The Fab Five Behind Beatlemania These photos convey a really happy period for them and for me. It all comes down to music, they were without a doubt the greatest band of the 20th century, and that’s why these photographs are so important. – Harry Benson, 2011In early 1964, Harry Benson was getting on a plane ...

A city built on two millennia of history, Paris is entering the third century of its love story with photography. It was on the banks of the Seine that Niépce and Daguerre officially gave birth to this new art that has flourished ever since, developing a distinctive language and becoming a vital tool of knowledge. Paris, Portrait of a ...

The subject is Japanese photographer Araki, a man who talks about life through photographs. His powerful oeuvre, decades' worth of images, has been pared down to 540 pages of photographs which tell the story of Araki and comprise the ultimate retrospective collection of his work. Known best for his intimate, snapshot-style images of women often tied up with ropes (kinbaku, Japanese rope-tying ...

Three and a half centuries before Google Maps there was... Joan Blaeu's atlas, the finest ever published "There can be few books out there more jaw-droppingly gorgeous than this extraordinary Atlas. The reprint more than does justice to Blaeu's masterpiece." TNT Magazine, London The finest and most comprehensive baroque atlas was Joan Blaeu's exceptional Atlas Maior, completed ...

Google Earth's ancestor: a snapshot of urban life, circa 1600 History's most opulent collection of town maps and illustrations The complete reprint of all 363 color plates from Braun and Hogenberg's survey of town maps, city views, and plans of Europe, Africa, Asia and Central America, with dozens of unusual details, as well as selected extracts from the original text and an in-depth ...

The sights and sounds of American jazz Claxton's photographs of legendary jazz musicians "Surely the most thorough and imaginative visual record of American jazz at mid-century that we’ll ever see." - Newsweek, New York In 1960, photographer William Claxton and noted German musicologist Joachim Berendt traveled the United States hot on the trail of jazz music. The result of their ...

The quintessential California Modernist Richard Neutra and his search for modern architecture "[...] the definitive volume on the Viennese-born architect." - Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Originally from Vienna, Richard Neutra came to America early in his career, settling in California. His influence on post-war architecture is undisputed, the sunny climate and rich landscape being ...

History's most beautiful patterns—all available on an image database! A compendium of history's most elegant and beautiful patterns and ornamental designs at your fingertips—for perusal or download anytime, in high-resolution format. World of Ornament brings together the two greatest encyclopedic collections of ornament of the 19th century: Racinet's L'Ornement polychrome ...

Art Nouveau, whose emergence at the same time as cinema was no mere coincidence, represents the most remarkable attempt to reconcile the demands of the technical age with the undying wish for beauty and glorification—or to pit them against the other. Here the reform movement of the turn of the century is not only dealt with as an artistic event, but those economic and political interests which ...

“Once there was a nation that went to war, but after they conquered a continent their own country was destroyed by atom bombs... then the victors imposed democracy on the vanquished. For a group of apprentice architects, artists, and designers, led by a visionary, the dire situation of their country was not an obstacle but an inspiration to plan and think… although they ...

3000 years of architectural history in Egypt The architecture of the pharaohs represents some of the most impressive creative work ever produced in Egyptian art and yet it has never been completely assessed. Dietrich Wildung, Curator of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, gives a compelling account of the breathtaking architectural achievements in the Valley of the Nile during one of the oldest architectural ...

The products of a highly-developed architectural style even today bear witness to the greatness of Arabic culture To the western eye, cities such as Jerusalem, Mecca, Baghdad or Cairo can seem utterly alien. It is not only the way of life that is unfamiliar, it is also the astoundingly varied architecture. This volume surveys more than six centuries of Islamic architecture, from the late 7th century ...

Modern minimalism with a Japanese touch Philippe Starck describes him as a "mystic in a country which is no longer mystic." Drew Philip calls his buildings "land art" that "struggle to emerge from the earth." He is the only architect to have won the discipline`s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. His name is Tadao Ando, and he is one of the ...

Modern minimalism with a Japanese touch Philippe Starck describes him as a "mystic in a country which is no longer mystic." Drew Philip calls his buildings "land art" that "struggle to emerge from the earth." He is the only architect to have won the discipline`s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. His name is Tadao ...

Functional beauty Founded in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus school developed a revolutionary approach that fused fine art with craftsmanship and engineering in everything from architecture to furniture, typography, and even theater. Originally headed by Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus counted among its members artists and architects such as Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, ...