Royal Festival Hall – The Official Record 1951
Rising up from the bank across the river from Charing Cross, the Royal Festival Hall demands to be noticed. Its architectural openness predates the grey Brutalism of its neighbours in the Southbank Centre and the National Theatre to the east, physically linking our present day back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. The Festival of […]
Shanghai’s Art Deco Master
By Spencer Dodington and Charles Lagrange. We celebrate Art Deco architecture today because it reflects a tangibly optimistic and vibrant spirit from long ago. Its colourful ‘Devil-may-care haughtiness’ feels impossibly carefree, particularly when contrasted with less visual concerns, such as planning regulations and economic engineering, which seem to dominate an architect’s time these days. Forgive […]
Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours
Adapted to Zoology, Botany, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Anatomy, and the Arts Syme’s publication is not so much a book, as a presentation of the first known study of colours and how to classify them, a novel break-through idea of its era (1814). Today, we can celebrate its creator, Abraham Gottlob Werner, as offering us the first […]
The Fabulous Interiors of the Great Ocean Liners
William H. Miller Jr., affectionately known within the cruise fraternity as “Mr Ocean Liner”, offers in this 1985 volume a chronological (1890–1982) pictorial journey into what might best be described as crafted magnificence under constraint. At MAAPS, having worked for many years within the refit and new-build world, our fascination with these ships lies not only […]
Joseph Cornell
The beguiling intrigues of Joseph Cornell’s (1903–1972) cabinets of curiosities constantly reward the viewer with surprise and quiet delight. His collages and constructions are singular affirmations of a life shaped by attention, patience, and an unwavering commitment to looking closely. Joseph Cornell created “shadow-boxes” that functioned like three-dimensional scrapbooks of places he had never actually […]
4+1 Peter Salter: Building Projects
We were torn between sharing 4+1 or the equally beguiling 2019 Walmer Yard book (ISBN 978-1-911422-07-5) which both convey Peter’s singular architectural imagination as both drawn and built work. Peter’s unique way of work seems to be a beautiful, delicate, and obsessive lunacy, sometimes corpulently populated, in which he creates evocative and memorable spaces. The […]
Brian Eno – Light Music
Our office library holds its share of rare and lovely surprises. This limited-edition copy (64/1500) of Brian’s “Light Music” catalogues the 2017 installation at the Paul Stolper Gallery. Much as the ambient music created by Eno inhabits our office soundscape, these works of light bring a meditative state of calm contemplation from which ideas can […]
Carlo Mollino
The eclectic and inventive furniture designs and interiors of Carlo Mollino (1905-73) draws its dynamic tension and figurative energy from the Second Futurist and Surrealist avant-gardes. Born in the quintessentially industrial city of Turin, the son of a prominent design engineer, and an architect by training, he shunned the prevailing rationalist modernism of the 40’s […]
Gordon Matta-Clark – Anarchitect
Published to accompany the 2017 exhibition at The Bronx Museum of Arts this catalogue captures the extraordinary work of Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) whose socially conscious artistic urban practice challenged and blurred boundaries between contemporary art and architecture. Our initial attraction and admiration of his work – best illustrated by “Conical Intersect” (Beaubourg, 1975) – was […]
French Decorative Art
While this fascinating book catalogues the highlights of French decorative arts and interior design between 1900 to 1942, it is the period from 1919 to 1933 that most holds our interest. This period marks a transition from the decorative dressing of rooms into a much more ambitious, holistic interior design approach. As we move into […]