Critical Architecture and Contemporary Culture

Mira Locher

Super Potato Design: The Complete Works of Takashi Sugimoto: Japan's Leading Interior Designer

Super Potato Design is the first full-length book to present the work and conceptual ideas of the internationally renowned Japanese design firm Super Potato, founded by Takashi Sugimoto. Super Potato's compelling designs for the interiors of restaurants, shops and hotels, as well as Takashi Sugimoto's designs for tea ceremony spaces and utensils, are richly complex compositions of materials which create simple, strong spaces. Using traditional Japanese building materials such as bamboo, wood, and stone, but creating original yet timeless spaces, Super Potato's designs avoid specific stylistic characterizations and short-lived fashion. By finding contemporary expression for essential concepts present in traditional Japan and combining materials in unexpected ways to create exciting spaces, Super Potato's work has had a significant impact on interior design in Japan and throughout Asia. Super Potato Design is generously illustrated with 320 full-color photographs by the respected Japanese photographer Yoshio Shiratori, who has recorded Super Potato's projects since the firm's conception in 1973. Architect and Japan scholar Mira Locher introduces the ideas and influences of Takashi ...

Richard Powers

Living Modern: The Sourcebook of Contemporary Interiors

Hundreds of photographs reveal stylish residences around the world, in particular from places where modern living has achieved its best expression, such as California, Brazil, Scandinavia, and Australia, but also from places where modern forms have been fused with vernacular styles or set against exotic vegetation. From desert to jungle, from city to country, Living Modern offers a boundless resource for achieving a personal vision of contemporary stylishness.

Heather Smith MacIsaac

Lars Bolander's Scandinavian Design

Clean, elegant lines, delicate color schemes, well-proportioned, light-filled spaces, and natural materi-als--the hallmarks of Scandinavian design are unmistak-able. As the trend in residential design continues to move toward pared-down, comfortably elegant, environmentally friendly homes, the Scandinavian aesthetic has become a global influence in interior design. Lars Bolander, one of Sweden's foremost interior designers, has been creating the Scandinavian look in homes all over the world for decades. In this impressively illustrated volume, he and author Heather Smith MacIsaac, a former editor of "House & Garden "magazine, share their expert knowledge of the very best in Scandinavian design, past and present, offer-ing guidance on how to achieve the Scandinavian look, incorporate the trademark elements into any decor, and mix and match traditional and modern, humble and grand. Praise for Lars Bolander's Scandinavian Design: "A private, exclusive tour of the best of Scandinavian design. . . . This book is a new treasure for my design library, one I will refer to over and over." Bunny Williams "A sophisticated volume . . . an in-depth, intelligent, and informative look at the ...