Designers & Books Blog

 

856 blog entries
Architecture
By Steve Kroeter February 28, 2012

Architect Craig Hodgetts: Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture (Los Angeles)
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Since the 1970s, when he collaborated with Robert Mangurian in the cutting-edge firm Studio Works, to his talked-about recent installation with partner Hsinming Fung for the “Pacific Standard Time” exhibition California Design, 1930–1965 (on view through June 3, 2012, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Craig Hodgetts has pursued a remarkable range of interests. In his architecture, writing, and teaching, he has drawn on automotive and lighting design, information technology, and theater and film, among many other areas. He has, as he says in the introduction to the list he created for Designers & Books, “an appetite for nearly everything I encounter.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 4, 2013

Architecture critic Julie Iovine: The Wall Street Journal (New York)
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“I look to books for everything imaginable, and unimaginable. They shape my outlook, but also throw open spaces I could never have found on my own. The chance to consider an essential list is wonderfully engrossing, and also a bit of a nasty parlor trick. Must I commit?” is how Wall Street Journal architecture critic Julie Iovine begins her book list for Designers & Books. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 27, 2012

Architecture school dean and architect Mohsen Mostafavi: Harvard Graduate School of Design (Cambridge, MA)  Profile   Book List
Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff (New York)
(New York)   Profile
The venerable Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) celebrates its 75th anniversary during the 2011–2012 academic year. Earlier in the year, critic and author Nicolai Ouroussoff had the opportunity to meet GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi in his office to talk about books. The specific books in question were those on a list that Dean Mostafavi compiled for Designers & Books—books that have particular resonance for him not only because of their intellectual content but also through their very personal connection to him. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter September 10, 2013

Fashion editor, author, and icon André Leon Talley (1948–January 18, 2022) talked to Designers & Books in 2013 about the books that inspired him, and the books he wrote, including Little Black Dress (2013, Skira/Rizzoli). His most recent book was his memoir The Chiffon Trenches (2020, Ballantine Books). More...

The Proust Questionnaire — Book Edition
By Angus Hyland December 12, 2013

Question: “If for some reason it turned out that you could save one and only one book from among those you own, which would it be?” Answer from graphic designer (Pentagram, London) Angus Hyland:  “Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination or Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. Whichever was first at hand and whether I was in a Gothic panic or a more reflective mood.” More answers from Angus to The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter November 11, 2013

“Everything I’m currently obsessed with can serve as inspiration for my work: films, exhibitions, music, travel, flea markets. And books!” fashion designer Ann Sui proclaims. ”I love doing the research, learning about something new.” More...

Designers & Books News
By Steve Kroeter August 2, 2012

We at Designers & Books are excited to be hosting the first-ever book fair in New York City to focus on architecture and design book publishing—bringing to you live the two topics that we are passionate about: designers (including architects, and graphic, fashion, interior, landscape, product, and urban designers) and the books that inspire them. More...

Event
October 9, 2013

Architect Hugh Hardy on “Technology and Design in the Twenty First Century: Designing the Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center.” More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter January 15, 2013

Architect Florian Idenburg: Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (Brooklyn, New York)
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In a comment he makes for Designers & Books about Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan, a book he calls “pretty essential for anyone who ‘designs’ for the future,” architect Florian Idenburg notes that it “tells us we cannot predict, thus depict, what the future will be—all we can do is anticipate.” More...

Interviews
By Steve Kroeter April 5, 2011

Graphic designer, educator, and writer Jessica Helfand agreed to share with Designers & Books how she selected the titles for her book list and speaks about books as constant companions in her life. An avid reader (“three or four things at once”), she gravitates toward the “unusual” and the “unorthodox,” admits to a level of absurdity “that is absolutely at the core of my personality,” and readily acknowledges the theatricality in the way she approaches books (“I started out as an actress!”). 

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