Victoria Hagan Dream Spaces

Breathtaking new interiors from this iconic designer, called “the reigning queen of restrained elegance” In her much-anticipated second book, Victoria Hagan features an exquisite selection of new interiors that embody the “soft modern” look that distinguishes her work. A major force in the design community, Hagan is the master of juxtaposing old and new, showing luxury through simplicity, and creating homes that reflect their owners’ lives. In these appealing, timeless projects—including a New York penthouse, a Nantucket beach house, and a Western ranch—formal architecture is loosened up with a generosity of spirit and an appreciation for the whimsies of style. Throughout, Hagan discourses on the spirit of the unexpected detail—a vintage mirror or a unique chair—that adds soul and modernity. After twenty-five years of running a successful business, she shares her philosophy on attaining good taste and expressing an attitude through her work. Victoria Hagan: Dream Spaces is a beautiful and inspiring collection of this design superstar’s work and a must for every interior design library.

Following an unimaginable year, esteemed designer Victoria Hagan shares her vision for the meaning and significance of home through important and beautiful new projects for homeowners. As an acclaimed interior designer and member of the AD100 and the Interior Design Hall of Fame, Victoria Hagan had achieved the highest pinnacle of success in her field. But when 2020 arrived, she found herself, like all of us, at home, seeing her life and her space with fresh eyes. The result is this book—a creative manifesto and a life-affirming look at the nature of home, and how it connects and calms us, comforts and nourishes us. Serenely paced to give the images room to breathe, the layout has the rigorous simplicity that is so important to Victoria's work Beautifully designed with a luxurious oversize package that includes gatefolds, Live Now celebrates the quiet and extraordinary beauty of the everyday. Open windows beckon, through which we glimpse the ocean, its hues echoed in the interior palette. A chair for reading waits on a patio, overlooking an expanse of hills. Fresh corn and strawberries from the farmers’ market tumble over a kitchen table. The 12 dwellings featured in Live Now may range in style, but all share the soothing, light-filled palette, serenity of mood, and aesthetic rigor for which Hagan is renowned, as well as a deep connection to their surroundings, from Sonoma to Palm Beach, Manhattan to Martha’s Vineyard.

The first book to survey the work of this iconic designer, known for her serene "new American classic" look. One of today’s most influential designers, Victoria Hagan exploded onto the scene in 1988 when New York magazine devoted the cover of its design issue to one of her rooms. Since then she has become renowned for her intelligent integration of architectural and interior design, her refined use of materials, her sophisticated color palette, and her strong silhouettes. Always looking to the view, Hagan effortlessly makes a close connection of interior spaces to the surrounding landscape. The houses profiled—ranging from elegant urban residences to casual weekend retreats—reveal Hagan’s unerring attention to what Proust called "the unexpected detail," which makes her interiors beautiful as well as timeless. Throughout, Hagan discourses on the spirit of cherished objects—a print of birds in flight, a vintage star-shaped mirror, or a chair with an unusual silhouette—that add soul and modernity. With stunning photography and personal insights into Hagan’s design philosophy, Victoria Hagan: Interior Portraits is an artful and inspiring collection of this design superstar’s oeuvre.

There are two common ways of writing about Africa, says Célestin Monga. One way blames Africa’s ills on the continent’s history of exploitation and oppression. The other way blames Africans themselves for failing to rise above poisonous national prejudices and resentments. But patronizing caricatures that reduce Africans to either victims or slackers do not get us very far in understanding the complexities and paradoxes of Africa today. A searching, often searing, meditation on ways of living in modern Africa, Nihilism and Negritude dispels the stereotypes that cloud how outsiders view the continent—and how Africans sometimes view themselves. In the role of a traveler-philosopher, Monga seeks to register “the picturesque absurdity of daily life” in his native Cameroon and across the continent. Whether navigating the chaotic choreography of street traffic or discoursing on the philosophy of café menus, he illuminates the patterns of reasoning behind everyday behaviors and offers new interpretations of what some observers have misunderstood as Africans’ resigned acceptance of suffering and violence. Monga does not wish to revive Negritude, the once-influential movement that sought to identify and celebrate allegedly unique African values. Rather, he seeks to show how daily life and thought—witnessed in dance and music, sensual pleasure and bodily experience, faith and mourning—reflect a form of nihilism developed to cope with chaos, poverty, and oppression. This is not the nihilism of despair, Monga insists, but the determination to find meaning and even joy in a life that would otherwise seem absurd.

Looks at twenty interior design projects by designer David Kleinberg, with detailed descriptions and color photographs.

The work of influential, award-winning interior designer Thomas Pheasant is best described as "contemporary classical" and simply serene. Celebrated interior designer Thomas Pheasant is best known for his seamless melding of tradition and the contemporary. His spaces are fresh and of the age yet also enduringly timeless. Balancing classical elements, like recessed paneling, pilasters, crown moldings, and carved plaster garlands, Pheasant introduces modern details, sometimes including such flourishes and surprising complements as a scroll coffee table and a room screen of ribbed, translucent glass. Unafraid of combining pieces from various traditions, he achieves a sense of harmony and balance. This lavish offering of his work gives the reader a sensible, artful approach to interior design, presenting models of great aesthetic subtlety and beauty. Based in Washington, D.C., Thomas Pheasant works around the globe. Recent projects include the redesign of Blair House, the President’s guest house on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the White House, and apartments in Washington, New York, Paris, and Moscow. Never a strict by-the-book traditionalist, Pheasant responds to and sees in classicism its rational order, its quietude, its serenity.

Architect and designer Bobby McAlpine creates idyllic houses that wed historical precedent with gracious modern living. His distinguished firms, McAlpine Tankersley Architecture and McAlpine Booth & Ferrier Interiors, are renowned nationwide for their talent in designing residences that resonate with nostalgia, fantasy, and a sense of place. Their dwellings—from country and seaside retreats to homes in historic American neighborhoods—offer favorite period styles with a timeless quality. Presented are over twenty houses in a variety of settings that illustrate concepts running throughout their work. Juxtaposing intimate spaces with lofty entertaining areas and combining unexpected materials, such as stone with thatch, are among the hallmarks of these prestigious firms. Examples include a Mediterranean-revival house with sleek factory-sash windows and classical Roman columns, a beach house with a vaulted hallway leading to a light-filled contemporary salon, and an unusual house that blends Scottish vernacular style with modern details. With lush photography capturing the romance of these houses, The Home Within Us is ideal for anyone wishing to be inspired by the poetic design of a romantic home.

The whimsical, layered, incredibly chic, and livable interiors and the fresh and original insights of the coolest design duo fill every page of this treasure chest of a debut interiors book. Every Pierce & Ward home tells a story. Emily and Louisa believe that there is a beauty in the unfolding of a room that takes the eye dancing from one piece to the next, swirling over velvets of peach and gold, gliding over glass and marble, and stopping to take in the homeowner's precious sentimental favorites. As the designers for such Hollywood powerhouses, supermodels, and rock stars as Brie Larson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Dakota Johnson, Kate Hudson, and Karen Elson, Pierce & Ward artfully blend classic elements and fanciful touches, creating an irresistible kaleidoscope of patterns, textures, art, and objects. Stately striped wallpaper mixes with French florals. Brass-lion bookends sit beside trays inlaid with glinting mother-of-pearl. Milk-glass globes hang down hallways like glowing moons to guide one's path. Humble finds from eBay and lovingly worn textiles mix with museum-quality art and family photos. This book will teach readers about organized abundance and un-gaudy decadence, with a dash of restraint for good measure: it's an evocative and inspiring ode to the art of more.