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.
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Kahn’s original drawings models, and correspondence offer a “view from the drafting room” of the architect’s work, writes Witold Rybczynski.
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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.
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Centenary of the French author's influential work, In Search of Lost Time, celebrated with readings across New York City.
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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.”
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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.
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“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.”
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The artist, author, and designer uses handwritten text and paintings to tell of personal ponderings.
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“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.
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