Das Steinhaus

Guarino Guarini
Edizioni Il Polifilo

Paolo Sica
Editore Laterza

Anthony Blunt
Editori Laterza

Martin Wood
Frances Lincoln Limited

John Fowler was an interior decorator who set fashions and changed tastes. The English country house style, which he developed with Sibyl Colefax and Nancy Lancaster, his partners in the firm of Colefax & Fowler, has proved a source of continuing inspiration to decorators and home-owners on both sides of the Atlantic and indeed across the world. Today, a hundred years after his birth, his influence is almost as powerful as it was in the mid 20th century, when he was working on many of Britain's finest and most famous houses, including Uppark, Chequers and Buckingham Palace, as well as dozens of more modest projects. Fowler's style has been so widely imitated that it is easy to forget what an innovator he was. In the 1930s and 1940s his style was a breath of fresh country air, sweeping away heavy velvets and damasks in favour of crisp cotton chintzes, replacing glossy mahogany with painted Regency furnishings, elaborate porcelain and glitzy ormolu with modest pottery and painted tin. Even after the war, when he came to specialize in the decoration of architecturally important interiors, he continued to prefer 'humble elegance' and 'romantic disrepair' to pomposity.

Martin Wood
Frances Lincoln Limited

Nancy Lancaster, who was born in 1897 into a wealthy Virginian family, became one of the greatest influences on interior decoration and garden design in Great Britain and America in the second half of the 20th century. She created what is known today as the 'English Country House Style' – a mixture of faded colors, chintzes and painted and antique furniture. In the garden, she worked in a formal yet romantic neo-Georgian style, which is still a strong spirit in British garden design. This book examines Nancy's contribution to the arts of interior decoration and garden design by chronicling her own homes and gardens –and her extraordinary life. Mirador, her family's Virginian country house, was to remain her key inspiration throughout her life. Nancy herself, her houses, her gardens and her friends are shown in an intriguing collection of photographs by distinguished photographers of the era, including Horst and Cecil Beaton.

AA.VV.
teNeues Publishing Company

IDEAT, the legendary French lifestyle magazine, celebrates its 100th issue on 560 pages featuring the very best in interior design and introducing ten designers of tomorrow. Including a unique Paris city guide which leads you to the best hotels, restaurants, shops, and galleries. Available in French only.

AA.VV.
Editrice CIPIA

Shigeru Uchida, Ikuyo Mitsuhashi
Rikuyo-sha Publishing

Serge Gleizes, Philippe Garcia, Caroline Levesque
Editions de La Martiniere

Erwin Heinle, Fritz Leonhardt
Arnoldo Mondadori Arte

Barbara Miller-Lane
Officina Edizioni

Benno Albrecht, Anna Magrin
Rubbettino

"Il Bel Paese, 1 progetto x 22.621 centri storici" dimostra che conservare il valore della permanenza, nonostante ogni mutamento indotto, è una forma evoluta e aggiornata di responsabilità civica e progettuale. I 22.621 centri storici italiani disegnano la geografia di un territorio fragile, il cui presidio è possibile solo dedicandosi a una strategia di decentramento e di valorizzazione del tessuto minuto e polverizzato dei suoi insediamenti storici. La mostra "Il Bel Paese, 1 progetto x 22621 centri storici" è anche un percorso attraverso le idee espresse dai difensori del patrimonio condiviso del Bel Paese, costruttori di una sensibilità forse oggi più diffusa, che sono stati le cassandre e i risolutori, gli amministratori e i visionari, i cittadini e i progettisti di un'Italia diversa, tutta improntata sulla sua bellezza.