150 years ago, Belgium and Japan signed their first treaty. They have been important economic partners for each other ever since. As a result, the reciprocal exchange of artistic influence between these countries flourished: Belgian artists were inspired by ‘Japanisme’, while Japanese writers read the works of Maurice Maeterlinck and Emiile Verhaeren. After the devastating violence of World War II, these two countries’ cooperation finally resulted in a solid alliance. This book invites its readers to focus on the cross-cultural exchanges that make the Belgian-Japanese relationship a fertile space for diplomacy, trade, and creativity.
In today’s economy, everything has changed. In order to survive, managers and organisational leaders will have to address the need to connect to the largest possible audience without losing touch with the individual. But how does this work? How can managers look ahead? How can they imagine how their company will be doing in thirty years from now, and do so in an environment where predictions have become all but impossible, and then at the same time successfully imprint their vision into a strategy for the next three months from now? What makes today’s customers tick? Why does everything have to be easy, fast, fun and simple? Why is data the new gold, and why is AI a blessing? The answer is plain. To keep evolving, leaders should be inspired by the outside world. They should have the guts to read the signals all around them. They should meet the needs of their customers and, above all, they should focus on every possibility. In short, they should never stop experimenting.
“Travelling the globe to work on various projects, from large European businesses to European royalty, Jadot brings a custom approach to each project, oftentimes designing the furniture that’s for each one.” – www.design-milk.com “My job is very varied and I like creating a new universe each day. My style is not defined and it is the diversity of my work that attracts people. Dreamers are my best audience.” – Lionel Jadot “I never make a decor that is fashionable but I always try to find out what is hidden behind the walls of a house and I try to create something authentic, where all elements come together and the end result is correct and honest.” – Lionel Jadot Lionel Jadot is the archetype of an eclectic person. Born from a family of furniture makers, the workshop was his playground and at a very young age he became interested in the art of making furniture. He expanded his focus later on and can now call himself an architect, interior designer, designer, artist and movie director. In his view working equals playing, recycling, assembling, always with a nod towards other cultures, the past, and local context. Text in English and Dutch.
The digital revolution has made customers more demanding than ever. Speed, transparency and hyper-personalisation are the new norm. More and more brand manufacturers are now selling in their own stores and webshops are selling directly to consumers in increasing quantities. In the meantime, new technologies are heralding the next phase of seismic change. In this book, Gino Van Ossel introduces the concept of optichannel, which will guide retailers, brand manufacturers and service companies through and beyond the current wave of digital hysteria. Using recognisable examples, he offers a realistic view of the retail landscape of the future and sets out a practical framework for a successful strategy that combines profit, competitiveness and customer focus.
“Vandekeybus brought into focus a whole new genre of modern dance… Combat rolls, breakneck sprints and savagely wrestled duets became the defining vocabulary of a new generation.” The Guardian
In 2016, Wim Vandekeybus’ company Ultima Vez celebrates its 30th birthday. Never before has his oeuvre been recorded in a book. Until now. This extraordinary book is a visual trip through the most powerful images from his repertoire, a quest for the ideas and themes that inspire him. It also contains unpublished texts, notes and scripts from his shows and films. A number of compagnons de route, such as David Byrne, Mauro Pawlowski, and Peter Verhelst, offer a personal textual contribution. Text in English, French, and Dutch.
“Although the street art is generally conveyed in a very natural matter, even his dead animal paintings seem at peace.” – Streetartbio.com “Detached from the artist’s identity, his detailed, illustrative animal paintings have brought him back to the world. With local species of animals as his main focus, ROA inevitably starts a dialogue about human interaction with nature and the environment, whether it is painting on the walls of a museum or in an abandoned rural factory.” – Hi Fructose – The New Contemporary Magazine “One of the most influential acts of street art around the world.” – The Huffington Post Fascinated by nature, the anonymous muralist and street artist ROA is inspired by the beauty of its non-human inhabitants. With great attention to detail, ROA draws over-sized black and white creatures of endemic or endangered species on buildings around the world, from Moscow to Mexico City, and from Los Angeles to London. His subjects are frequently survivors; scavengers, rodents, and unusual animals that thrive in their particular milieu.
Two-hundred capitals; one street each; seven years of travelling and collecting photos, stories, facts and figures about each capital. This is not just another photography book. It reveals everything that a street means to society: education, wisdom, youth, experience, happiness, stories, food, and so much more. This is the raw material of life, drawn directly from the experiences of the Dutch photographer Jeroen Swolfs. Seeing the street as a unifying theme, he travelled in search of that one street in each place – sometimes by a harbour or a railway station – that comprised the country as a whole. Each stunning image conveys culture, colours, rituals, even the history of the city and country where he found them. Swolfs sees the street as a universal meeting place, a platform of crowds, a centre of news and gossip, a place of work, and a playground for children. Indeed, Swolfs’s streets are a matrix for community; his photographs are published at a time when the unique insularity of local communities everywhere has never been more under threat.
200 countries; one street each; seven years of travelling and collecting photos, stories, facts and figures about each country. This is not just another photography book. It reveals everything that a street means to society: education, wisdom, youth, experience, happiness, stories, food, and so much more. This is the raw material of life, drawn directly from the experiences of the Belgian photographer Jeroen Swolfs. Seeing the street as a unifying theme, he travelled in search of that one street in each place – sometimes by a harbour or a railway station – that comprised the country as a whole. Each stunning image conveys culture, colours, rituals, even the history of the city and country where he found them. Swolfs sees the street as a universal meeting place, a platform of crowds, a centre of news and gossip, a place of work, and a playground for children. Indeed, Swolfs’s streets are a matrix for community; his photographs are published at a time when the unique insularity of local communities everywhere has never been more under threat.
According to a recent study, Tuscany is perceived by foreigners as a ‘landscape of great beauty and environmental quality where everything has retained a human dimension’, revolving around ‘the artistic, historic and cultural centre of Florence, transposed from the Renaissance to the contemporary age’. This book does not dwell on the region’s famous products, it does not narrate once again its eventful and colourful history, nor focus on the sumptuous art works that comprise what is the finest and most extensive collection in the world. It does not extol to excess the unequalled atmosphere of the landscape nor is it over-emphatic in its praise of the region’s intrinsic sense of harmonious physical and mental proportion. What it does seek to do is to tie together these and other characteristics in order to grasp what concretely derives from them today, namely a style of life. This is the region’s most precious quality, the specificity of a productive and innovative Tuscany fully integrated into the complexities of the contemporary age. Here art and crafts, tradition and innovation, nature and history, language and products, city and countryside blend together, giving living form to a quality of life which is now the rarest and most sought after of all commodities, one where it is possible to attain a greater sense of individual well-being and a more ordered and civil coexistence.
Benjamin West’s The Death of a Stag, a tour de force of pictorial theatre and his own unique Scottish masterpiece, has been the focus of high drama for over two centuries. Painted for the Clan Mackenzie in 1786, the gigantic canvas, measuring twelve by seventeen feet, is still the largest in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. The painting almost left these shores for America, but after a successful campaign, it was purchased in 1987. In 2004, the work was conserved in situ in the National Gallery of Scotland and this book tells the story of the picture, both in terms of its history and the conservation process.
Joan Eardley (1921-1963) is one of Scotland’s most admired artists. During a career that lasted barely fifteen years, she concentrated on two very distinct themes: children in the Townhead area of central Glasgow, and the fishing village of Catterline, just south of Aberdeen, with its leaden skies and wild sea. The contrast between this urban and rural subject matter is self-evident, but the two are not, at heart, so very different. Townhead and Catterline were home to tight-knit communities, living under extreme pressure: Townhead suffered from overcrowding and poverty, and Catterline from depopulation brought about by the declining fishing industry. Eardley was inspired by the humanity she found in both places. These two intertwining strands are the focus of this book, which looks in detail at Eardley’s working processes. Her method can be traced from rough sketches and photographs through to pastel drawings and large oil paintings. Identifying many of Eardley’s subjects and drawing on unpublished letters, archival records and interviews, the authors provide a new and remarkably detailed account of Eardley’s life and art.
The Monarch of the Glen by Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) is one of the most celebrated paintings of the nineteenth century. It was acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland in 2017. In this new book, the first to focus in detail on this iconic picture, Christopher Baker explores its complex and fascinating history. He places Landseer’s work in the context of the artist’s meteoric career, considers the circumstances of its high-profile commission and its extraordinary subsequent reputation. When so much Victorian art fell out of fashion, Landseer’s Monarch took on a new role as marketing image, bringing it global recognition. It also inspired the work of many other artists, ranging from Sir Bernard Partridge and Ronald Searle to Sir Peter Blake and Peter Saville. Today the picture has an intriguing status, being seen by some as a splendid celebration of Scotland’s natural wonders and by others as an archaic trophy. This publication will make a significant contribution to the debates that it continues to stimulate.
Established following the 125th anniversary of the foundation of the Chair of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh and named after the painter Sir John Watson Gordon, the Watson Gordon Lectures typify the long-standing and positive collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and the National Galleries of Scotland: two partners in the Visual Arts Research Institute in Edinburgh.This lecture, the third in the series, was given by Neil Cox of the University of Essex, one of Britain’s leading scholars of Cubism and Surrealism, and a particular authority on Picasso, approaching the Spaniard’s work from intriguing angles. He concentrates on a single work, Picasso’s Head of 1913, and in doing so demonstrates how scrupulous focus can open out challenging perspectives in the work of a great master. Also Available: Roger Fry’s Journey ISBN: 9781906270117 Sound, Silence, and Modernity in Dutch Pictures of Manners ISBN: 9781906270254
Assembly of the Exalted presents some 50 pieces from the remarkable collection of Alice S. Kandell. The works, dating from the late 13th century to the early 20th, include great masterpieces and emblematic examples of Tibetan Buddhist art. They are all presented here as the constituents of a Tibetan Buddhist shrine. Shrines, both modest and grand, are the primary sites of Tibetan Buddhist practice, whether it be reciting scriptures, performing rituals, saying prayers, or engaging in meditation. The introductory essays thus focus on the Tibetan Buddhist shrine, describing its evolution over the history of Buddhism, its special role in Tibet, and how the pieces in the Kandell Collection came to be assembled and displayed in shrines at institutions across America. Illustrated with vivid photography, forty short essays, each centered on a single work or set of objects, describe the pieces in terms of their importance for the practice of Buddhism, highlighting the many essential functions of Tibetan Buddhist art within the space of a shrine.
Many think slavery ended with the demise of the trans-Atlantic trade, but sadly, that’s far from true. An estimated thirty-six million live without dignity or rights and although slavery is illegal in every country, it continues to persist in all – as a crime against humanity. Lisa Kristine’s indelible images seek to unify humanity and inform the viewer of the tangible humanness of individuals enslaved today. Lisa was invited to the Vatican as a witness to the signing of the Declaration to Eradicate Modern Day Slavery by 2020. When Pope Francis gathered twenty-five of the world’s distinguished faith leaders the message was clear – slavery is not a political issue – it is a crime against humanity, against all people. Lisa’s journey sheds light on the need for a global shift from dependence on slave labour, to fair trade labour systems available and active in many parts of the world today. It is not simply a story about slavery, but liberation. In order to create change, we must first visualise what is required to free those enslaved today. Bound to Freedom focuses on inspiring us to engage in the reality of slavery – to make us aware of the depth of its reach and insist we begin to look for solutions across faiths, communities, and the world. The call is for a renewed commitment to cooperate and to empower those enslaved to be seen.
Merrick juxtaposed just three simple materials when he built his iconic piece of residential architecture. Yet what emerged transcended any individual construction tool. Merrick created a 17-level majestic wonder with spatial gymnastics, an extraordinary sense of materiality, and powerful structural tectonics. Both eccentric and outrageous, it is also truly contextual, a multitude of flying structural wooden columns nestling amidst the massive cedars. Embark on a virtual tour of this remarkable building.
In Urban Hallucinations, architects Koning Eizenberg take on the idyll of local and neighbourhood through the design of recent projects in the Los Angeles region. They bring a fresh eye to placemaking and community building in an urban area that is ambivalent about development, yet conscious of regional issues – notably sustainability, affordability, and housing shortage. Believing opportunities hide in plain sight, the architects sift through the context of increasing regulation, differing opinions on responsible growth, and priorities for quality of life to extract their own unexpected and compelling approach to the architecture of the day to day. Short narratives by well known Los Angeles based urban thinkers and observers, including Frances Anderton, Dana Cuff, and Alissa Walker, give context for the work. Their stories add insight into both the joys and imperfections of living in an iconic city.
HOK Tall Buildings is a visually engaging, accessible reference guide highlighting some of the world’s most innovative tall buildings. Written by global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm HOK, the book features creative conceptual designs, projects under construction and built high-rises worldwide. Throughout the book, central themes guiding the design of these tall buildings begin to emerge. These include a focus on creating high-performance, sustainable, iconic, efficient and mixed-use structures that increase the density of urban environments. The global teams at HOK excel at designing intelligent, high-performance tall buildings that become symbols of their time and place. HOK Tall Buildings chronicles the firm’s best recent designs for high-rises around the world, including: in Saudi Arabia, an iconic centrepiece that anchors a new office district; in Azerbaijan, a flame-inspired trio of towers that transforms Baku’s skyline; in South Korea, an iconic residential gateway to the neighbourhoods of Incheon’s dynamic northern district. Each high-rise profiled in the book is designed to blend human need with environmental stewardship, value creation, sense of place, and science and art. Gain insight into the minds and approaches of HOK’s global design teams as you peruse floor plans, sketches, renderings and photographs of dozens of dynamic tall buildings. Learn how an integrated design process enables teams to solve profound functional and technical challenges while igniting the imagination. Discover how designers of tall buildings can balance internal functions with the external demands of site, climate, and culture to create memorable, sustainable structures that enrich people’s lives.
For this Los Angeles firm, modernism is not a matter of style or ideology, but rather a commonsense approach to contemporary living. Their goal is to create a composite portrait of each client and their own response to the site and the benign climate of southern California. A few materials, impeccably crafted, provide a serene backdrop for living and entertaining. Photographs, plans, and sketches illustrate ten exemplary houses in great detail, and the text illuminates the creative process and the ways in which it has enriched the lives of fortunate owners.
This first-person account of a legendary necropolis will delight Francophiles, tourists and armchair travelers, while enriching the experience of taphophiles (cemetery lovers) and aficionados of art and architecture, mystery and romance. Carolyn Campbell’s evocative images are complemented by those of renowned landscape photographer Joe Cornish. City of Immortals celebrates the novelty and eccentricity of Père-Lachaise Cemetery through the engrossing story of the history of the site established by Napoleonic decree along with portraits of the last moments of the cultural icons buried within its walls. In addition to several ‘conversations’ with some of the high-profile residents, three guided tours are provided along with an illustrated pull-out map featuring the grave sites of eighty-four architects, artists, writers, musicians, dancers, filmmakers and actors, including Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison of the Doors. Frédéric Chopin, Georges Bizet, Edith Piaf, Maria Callas, Isadora Duncan, Eugène Delacroix, Gertrude Stein, Amedeo Modigliani, Sarah Bernhardt, Simone Signoret, Colette and Marcel Proust.
Experiences of Art: Reflections on Masterpieces is a book that explores the history of art through the insights of students and critics. It engages with challenging, thought-provoking themes such as the origins of creativity in prehistoric art, the meaning and significance of the classical paradigm in art history since antiquity, the actual application of Renaissance art theory to an examination of famous masterpieces, and the tradition of individual subjectivity and expression in modern art reaching back to Van Gogh. In addition, one of its special features is an exploration of a new area of philosophical inquiry, which re-examines the 18th century as both a period of rationalism and anti-rationalism (rather than the “Age of Reason”, as it is commonly referred to). With its focus on well-known and often-discussed masterpieces, this work is adept at including both the mandatory framework of current critical thought and introducing fresh ideas and perspectives.
This book tells the story of the painted towns of Shekhawati in rural Rajasthan, India. For centuries the painted buildings served the towns as trading houses, pleasure palaces, temples, caravansaries and private homes. Following independence, the descendants of the merchant families left Shekhawati for India’s burgeoning cities, abandoning their opulent structures. Some were left in the charge of caretakers; squatters took up residence in many; most simply remain vacant. The buildings have slowly deteriorated over time, ravaged by climate and neglect, and now lie scattered among the desert settlements as an elegiac collection of beautiful living ruins – a crumbling open-air gallery set amid the ordinary affairs of small town life. This book portrays the fascinating ruinous beauty of the painted towns, and, along the way, provides an intimate look at life and landscape on the arid fringes of Rajasthan. This world, too, is fading, and so the book’s photographs, in the end, are a visual study of both place and society at the edge of time.
Artificial mountains are a worldwide reality. Their presence influenced the history of urbanism, architecture, and landscape architecture. Burial sites use, very frequently, the intimidating shape of the man-made mountain. Incense burners in ancient China evoked the Five Sacred Mountains. Mount Parnassus in Greece became an important element in European garden history and a symbol of the Renaissance. In the Baroque Rome of the 17th century the most important artists worked on the constructions of huge ephemeral mounds in order to express more or less codified messages. The model of the artificial mountain was used as well during the French Revolution: the famous celebration of the Supreme Being took place on a gigantic faux mountain. The history of landscape architecture is characterized by the construction of architectural mounds, often built by using local excavation material.
The industrial revolution acted as another source for the rise of an anthropic topography, creating forms, which we do not recognise anymore as totally artificial. Architects have found in the form of mountains a model and a gestalt with which to play in an ironic way. In twentieth-century art, mountains are ubiquitous, culminating in Robert Smithson’s masterful exploration of reversed, displaced, and rebuilt mountains. Michael Jakob’s study is the first one to address this fascinating worldwide phenomenon stretching from Antiquity to our days
Fresh Water is a book that addresses regional, territorial, and continental water issues through inter-disciplinary design research in landscape architecture. The geographical and hydrosocial context of the major inland (non-coastal) watersheds of the North American continent – the Mississippi, the Great Lakes Basin-St. Lawrence and the Nelson – -remains an under-explored field for design research. Major spatial, temporal, biological, and geological manipulations of water bodies, systems, and flows raise critical questions about how to redefine human-hydro relationships and to reverse the deterioration of freshwater systems across the territory. Fresh Water assembles scholarly papers from designers that reframe complex issues of industrial agriculture, energy production, urban sewersheds, water law, transportation tributaries, and cross-watershed diversions, to propose new inland water futures. Design contributors interrogate the institutional regime and control of inland water, integrating diverse disciplinary knowledge to support multi-scalar interventions that challenge land and water policy to consider a range of new and urgent partnerships and projects this century.