Arquitectura-G often work on renovations or extensions that rest upon the framework of existing buildings. Confronted with strong restrictions, like leaving the facade in its original state, Arquitectura-G finds uncommon ways to let natural light into a space and combine historic architecture with contemporary needs. Their work lets both worlds blend harmoniously or collide to create strong visual and atmospheric tensions. Their creations are structured by light, textures, angles, and framed views. Spaces intersect, inside and outside absorb each other.⁠ ⁠ One of our favourite architecture studio of all times!⁠ Buy

Eileen Gray is today one of the most celebrated designers and architects. But that was not always the case. Throughout her career, she struggled for acceptance as a woman in male-dominated professions. In Paris, she opened a gallery under the name Jean Désert that sold furniture and rugs. The gallery also served as an exhibition space for modern art, making Gray, albeit working under a male pseudonym, one of the first women gallerists.⁠ ⁠ She is best known, however, for her furniture, lighting, rugs, architecture, and especially for her signature Japanese lacquer technique, which she learned from Seizo Sugawara. ⁠ ⁠ Accompanying the exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery, organized by the Centre Pompidou, this richly illustrated catalog focuses on the diversity of Gray's design practices and explores the range of her architectural projects. It is divided into three sections: "Beginnings", which focuses on Gray's early life and education; "Being a Designer", which explores her career as a designer of furniture, rugs, and interiors; and "Being an Architect", which answers the prevailing question of whether Eileen Gray was an architect with a resounding yes.⁠ Buy

Oh yes! It is finally here: the first comprehensive book about the astounding work of the master of pottery and sculptures, JB Blunk! At the very moment when Blunk got introduced to the craft of Japanese ceramics "...something went PING!" Although it took him a few more years before he finally made his way to Japan this was the very beginning of a life-long journey dedicated to the ancient knowledge and traditional techniques of unglazed, wood-fired stoneware ceramics. To what extent JB Blunk's passion for what nature has to offer shaped not only his trans-disciplinary artwork but fully converged into his life can be seen in numerous undisclosed archival photos of his home and studio, accompanied by essays from Lucy Lippard, Glenn Adamson, Fariba Bogzaran and Louise Allison Cort. This book is a heart-warming tribute to the beauty of earth, water and fire and a man who has honed the imperfections of nature to perfection!⁠⠀ Buy

When in 1993 a tiny gallery space opened its doors, aloof from the main stages of Milan’s design fair Salone del Mobile, no one could sense that the rules of design were just turned upside down. The objects exhibited by a group of young design students were anything but what one expected: a bookcase made out of packing paper, a chair made of rags piled up and draped together, a bar stool made of two tables placed on top of each other - to name but a few of the obscure pieces, which were presented as design artifacts. The wire-puller behind the scenes, the dutch art-historian Renny Ramakers and designer Gijs Bakker should shake up the field of design with their radical approach. In other words: together with Hella Jongerius, Marcel Wanders, Piet Hein Eek, Tejo Remy, Jurgen Bey, Richard Hutten and others DROOG (dutch for „dry“) was born. Nearly 25 years later Renny Ramakers’ conceptual approach is still in demand when it comes to innovative, future-orientated design - whether as curator, writer or designer. The monograph Renny Ramakers - Rethinking Design gives a many-sided picture of a versatile woman, driven by intuition and her associative mind. “Things are never what they seem and never seem what they are“, art-historian Wim Pijbes describes Ramakers' timeless objects and the irresistible pull of the spirit-guided designer. What follows is a carefully made portrait, notes, interviews, insights, and pictures just as playful, humorous, and adventurous as Renny Ramakers design itself. Oh, and when Ramakers says “Some things do not necessarily have to stand in every home“ - this book certainly has. Buy

Architecture Monogram is the first in a series of books about the new creatives in Belgium and in the Netherlands in the fields of architecture, landscape design, photography and writing. This edition showcases the work of Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, a collaborative practice founded in 2008 by the Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh. It doesn’t only reveal the works of the artists in question but also their personal experiences, their endorsement of the ambiguities between art and architecture, their obsessions and emotional drives that influence the process of creation. In 157 pages the book gives an overview about the projects they developed, in distinct chapters focusing on drawing, cutting, bending, assembling and mirroring. Buy