The ancient city of Asmara is the capital of Eritrea and its largest settlement. Its beautiful architecture was rediscovered by outsiders in the early 1990s. In this book, the authors offer an original analysis of the colonial city, providing a history not only of the physical and visible urban reality, but also of a second, invisible city as it exists in the imagination. The colonial city becomes a fantastical set of cities where each one reflects the others as if in a kaleidoscope. This ambitious book breaks new ground, and moves us a little further along in the attempt to read Asmara into contemporary theory. This book brings together scholars from a multiplicity of disciplines who have shown the ways in which colonial and postcolonial criticism has served as a platform for new, diversified readings of Asmara, which compile cultural and social history, critical and political theory, anthropological fieldwork, visual culture studies, literary and cinematic analysis, gender studies, diaspora and urban studies. The book examines the current realities of Asmara in order to address the continuing effects of the legacy of colonialism upon the city dwellers.

Builders have never been so prolific as they are today. And never have there been so many technical and design-related options available to architects. Yet contemporary architecture often creates a sense of unease. In their book, Sergei Tchoban and Wladimir Sedow show how the balance between prominent buildings and the buildings around them in the background has been lost in the modern era. Every building strives to assert itself over others - to drown out its peers. At the same time, contemporary architects are capable of developing "a sense of harmony full of contrasts". They have a wealth of options at their disposal to this end. After prowling through 2,500 years of architectural history, the authors arrive at what makes modern buildings so particular. They show what contemporary architects must consider in order to create buildings with a satisfactory, harmonious appearance in a new way. "Sergei Tchoban and Wladimir Sedow do not write about beauty in this essay - certainly not in the sense of defining the term or putting forth a conceptual history. Rather, they write about the relationship between prominent buildings and the nameless buildings around them - the buildings in the background. Or to put it another way, they write about the relationship between architectural monuments and ordinary buildings." (from the preface by Bernhard Schulz)

Monterrey means mountain king, a name befitting its location surrounded by the Sierra Madre in north-eastern Mexico. It was founded in 1596 near the natural springs of Santa Lucia, a luscious oasis in an otherwise arid landscape. Its colonial beginnings are still visible in the architecture of the Barrio Antiguo district in the city centre. In the late 19th century, industrial development transformed the modest town into a flourishing, modern city. Its foundries and breweries reflect its industry, while its skyscrapers, universities, churches, and monuments designed by celebrated Mexican modernist architects like Mario Pani, Enrique de la Mora, Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, and Luis Barragan reflect its modernity. Today, Monterrey is an important cultural, educational, medical, and business metropolis with buildings by Ricardo Legorreta, Nicholas Grimshaw, and Tadao Ando. Its fast growing residential, corporate, and commercial developments feature designs by Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli, Zaha Hadid , and Alejandro Aravena. This book presents the role of architecture in the continuous transformation of this city.

Written by the art dealer and friend who was among the first to recognise Rousseau's importance, these Recollections present a movingly personal portrait of the artist known as Le Douanier (the Customs Officer).

The importance of A. W. N. Pugin (1812-52) in the history of the Gothic Revival, in the development of ecclesiology, in the origins of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and in architectural theory is incontestable. A leading British architect who was also a designer of furniture, textiles, stained glass, metalwork, and ceramics, he is one of the most significant figures of the mid-nineteenth century and one of the greatest designers. His correspondence is important because it provides more insight into the man and more information about his work than any other source. In this volume, the third of five, which spans the years 1846 to 1848, Pugin's two most important churches are completed and the first part of the House of Lords is opened. He makes his only trip to Italy, and he marries for the third time. His correspondence sheds light too on the religious life of the time, especially ecclesiastical politics.

Designed by Le Corbusier, the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut draws thousands of visitors each year. Renzo Piano's new project includes three main elements: the gatehouse, the monastery and the landscape.Deep in the lush vegetation, the monastery is a place "of silence, prayer, peace and joy", where everything contributes to spiritual contemplation.Most of the material used in this book has not been previously published, and has been made available through the constant and detailed work of cataloguing and classifying the Foundation's archives. The history of this project will be shown through Renzo Piano's personal notes and memories, starting with his first visit to the site to the opening on September 2011

"Exploring for the very first time the hidden relationship between paintings and stereoscopic cards in Victorian times." The advent of a new painting by a great artist was big news in the 1850s, but few were able to access and enjoy directly the new works of art. Stereo cards, created by enterprising photographers of the day, reconstructed the scenes and gave an opportunity for the man in the street to enjoy these scenes, in magical life-like 3D. The Poor Man's Picture Gallery contains high-definition printed reproductions of well-known Victorian paintings in the Tate Gallery, and compares them with related stereo cards - photographs of scenes featuring real actors and models, staged to tell the same story as the corresponding paintings, all of which are the subject of an exhibition in the Tate Gallery in 2014.

Was Britain's postwar rebuilding the height of mid-century chic or the concrete embodiment of crap towns? John Grindrod decided to find out how blitzed, slum-ridden and crumbling austerity Britain became, in a few short years, a space-age world of concrete, steel and glass. What he finds is a story of dazzling space-age optimism, ingenuity and helipads - so many helipads - tempered by protests, deadly collapses and scandals that shook the government.

A poetic new essay collection in which the symbols of the tarot brush up against life in a changing world.

The Tarot de Marseille is a 16th-century set of playing cards, the deck on which the occult use of tarot was originally based. When Jessica Friedmann bought her first pack, the unfamiliar images sparked a deep immersion in the art, symbols, myths, and misrepresentations of Renaissance-era tarot.

Over the years that followed, and as tarot became a part of her daily rhythm, Friedmann’s life was touched by floods and by drought, by devastating fires and a pandemic, creating an environment in which the only constant was change.

Twenty-Two Impressions: notes from the Major Arcana uses the Tarot de Marseille as a touchstone, blending historical research, art history, and critical insights with personal reflections. In these essays, Friedmann demonstrates how the cards of the Major Arcana can be used as a lens through which to examine the unexpectedness — and subtle beauty — of 21st-century life.

A former New York Times Paris bureau chief explores the Louvre, offering an intimate journey of discovery and revelation.

The Louvre is the most famous museum in the world, attracting millions of visitors every year with its masterpieces. In Adventures in the Louvre, Elaine Sciolino immerses herself in this magical space and helps us fall in love with what was once a forbidding fortress.

Exploring galleries, basements, rooftops, and gardens, Sciolino demystifies the Louvre, introducing us to her favorite artworks, both legendary and overlooked, and to the people who are the museum’s lifeblood: the curators, the artisans producing frames and engravings, the builders overseeing restorations, the firefighters protecting the aging structure.

Blending investigative journalism, travelogue, history, and memoir, Sciolino walks her readers through the museum’s front gates and immerses them in its irresistible, engrossing world of beauty and culture. Adventures in the Louvre reveals the secrets of this grand monument of Paris and basks in its timeless, seductive power.

This study examines the hundreds of secular and religious buildings, urban residential and commercial foundations, and public monuments commissioned in Lucknow and Oudh between 1722 and 1856 by the fabulously rich Nawabs of Oudh and their Court, the English East India Company, and others.

Capturing the Spoor describes and discusses the virtually unknown rock art of the northernmost reaches of South Africa, in the area of the Central Limpopo Basin. The title of the book comes from the belief held by some traditional Bantu-speakers that the San can ‘capture’ animal spoor and bewitch it in order to ensure hunting success. The authors use this as an analogy for understanding the behavior of people in the past through the traces they leave behind.

This book describes the work of four distinct cultural groups: the San; Khoekhoen (Khoikhoin or ‘Hottentots’), Venda and Northern Sotho, and, most recently, people of European descent. Further, it discusses the interaction and connection between the four groups. It is the first substantial body of work from South Africa to focus on an area outside the Drakensberg, which has become synonymous with ‘southern African rock art’. Although the book focuses on a specific region, it introduces anthropological information from the Cape to the greater Kalahari region. The text is interspersed with first-hand accounts of Kalahari and Okavango San beliefs and rites and discussions with traditional Bantu-speaking peoples. A distillation of 14 years of field surveying and research in the Central Limpopo Basin, it targets the general reader who would like to know more about southern Africa’s rock art traditions, but at the same time addresses many academic concerns.

A simple narrative line and copious endnotes, respectively, ensure that both ‘lay’ and academic readers will find the subject interesting. The text is abundantly illustrated with line drawings and expressed through photographs. A list of rock art sites in Limpopo that are open to the public will be included.

This is a rare publication where information that is collected is analyzed with the help of knowledge and experience accumulated by the local indigenous communities, whose have been seldom heard in this context before.