Books: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

Modernist Cuisine is a five-volume, set that is destined to reinvent cooking. The lavishly illustrated books use thousands of original images to make the science and technology clear and engaging.

A revolution is underway in the art of cooking. Just as French Impressionists upended centuries of tradition, Modernist cuisine has in recent years blown through the boundaries of the culinary arts. Borrowing techniques from the laboratory, pioneering chefs at world-renowned restaurants such as elBulli, The Fat Duck, Alinea, and wd~50 have incorporated a deeper understanding of science and advances in cooking technology into their culinary art.

In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet—scientists, inventors, and accomplished cooks in their own right—have created a massive, five-volume 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired techniques for preparing food that ranges from the otherworldly to the sublime. The authors—and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab—have achieved astounding new flavors and textures by using tools such as water baths, homogenizers, centrifuges, and ingredients such as hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, and enzymes. It is a work destined to reinvent cooking.

“This book will change the way we understand the kitchen.”
— Ferran Adrià

“A fascinating overview of the techniques of modern gastronomy.”
— Heston Blumenthal

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet, Hardcover, 2,400 Pages, Published by The Cooking Lab,
ISBN 9780982761007

Buy it here: Amazon

Books: Berliner Luft by Benjamin Tafel & Dennis Orel

A slightly different kind of traveler’s guide to the German capital.
Cult-style images of Berlin icons and objects worthy of becoming icons. Including Cavalry captain and riding games, Coziness Colony, Mariendorf trotting professionals, Zehlendorf glazes, boarding in Eden House, Erich Mielke’s house plant, hurdy-gurdy man and curry sausages on Alex, Neverland in Plänterwald, prêt-à-porter in Wedding, Dad’s old basement party room, Clärchen’s Knallhaus, massages with happy end, Kreuzberg bunker beans, Leydicke’s bitter orange schnaps, fetish in Spandau, Paradox Ball at Cafe Keese, Kreuzberg nights, KaDeWe and caviar. All of these new and unusual motifs–and more–in the idiosyncratic language of photographers Benjamin Tafel and Dennis Orel, with authentic commentary and observations on location all around the capital of Germany.

Berliner Luft By Benjamin Tafel, Dennis Orel, Published by Hatje Cantz, German, English, 256 pp., 168 color ills., 21 x 14 cm, softcover, ISBN 9783775726160
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Books: John Margolies, Roadside America

Before the advent of corporate communications and architectural uniformity, America’s built environment was a free-form landscape of individual expression. Signs, artifacts, and even buildings ranged from playful to eccentric, from deliciously cartoonish to quasipsychedelic. Photographer John Margolies spent over three decades and drove more than 100,000 miles documenting these fascinating and endearingly artisanal examples of roadside advertising and fantasy structures, a fast-fading aspect of Americana.

This book brings together approximately 400 color photographs of Main Street signs, movie theaters, gas stations, fast food restaurants, motels, roadside attractions, miniature golf courses, dinosaurs, giant figures and animals, and fantasy coastal resorts. In an age when online shopping and mega-malls have reconfigured American consumerism, stripping away idiosyncracy in favor of a bland homogeneity, Margolies’s elegiac 30-year survey reminds us of a more innocent unpredictable and colorful past.

John Margolies, Roadside America, Edited by Jim Heimann,
Hardcover, 31 x 25.7 cm (12.2 x 10.1 in.), 256 pages, Published by Taschen,
ISBN: 9783836511735
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Books: Bauhaus: A Conceptual Model

This year the Bauhaus School celebrates 90 years since its founding, and Berlin is hosting an exhibition of around 1,000 artifacts, objects and artworks, the exhibition takes place in the Martin Gropius-Bau building before traveling to MoMA in New York.

Founded in Weimar in 1919, located in Dessau beginning in 1925, and closed in Berlin in 1933 the Bauhaus continues to be the most effective and successful export article of twentieth-century German culture. Even more than seventy years after it was closed, this interdisciplinary school for art, architecture, design, and theater has not lost any of its currentness.

A book will accompany the exhibition, documenting some of the most important works, including the newly re-discovered Marcel Breuer and Gunta Stölzl’s early Bauhaus African Chair and Laszlo Moholy Nagy’s Light Space modulator - a kinetic sculpture from the 1930’s; paintings and sculpture by Kandinksy, Albers and Klee as wells as works by Walter Gropius, Hannes Mayer and Mies van der Rohe.

This profusely illustrated, comprehensive publication with around four hundred color illustrations re-examines and re-evaluates the art school’s history and influence. In this collaborative project by the three leading institutes at the former sites of the Bauhaus’s activities–the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, and the Bauhaus-Museum der Klassik Stiftung Weimar–the historic Bauhaus and the trail of its reception are closely examined and analyzed based on sixty-eight selected highlights, including the hitherto neglected aspects of the Bauhaus during the period of National Socialism as well as its international propagation and commercialization.

Exhibition schedule: Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, July 22–October 4, 2009 - Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 3, 2009–January 18, 2010

Bauhaus: A Conceptual Model, Edited by Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, introduction by Annemarie Jaeggi, texts by Barry Bergdoll, Klaus von Beyme, Regina Bittner, Gerda Breuer, Magdalena Droste, Peter Hahn, Christine Hopfengart, Christoph Ingenhoven, Michael Siebenbrodt, Klaus Weber u.a.,
English, 376 pages, 302 Illustrations, 236 in color, 29.9 x 26.6 cm, Hardcover, ISBN 9783775724159, Publisher: Hatje Cantz
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Books: Papercraft: Design and Art with Paper

Papercraft is an extensive and timely survey of innovative art and design work crafted from paper. It explores the astounding possibilities of paper craft in all shapes and sizes – some are playful, whimsical and quick to produce while others are far more intricate and created in painstaking detail. From the most basic techniques including cutting, folding, gluing and collage to the use of cutting-edge technology like embossing and laser cutting, paper and cardboard-crafted works are reaching new artistic heights.

The book gathers the most extraordinary creations from small objects and figures to large-scale art installations and urban interventions as well as three-dimensional graphic sculptures from a vast spectrum of artistic disciplines ranging from character design, urban art, fine art, graphic design, illustration, fashion, animation and film. Adding even more value, this illustrated book also includes a DVD with printable templates for creating your own paper characters and toys as well as a curated selection of the best stop-motion animations.

Papercraft: Design and Art with Paper, Editors: R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, B. Meyer,
24cm x 30cm, 256 pages, full colour, hardcover, including DVD, ISBN: 9783899552515
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Books: Norman Mailer, MoonFire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, TASCHEN has paired Norman Mailer’s seminal text with spectacular photography–from the archives of NASA and LIFE magazine and many other sources-to create a unique tribute to the defining scientific mission of our era.

It has been called the single most historic event of the 20th century: On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins met John F. Kennedy’s call for a manned Moon landing by the end of the 1960s. A decade of tests and training, a staff of 400,000 engineers and scientists, and a $24 billion budget climaxed with the launch of the most powerful rocket ever built, and an unprecedented event watched by millions the world over. And nobody captured the men, the mood, and the machinery like Norman Mailer.

MoonFire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11 by Norman Mailer, Colum McCann,
Published by TASCHEN, Limited Edition of 1957 copies, No. 1–1957, Hardcover in a box + framed print, 36.5 x 44 cm, 350 pages ISBN: 9783836511797
Update: Now available as a standard hardcover edition.

Buy it here: Amazon, or Standard Hardcover Edition

Books: Never Use White Type on a Black Background

In design school you will encounter people who revel in ridiculous design rules, like the graphic design professor I had, who I still quote today: “When in doubt, use a drop shadow.” Anneloes van Gaalen has gathered some of the better known rules as they relate to the design discipline, including fashion, typography, art and advertising. The illustrated book is peppered with quotes from the famous and not-so-famous; like a condensed version of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, but for design professionals.

Design has many rules that claim to be big truths and full of wisdom. Designers all go by rules that work for them. However, their rules may not work for someone else, or for a particular piece of design work. As Tibor Kalman once said, “Rules are good. Break them.”

Here are some quotes from the book, by some of our favorite people:

“The client may be king, but he’s not the art director.”
- Von R. Glitschka

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.”
- Charles Mingus

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”
- Oscar Wilde

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
- Samuel Beckett

Never Use White Type on a Black Background: And 50 Other Ridiculous Design Rules, Edited by Anneloes van Gaalen, BIS Publishers, Hardcover, Dimensions: 12 x 17 cm, Pages: 160 ISBN: 9789063692070

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Ingrid Siliakus—Paper Architect

Paper Architecture is the art of creating an object out of a single piece of paper. Before the final design is finished, something like 20 to 30 (sometimes even more) prototypes are made by Ingrid Siliakus. Drawing paper architecture designs to Ingrid is as building: first one layer, with a single shape, will be drawn and than layer after layer are added. To design a pattern from scratch, the artist needs the skills of an architect to create a two-dimensional design, which, with the patience and precision of a surgeon, becomes an ingenious three-dimensional wonder of paper.

“A growing number of papercraft artists are enjoying the exquisite art of architectural origami, where a single sheet of paper is cut and folded into an intricate miniature structure. Here, three of the world’s leading proponents provide instructions and templates for recreating twenty of the world’s great buildings, from the Taj Mahal to the Rialto Bridge. There are basic principles to start you off, as well as galleries of the finest architectural origami from around the world.”

The Paper Architect, Marivi Garrido (Spain), Joyce Aysta (America) and Ingrid Siliakus (Netherlands), Hardcover, 110 pages (70pp plus 40pp templates), 23cm X 28cm,
ISBN: 9780307451477

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Books: House: Work by House Industries

House Industries is famous for their impeccable tongue-in-cheek takes on American popular culture, on comic influences such as Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and on modern design classics from Neutra to Charles Eames. Based in Delaware, its members have been producing premier league typefaces and designs for a devoted fan base since 1993.

Because their font and design work deftly meld cultural, musical and graphical elements, one becomes part of a concept and a way of life by
buying a House product. Their prize-winning font families, for example, are lovingly packaged to match the overall font theme in wallets, bowling bags, UFOs, etc. Their unique type products can be seen internationally on anything from your favourite brand of cereal to highly circulated magazines and television shows.

House by Andy Cruz, Ken Barber, Rich Roat, 24cm x 30cm, 240 pages,
ISBN: 978-3-931126-20-9

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Books: Calder 1898-1976

When the final tally of key movers in the plastic arts of this century is compiled, there is no doubt that maestro of movement Alexander Calder (1898-1976), the man who put the swing into sculpture, will be near numero uno. Calder took it off the plinth, gave it to the wind, and left us kinetic playgrounds of the spirit. He operated at the point where Modernity and nature fused, developing an environmental art that changed the medium forever. Visiting his Paris atelier in 1932, Duchamp coined the term “Mobiles” for Calder’s delicate wire and disc pieces, constructions that would soon become immensely popular.

But he didn’t rest on his innovations. Friends with Miro, Mondrian and Leger, Calder also turned his hand to painting, drawing, gouaches, toys, textiles and utensil design. A graphic master who sketched as much in air as in ink, the Sixties and Seventies saw Calder take on the monumental, translating the dynamics of cities into both his Mobiles and “Stabiles”. At a time when sculpture was perceived to be the antithesis of movement, Calder unmade gravity and freed the elements in a body of work that is still sending a wind of change through the art world today.

Calder, 1898-1976, by Jacob Baal-Teshuva, 96 pages, Soft cover.
Buy it here: Amazon