painter; Raphael: from the Cartoons for the Sistine Chapel to the Room of the Fire in the Borgo; Raphael: Superintendent of Fine Arts; The Vatican Lodges; The Mystery of the First Caravaggio; Index of the Works and Places of Conservation.
Text in English and Italian.
On the whole, when one thinks of seventeenth-century sculpture in Rome, one has in mind the wonderful and famous works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, such as the Fountain of the Rivers or The Ecstasy of St. Theresa. The very idea of Roman baroque is commonly identified with the century’s great genius. And indeed, the influence of Bernini’s work on the sculpture and art in general of the period was, especially in Rome, decisive. However, this domination spread only during the second half of the seventeenth century, and less unequivocally than one might suppose. Other great sculptors, with personalities that were often very different from Bernini’s, contributed to making the extraordinary proliferation of Roman statuary extremely complex and varied at that time.
This book is aimed especially at students and museum visitors who would like to learn more about the topic and discusses the art in a straightforward and strictly chronological fashion. The narrative begins in the early decades of the seventeenth century with sculpture created by a motley and conspicuously cosmopolitan group of artists. Later, with the growing success of the great masters, commissions began to gravitate around Bernini, Alessandro Algardi, and François Duquesnoy. A new approach to Antiquity went hand in hand with a marked predilection for striking chromatic effects, borrowed from Venetian painting, and a desire to make a strong impact and achieve a particular tone, often with results of surprising originality. Taking the most up-to-date and best founded historiographic observations on the subject we have tried to highlight the workshop relationships between the great masters and the giovani, their pupils or occasional assistants, and in this way put into relief the experimental approach of some of these apprentices, such as Melchirro Caffà or Antonio Raggi, or the ability of certain others, for instance Ercole Ferrata, to fuse the most diverse influences. The book thus aims to show how marble and travertine were used throughout the century to create a whole army of statues that were positioned in the open and in churches, lending modern Rome its truly incomparable new face.
Jerusalem is truly unique in almost every way. For 3,000 years, people have fought over this city, destroyed it, and rebuilt it again. It is a place of great spirituality and beauty, and also of prophecy, historical intrigue and violence. It has been a stage for kings, conquerors, prophets and saints. Legends and secrets surround the palaces and ruins, churches and tombs and the overwhelming Old City, filled with sacred places. Although a place of contention among religions and between Israelis and Palestinians, the city is also a modern metropolis with bold architecture, vibrant markets, spectacular restaurants, dozens of theatres and 80 museums. Join us on an exciting tour of Jerusalem, a stronghold of culture and science and an international magnet for artists and writers.
Located in the rundown district of the Raval, the museum of contemporary art of Barcelona creates a dialogue between the quarter’s historic urban fabric and contemporary art. The labyrinthine nature of the pre-existing streets in the district is reflected in the building’s organisation, most notably in the main entrance. A pedestrian passageway runs parallel from the museum’s back garden to a newly created square in front of the museum, known as the Plaça dels Àngels, and links to a pedestrian network running throughout the old city. The gentle curve of this thoroughfare underscores the centrifugal movement of the cylindrical lobby and describes a fifth facade, connecting the geometries of the museum to an urban context characterised by skewed intersections and the domes of ancient churches. As befits an institution devoted to modern and contemporary art, the striking modernity of the museum’s architecture fuses with the accumulated history of the surroundings.
María Campos Carlés de Peña, a leading expert in furniture history, has undertaken an exhaustive project of research into the large and varied production of furniture made in Peru in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – the colonial period – for churches, convents, monasteries and private collections. Over eleven chapters she provides a thorough description of this type of furniture, which was inspired by artistic styles ranging from Mannerism to Neoclassicim, with their many variants and creators.
Her analysis allows for an appreciation of the way vice-regal furniture in Peru is a valuable witness to its time: an example of a syncretism of varied and different cultures, endowed with symbolism, iconographic meaning and enormous beauty.
Pål Vigeland has worked as a metal artist for nearly 50 years. Everything he has ever made, from jewellery and plates to public commissions and sculptures, has always been characterised by precision and stringency. This book shows the continuities between Vigeland’s earliest years and the present, while also exploring many of the surprising changes that have taken place along the way.
The intricate production methods that underlie Pål Vigeland’s latest works in tin are difficult to comprehend when standing in front of the finished pieces. Consequently, one major contribution to this book are Guri Dahl’s photographs of the artist at work. Her many close-ups allow us to zoom in on the constructive processes and appreciate how exacting and time-consuming they really are.
This book accompanies an exhibition at the Galleri Langegården, Bergen (NO), 21 May to 16 June 2019.
Text in English and Norwegian.
A colourful and entertaining guide for visiting – or getting better acquainted with – the city of Florence and its artistic wonders. An amusing story that you will find yourself reading over and over again: it will be your ally to better enjoy your visit to the most famous art city in the world. The guide will entertain you with fun facts and anecdotes narrated through the story of Philip and his guides: his uncle Charlie, a world-famous archaeologist, and his friend Giulia, a talented restorer. On this fascinating journey, our heroes venture out into the streets, palaces, churches, museums and gardens of Florence. Through their journey, they will meet the most diverse characters (saints, painters, scientists, architects, popes, politicians), some famous, and others less so – but all of them quirky enough. This book will bring together young readers and adults, entertaining both with the most interesting facts about the city, through the simple and discursive way of its narration.
Florence: Just Add Water…
was thought up, written and designed in collaboration with the renowned Amici dei Musei Fiorentini association, ensuring the highest quality of information; its illustrations give an imaginative richness to the numerous, splendid photographs updated in this new edition.
Temporality and age are inherent in every object and creature and, depending on one’s outlook, may transcend to infinity. How can this be imagined? What goes beyond it? Swiss filmmaker Christoph Schaub sets out for a personal journey through time and space. He starts in his childhood, when his fascination with sacred buildings began, and also his wondering about beginnings and ends. In dialogue with architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Alvaro Siza, artists James Turell and Cristina Iglesias, and musician Jojo Mayer, Schaub explores the magic of sacred spaces, a term that for him represents much more than just churches.
Architecture of Infinity traces spirituality in architecture and fine arts as well as in nature, and even over and above the limits of thought. The lightly floating camera immerses the viewer in somnambulistic images, taking him on a sensual and sensing journey through vast spaces, guiding his eye towards the star-spangled sky’s infinity and the depths of the ocean. Past and present, primeval times and light years, it is all there.
The running time of the film is 85 minutes, and the DVD is accompanied by a 32-page booklet with text in English and German.
From the ruins of Palmyra in the Syrian desert to the ghost town of Bodie, the painted churches of Sucevita in Romania, and a fire festival in a Japanese village: Michael Webb has ventured far afield in search of the rare and beautiful. He recalls memorable experiences of people and places over eight decades of travel around the world, and some of the buildings and landscapes that have left a lasting impression. It’s getting harder to find places that have not been commercialised and overwhelmed by mass tourism, but they can still be found, even in the most popular destinations. Webb’s recommendations should inspire you to get off the beaten track and make your own discoveries.
Hidden Malta gives visitors an opportunity to explore the hidden gems of the Maltese archipelago. Beyond the thriving main streets that attract the tourist crowds, there are so many other places waiting to be discovered, including churches, small museums, and places to eat, where you can meet and connect with locals. The guide also covers Malta’s many annual festivals and traditions, with historical re-enactments, wine, beer and music festivals, as well as food fairs held in various parts of the islands throughout the year.
In this alternative guide to Malta, licensed tourist guide Vincent Zammit pays tribute to the islands that he knows intimately, choosing to highlight places that are not well-known or frequented by visitors to Malta, giving them the opportunity to discover these well-kept secrets and the Malta that he loves.
Also available: Hidden Belgium, Hidden Scotland, Hidden Holland, Hidden Brooklyn, Hidden Tenerife. Discover the series: the500hiddensecrets.com
An abundantly illustrated journey through one of the world’s most diverse and fascinating regions.
Although India’s northeastern administrative region makes up only eight percent of India’s land area, it is home to some 140 indigenous tribes, each with its own unique culture. The terrain, predominantly hilly, ranges from snow-capped peaks to tropical rainforests. Now, for the first time, noted authors and filmmakers Dipti Bhalla Verma and Shiv Kunal Verma provide a comprehensive introduction to this little-known yet captivating part of the world.
Verma and Verma conduct us from the towering Kanchenjunga massif in Sikkim to the tea plantations of Assam, to the astonishing biodiversity of Arunachal Pradesh, to the martial tribes and Baptist churches of Nagaland, to the birthplace of polo in Manipur, to the living root bridges of Meghalaya, to the farms nestled among the hills of Tripura and Mizoram. They take us into the lives of the many peoples of these eight states, who maintain their traditional customs and beliefs even in the face of growing ecological threats.
Featuring more than 300 colour photographs and several detailed maps, Life and Culture in Northeast India will be an essential volume for anyone interested in the peoples and places of Planet Earth.
111 Places in Canterbury That You Shouldn’t Miss
captures Kent life as it should be – relaxed, carefree and brimming with the ancient and the modern. Take your pick of regal treats which include ancient churches, lengthy piers and in-your-face graffiti.
Seaside haunts and a village city display a county at the forefront of Europe that remains unmistakably English. Relics from Christianity’s pioneers join modern art and literature in a cultural tangle that thrives to this day. Crazy golf, watery stories and wine to rival the continent’s are all to be explored in this sun-soaked corner of the world. Kings, queens and archbishops vie for the local crown but jewels are all scattered around this region.
One of Sweden’s most renowned contemporary architects, Johan Celsing has created a diverse body of work that spans from housing to public institutions such as museums, libraries, and churches – all of it united by an intense and realistic engagement with the craft of making buildings.
Johan Celsing: Buildings, Texts is the first book to comprehensively collect Celsing’s designs. It features both built and unrealised projects are featured through working drawings and sketches, watercolours, and images of models, as well as new photographs by London-based photographer Ioana Marinescu. In addition to more than seven hundred illustrations, the buildings are discussed in essays by architects, educators, and critics including Wilfried Wang, Claes Caldenby, Katarina Rundgren, and Elizabeth Hatz. The book also offers a selection of Johan Celsing’s own writings.
We recognise Mario Botta’s buildings for their strong presence. His architecture is not ephemeral. It shapes the mass firmly and precisely. It touches the ground with self-reliance. A building by Mario Botta is an autonomous object. It comprises an ordered world of its own make. It is standing in dialogue with the urban tissue, but it establishes its own order as if it aims at differentiation instead of integration. Architectural order represents the core of his personal idiom. It is a well structured, compositional order which organises everything into a whole, as an underlying thread that connects and brings together houses on the mountains to museums and churches, banks and commercial buildings to buildings on the ground and buildings underground, different buildings at different places in time. The themes that underlie Mario Botta’s architecture are ties that connect and spines that support, common threads that bind one building to the next. His architecture is one of mass. It is then of no surprise that mass is the first thing to be defined and ordered, in his creative process. The volume of his buildings is mostly composed by one or more primary solids. Volume is thus an a-priori for Botta. It is conceived beforehand, the starting point to the adventure of architectural design. From the Introduction, Thoughts on architectural creativity By Dr. Irena Sakellaridou
London Secrets unlocks the city’s most fascinating secrets. Janelle McCulloch strips away bricks, mortar and tarmac to uncover parts of the capital that even born and bred Londoners may never have seen. In the shadow of the Gherkin, Cheesegrater and Walkie-Talkie skyscrapers are medieval churches, crypts and the curios of Postman’s Park – proof that altruism can exist in the Square Mile. In St James’s, a stone’s throw from the glitz and glamour of Soho are hidden squares and shops dating from a gentler age – purveyors of fine wine, gentleman’s apparel and bowler hats. The cobbled mews of Marylebone and Hampstead Village reveal unexpected treasures, rarely seen interiors and a rural idyll amid the urban hum. While the esoteric collections at the Horniman, Sir John Soane’s Museum and exotica of Leighton House make you feel you are in an entirely different country altogether. The author reveals the traditions and quirks that have survived to this day, from the freedom of the City of London allowing you to herd sheep through the town, to the “market ouvert” of Bermondsey Market, original home of the London wheeler-dealer. Lavishly photographed and researched, London Secrets will shed a whole new light on this most vibrant – and surprising – of cities.
Using Caravaggio’s The Cardsharps as the focus, we may understand how the three figures depicted are set in contrast: by social class, age and appearance. These differences are underpinned by the clothing that they wear, and on closer examination, it is apparent that the fabrics described in paint are directly comparable to those of the historic collections of Novara. In their insightful and detailed analysis, the authors of this volume present a comprehensive overview of the development of fashion and fabrics, from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, when Italy’s textile industry was at its peak. Text in English and Italian.
Nineteenth-Century European Painting: From Barbizon to Belle Époque represents a comprehensive guide to the range of stylistically diverse genres of nineteenth-century European painting. Accessible and insightful, this exquisitely illustrated volume presents the historical context behind the century’s essential artistic movements including Romantic Painting, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Realist Painting, Academic Painting, and Impressionist Painting. Influenced by an overwhelming wave of political, military and social change, nineteenth-century Europe represented an era more diverse in painterly subjects and styles than any before it. Indeed, it was a period that saw many European painters moving away from the strictures of the academy system, choosing instead to use their training to develop new techniques and traditions. A collection of independent stories, this book also outlines the unique progression between the different movements, exciting and enlightening the reader about the most magnificent period of art the world has ever known. Contents: Foreword; Dr. Vern G. Swanson; Introduction; Author’s Note; STYLES: The Barbizon School; Romantic Painting; Orientalist Painting; The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; Realist Painting; Academic Painting; Impressionist Painting; The Newlyn School; Post-Impressionist Painting; SUBJECTS: Landscape Painting; Venetian View Painting; Maritime Painting; Sporting Painting; Animal Painting; Genre Painting; Cardinal Painting; Costume Painting; British Neoclassical Revival Painting; Belle Époque Painting; Conclusion; Endnotes; Bibliography. Featured works from museums and collections including: Louvre, Paris, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Wallace Collection, London, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, The Tate Gallery, London, The Schaeffer Collection, New South Wales, The Royal Collection, The Royal Academy of Arts, England, The Musée D Orsay Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Collection), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, Russia, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, England, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Stanhope Forbes, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, PA, USA, Paisnel Gallery, London, National Gallery, London, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museo e Gallerie Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy, Museo de Arte, Ponte, Puerto Rico, Musée Marmottan, Paris, Musée D Orsay, Paris, Auguste Renoir, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among many others.
Katya & The Prince of Siam is the story of an ultimately tragic love affair and marriage between a beautiful young Russian girl from Kiev and an eastern prince, HRH Prince Chakrabongse of Siam, one of King Chulalongkorn’s favourite sons. It tells of their meeting in St. Petersburg, their elopement to marry in Constantinople and their journey and arrival in Siam. At first an outcast in Thai society (no son of the King had ever married a foreigner before), Ekaterina Ivonovna Desnitsky, or Mom Katerin as she became known, gradually gained love and respect. In 1908 they had a son, Prince Chula and for the next ten years enjoyed a happy life in Bangkok society as well as making various trips abroad and throughout Siam. However, following the Russian Revolution and trip abroad on her own, the marriage became strained and ended in divorce in 1919. More tragedy was to follow, leaving Prince Chula, aged 12, to face an education in England alone. Making use of much hitherto unpublished archive material such as letters, diaries and photographs, the book gives a fascinating insight into the life in both pre-revolutionary Russia and the Siamese court.
With over six thousand objects coming largely from Europe and Asia, the Villa San Luca in Ospedaletti (province of Imperia) is a splendid villa-museum set up by antique dealers and collectors Luigi Anton and Nera Laura, donated to the FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano, in 2001. It is one of Italy’s most important private collections dedicated to the decorative arts.
This catalogue presents a selection of the most representative pieces of the vast and diverse collection of silver produced in various European nations from the 17th to the first third of the 19th century: from the old Germanic States to those of the Italian peninsula, from France to England. The objects described in these pages testify to the great skill of master silversmiths in forging the precious metal while following the artistic trends of the moment, as well as proposing a ‘nearly complete’ compendium of the main types of tableware and household utensils in use on the tables of the upper classes over three centuries of European history.
Text in English and Italian.