By Meghan Edwards
When even beachside reading can’t cool you off, curl up with one of these heavyweight design tomes in your own air-conditioned oasis.
Calm, Cool, and Collected
The graphic design and photography in Kathryn Bloom Hiesinger’s sumptuous Collecting Modern: Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Since 1876 oozes all the best things about collecting: the extraordinary, the unique, and the exceptional. Chronicling the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s acquisition practices in the design sector since its founding in 1876, Hiesinger, the museum’s longtime curator of decorative arts after 1700, begins her overview with a Royal Worcester enameled-and-gilt porcelain ewer from 1875 and ends it with Marcel Wanders’s 2010 glass and aluminum light sculpture for Flos. Yet despite the impressive subject matter, it’s the graphic design by Lisa Benn Costigan that makes the book so appealing. Colors, patterns, and silhouettes really do leap off the page. You can’t own everything here, but you can get your paws on this delicious read. Collecting Modern: Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Since 1876
Minimalist Magic
Due out in July, this comprehensive- yet somehow sexy and approachable- monograph on one of the most influential product designers to date is more than meets the eye. Open the Braille-like textured cover of Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible, and you’ll most likely recognize Rams’s omnipresent stereo speakers, radios, electric razors, and juicers. The latter made such a childhood impression on Apple’s Jonathan Ive that he wrote in the book’s forward, “Rams’s genius lies in understanding and giving form to the very essence of an object’s being- almost describing its reason for existence.” Such functional minimalism is evident in the designer’s major work for Braun and Vitsoe, shown here alongside blueprints, illustrations, and previously unpublished material from his personal archives. $90, Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible.
Off the Wall
Interior designer and author Florence de Dampierre proves that walls really do make a statement, perhaps more drastically than any other interior’s element. Beautifully photographed by Tim Street-Porter and Pieter Estersohn, Walls: The Best of Decorative Treatments offers an overview of methods that have evolved and adapted over time, including fresco, wood paneling, stenciling, and wallpaper. Italianate murals in Renaissance villas, painted panels of the Musée Carnavalet, English Arts and Crafts wallpaper, and Frederic Church’s stenciled homestead Olana are offered up as inspiration. Yet the author’s treatment is approachable – these are meant to be studied and applied uniquely to your own contemporary interiors, complemented by vintage and modern furnishings, and this elegant volume will inspire you to do just that. $60, Walls: The Best of Decorative Treatments.
