The Ideal City

Carlo Olmo
Umberto Allemandi

Miriam Veronesi
Edizioni Kappa

Franco Mancuso
Il Saggiatore

Adolfo Minì
Cassa Centrale di Risparmio

Luigi Acito
Mondadori Electa

David Dernie
Logos

AA.VV.
Julius Hoffann Verlag

Henri Stierlin
Thames & Hudson

Turquoise and marble cupolas, arches adorned with flowers and arabesques, motionless basins reflecting slender minarets, sparkling enamels of floral bouquets, miniatures populated by lovers stretched out in the shade -- all these form part of the luxury decoration, refinement, and high spirituality that we define as "Persian style."

This subtle art is revealed in magical locations such as Isfahan, rich in mosques and palaces; Bukhara and Samarkand with their shining domes; Lahore and the gardens of Shalimar; the Red Fort of Delhi, exalted as an earthly paradise; and the miraculous Taj Mahal of Agra. For a thousand years, from the frontiers of Iran to the heart of India, architects, landscape gardeners, calligraphers, miniaturists, and weavers have made their mark on Islamic art and architecture. This lavishly illustrated book examines the sources, analyzes the forms, and discusses the mystic themes and symbolism of the immense heritage handed down by Islamic artists and craftsmen.

Jen Renzi
Edizioni Press

Roberto Pane
Edizioni di Comunità

Patrick F. Cannon
Pomegranate

On the eve of the twentieth century, Chicago was rapidly outgrowing its borders. Architect Louis Henry Sullivan (American, 1856–1924) answered the demand for more office space, theaters, department stores, and financial centers by pioneering what would become an essential model for city life—the skyscraper. Blending Art Nouveau complexity with geometric elegance, Sullivan's tall buildings included Chicago's Auditorium Building, the largest building in the world when it was completed in 1889. Sullivan's design was heralded as the Wonder of the Age—a title equally fitting for the architect himself.Louis Sullivan's designs stand today as leading exemplars of Chicago School architecture. Even Frank Lloyd Wright, a former assistant to Sullivan, would later refer to him as his "lieber Meister," or "beloved master." Sullivan brought to his practice a conviction that ornamentation should arise naturally from a building's overall design, restating, in a large or small way, themes expressed in the structure as a whole. Having spent much of his career in a late Victorian world that bristled with busy, fussy ornament for ornament's sake, Sullivan refuted the fashionable style with the now famous dictum "Form follows function." This break from tradition is perhaps most evident in Sullivan's strides to reimagine the commercial space—from America's earliest skyscrapers to the small-town banks that populated the architect's commissions in the second half of his career.In Louis Sullivan: Creating a New American Architecture, nearly two hundred photographs with descriptive captions document Sullivan's genius for modern design. Patrick Cannon introduces each chapter with key biographical information and discusses the influences that shaped Sullivan's illustrious career. Rare historical photographs chronicle those buildings that, sadly, have since been destroyed, while James Caulfield's contemporary photography captures Sullivan's existing Chicago buildings and many other structures in eastern and midwestern cities that are of equal importance in the architect's oeuvre. Includes selected bibliography and index of buildings.

Fernando de Haro, Omar Fuentes
AM Editores

La casa habitación implica la puesta en marcha de función y estética de manera conjunta. Se trata de un reto apasionante para cualquier arquitecto puesto que exige la aplicación de todo su "oficio" y recursos profesionales para lograr un objetivo. Pero va más allá, llega incluso al grado de involucrarse personal y emocionalmente con el tema del diseño y con la altísima responsabilidad que representa. Por todas estas circunstancias, resulta de gran interés examinar cada una de las propuestas que se incluyen en esta edición y analizar los diferentes caminos que condujeron a su realización final. El resultado será, sin duda alguna, el hallazgo de un denominador común, que es justamente la diversidad como indicador del dinamismo que caracteriza el quehacer arquitectónico actual, reflejo, a su vez, del tiempo en que nos ha tocado vivir.