The Architecture Of Paradise

Paying homage to the seminal mid-century modern architecture of Palm Springs, this luxurious book showcases historic jet-set homes designed by legendary talents such as Richard Neutra, Albert Frey, and Paul Williams, as well as private residences by today’s leading tastemakers. Since Gary Cooper built one of the first modernist houses in Palm Springs in the 1930s, this desert oasis has entranced Hollywood. A mecca for the international jet set that lured Frank Sinatra, Walter Annenberg, and others, Palm Springs came into its own architecturally as a haven for visionary modernists such as Richard Neutra, who were practicing the International Style in Los Angeles. The architectural legacy remains unsurpassed for its originality and influence, and recently many of the city’s modernist residential treasures have been restored. In original new photography, Palm Springs captures the allure of this famed modernist destination. The book profiles outstanding examples such as the Annenberg Estate, the Ford House, and the Kaufmann House, shown in their splendor, as well as today’s restorations by top interior designers such as Martyn Lawrence Bullard and fashion designer Trina Turk. A resource section provides modernist furnishing stores and other points of interest.

Once the most famed resort destination of the world, the Catskills, New York's bygone Borscht Belt district, helped shape American culture and history. Through 363 images, take a trip back in time to relive the stories behind the theaters and nightclubs, the lavish lobbies where bellhops welcomed celebrities, and the vacuous dining rooms that served thousands of rich kosher meals each day.

Featuring hundreds of stunning color photographs and insightful commentary, this Asian design book showcases the art, architecture and design of the East. Eclectic, baroque and sophisticated—such are the characteristics of the lifestyle resorts and extravagant private residences crafted by the renowned Bensley Design Studios in Bangkok and Bali. The 27 resorts and homes featured in Paradise by Design are set amidst resplendent tropical gardens and spread from China to India to Bali. Focused in Asia Pacific, these buildings are unconventional, sensual and hold a special reverence for the tropical climate. Focusing not only on the architecture of the buildings, but also the landscape design, interior design, horticulture and fine arts and crafts found within and without these buildings, Paradise by Design transcends the traditional and details an inclusive look at some of the most stylish and diverse homes and resorts in Asia.

A sweeping historical study, Building Paradise seeks to construct a garden ethic for the design arts. It is an ethic predicated on the idea that, with our recent ecological and biological insights, we can build more intelligently than the status quo of current design practices. The paradisiacal instinct is the motivation behind every artistic impulse. From its theological origins to the present, the idea of paradise—the garden as a place of peace, beauty, and happiness—has acquired numerous meanings. It was a motif expounded in the earliest cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley, and it later became a dominant feature of Buddhist, Judeo-Christian, and Islamic practices. It informed Greco-Roman mythologies and the design of a Japanese garden; it was a motivation for the Renaissance humanists, and was complicit in visions of a New Arcadia within the landscapes of the Americas. This book, underscoring how the built and urban environments shapes culture, takes a biophilic approach and draws upon the major advances of the human sciences of the last few decades to argue on behalf of a design ethic centered squarely on human needs and aspirations. Written for students and academics within architecture and all related fields, this book focuses on the efforts to build paradise in a material way.

Interior-design legend Juan Montoya takes us on a tropical adventure with his recent breathtaking seaside residential projects. No typology lends itself more naturally to Juan Montoya's creative impulses than tropical residences. There is such a sense of appropriateness to place in the architecture and interiors that our assumption that the designer's stylistic affinity is somehow inborn becomes inescapable. In this book, the reader will visit Montoya-designed residences that occupy ravishing sites in Punta Mita (Mexico), Cap Cana (Dominican Republic), Miami Beach, Fisher Island, and other idyllic oceanfront locales. As much as these homes are escapist fantasias, they are also inextricably rooted to their geographic location and their regional culture. And while their sense of luxury is palpable, so is their lack of pretension, the practicality that makes them functional for the families who reside there, and their resilience to the natural conditions in which they are found. Luxuriate in open-air pavilions with endless views of sea and sand, on sweeping terraces with glimmering pools and dramatic sunsets, and in sumptuous interiors with blue-and-white tiles, intricate beadwork, global textiles, and thatched roofs. This book is a must-have for interior designers, owners or potential buyers of seaside property, and armchair travelers who relish an escape to paradise.

This new edition of On Adam's House in Paradise (first published by the Museum of Modern Art) incorporates all the original illustrations and several new ones, as well as additional text by the author.On Adam's House in Paradise "takes off backward through history hunting for Adam's house, the original image. En route, with wry wit and charm, Rykwert singes every generation of architectural theoreticians back to Vitruvius, but he manages to illuminate their efforts and their immolations." ;Charles Moore, Progressive Architecture