Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview: November 15
CreativeMornings, Our Favorite Cafés to Read In, In Bed with Proust
November 15, 2013
This week we launched new collaborations with two distinguished partners: Tina Roth Eisenberg’s lecture series CreativeMornings, and the furnishings company Design Within Reach. For CreativeMornings, Designers & Books is providing monthly reading lists drawn from the bookshelves of our contributors based on CreativeMornings themes: in November, the theme is “bravery.” For Design Within Reach, our editor in chief, Steve Kroeter, created his own list of books that have inspired him. We also featured reports on our five favorite cafés to read (design books) in, and on getting in bed with Marcel Proust; answers to The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition from Steven Heller, Marian Bantjes, and others; fashion designer Anna Sui’s book list; and a new installment of Book of the Week. Watch next week for a visit with the eminent James Wines, and the list of books selected by architect Cino Zucchi.
Weekly Wrap-Up
Designers & Books collaborates with Tina Roth Eisenberg’s CreativeMornings to provide monthly reading lists based on CreativeMornings themes, beginning with November’s theme: bravery.
More...
Kahn’s original drawings models, and correspondence offer a “view from the drafting room” of the architect’s work, writes Witold Rybczynski.
More...
These one-of-a-kind coffee shops are known not only for their delicious espresso but also for their distinctive designs that invite an afternoon of reading.
More...
Centenary of the French author's influential work, In Search of Lost Time, celebrated with readings across New York City.
More...
As November 14 is the actual 100th anniversary date of the first publication of Swann’s Way—the almost 500-page first book in Proust’s lengthy and leisurely journey into his thoughts—we thought it fitting to post Adrian Shaughnessy’s answers today, the longest and most detailed we’ve received, and as Adrian says about a book in one of his answers, “fatally compelling.”
More...
Designers & Books is so used to asking designers and design writers for their book lists that it took Editor in Chief Steve Kroeter by surprise when someone asked him for the books he found most inspiring. That someone was the renowned company Design Within Reach.
More...
“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...
The artist, author, and designer uses handwritten text and paintings to tell of personal ponderings.
More...Next Week's Preview
“Encountering knowledge is like encountering love,” writes Milan-based architect Cino Zucchi in the introduction to his book list. “The books that have been meaningful to us are more often ‘found’ than searched for.”
The World Monuments Fund has listed the most threatened cultural heritage sites across the world, and five of them are in the United States.
In 2013, James Wines, founder and president of SITE, was honored with the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum for his four-decade career focusing on site-specific structures that engage the environment, encompassing architecture, environmental works, public spaces, landscapes, master plans, interiors, videos, graphic design, and industrial design.
You Might Also Like
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
.png)
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
.png)
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
Popular NowWeekMonth
- Archigram: The Magazine
- The Book We Need Now: New from Stefan Sagmeister
- Quote of the Day: Witold Rybczynski & Paradise Planned
- Summer Reading for Design Lovers: The Story of Architecture
- One Book and Why: Design School Dean Frederick Steiner Recommends . . .
Recent Articles
