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Wunderkammer, installation, 2012. Photo by Michael Moran
Wunderkammer
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien
Inspired by the idea of the ‘wunderkammer’ – ‘wonder-room’ or ‘cabinet of curiosities’ – that
originated during the Renaissance, world-renowned architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien
invited 42 celebrated architects and designers from around the world to create their own
wunderkammers, filling boxes with objects that inspire them. This delightful book gathers
together the varied, evocative wunderkammers along with accompanying statements by their
architect-creators, including such luminaries as Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, Diller Scofidio +
Renfro, Peter Eisenman, Steven Holl, Richard Meier, Murray Moss, Diébédo Francis Keré,
Juhani Pallasmaa, Elias Torres and Peter Zumthor.
An introduction by Williams and Tsien explains their fascination with the wunderkammer and looks at their own history of
collecting. The boxes, each spotlighted in its own section, are explored through each architect’s essay; working drawings and
sketchbook pages; construction and installation photos; a list of the items contained; and a photograph of the final box.
Wunderkammer offers a new way to think about art and inventiveness, collection and meaning in everyday objects.
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien are the founding members of the New York-based architecture firm in their name. Their built
works include the recently relocated Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
Art 55
November 240 pp. 146x216mm. 300 colour illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-19798-3 £20.00*
The Houses of Louis Kahn
George H. Marcus and William Whitaker
Louis Kahn is widely admired for his great monumental works, including the Kimbell Art
Museum, the Salk Institute and the National Assembly Complex in Bangladesh. However, the
importance of his houses has been largely overlooked. This book is the first to look at Kahn’s nine
major private houses. Beginning with his earliest encounters with Modernism in the late 1920s
and continuing through his iconic work of the 1960s and 1970s, the authors trace the evolution of
the architect’s thinking, which began and matured through his design of houses and their interiors,
a process inspired by his interactions with clients and his admiration for vernacular building
traditions.
Richly illustrated with new and period photographs and original drawings, The Houses of Louis Kahn shows how his ideas about
domestic spaces challenged conventions, much like his major public commissions, and were developed into one of the most
remarkable expressions of the American house.
George H. Marcus is adjunct assistant professor of the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania. William Whitaker is
curator of the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania, which houses the Louis I. Kahn Collection.
November 280 pp. 267x235mm. 100 colour + 150 b/w illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-17118-1 £40.00*
Lina Bo Bardi
Zeuler R. M. de A. Lima • With a foreword by Barry Bergdoll
Lina Bo Bardi, one of the most important architects working in Latin America in the 20th
century, was remarkably prolific and intriguingly idiosyncratic. A participant in the efforts to
reshape Italian culture in her youth, Bo Bardi immigrated to Brazil with her husband in 1946. In
Brazil, her practice evolved within the social and cultural realities of her adopted country. While
she continued to work with industrial materials like concrete and glass, she added popular
building materials and naturalistic forms to her design palette, striving to create large, multiuse
spaces that welcomed public life.
Lina Bo Bardi is the first comprehensive study of Bo Bardi’s career and showcases author Zeuler
Lima’s extensive archival work in Italy and Brazil. The leading authority on Bo Bardi, Lima frames the architect’s activities on two
continents and in five cities. The book examines how considerations of ethics, politics and social inclusiveness influenced Bo
Bardi’s intellectual engagement with modern architecture and provides an authoritative guide to her experimental, ephemeral and
iconic works of design.
Zeuler R. M. de A. Lima is an architect and associate professor of history, theory and design at the School of Design and Visual
Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Barry Bergdoll is professor of architectural history in the department of art history
and archaeology at Columbia University and the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
January 296 pp. 267x216mm. 81 colour + 95 b/w illus. HB ISBN 978-0-300-15426-9 £40.00*
Portuguese rights held by the author