The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini was started in the year 1558 at the age of 58 and ended abruptly just before his last trip to Pisa around the year 1563 when Cellini was approximately 63 years old. The memoirs give a detailed account of his singular career, as well as his loves, hatreds, passions, and delights, written in an energetic, direct, and racy style.

Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta started working on architecture and urban planning in the early 1980s. Then, he coined the concept of "virtual architecture" and launched Woiksed - the first virtual planet of the world, anticipating Second Life in about twenty years. From a floating island to a building created after mathematical principles -each one of his architectural designs is an exercise of discovery and invention. The book 30 Years of Architecture shows sixty of his works, created between 1980 and 2011.

One of Texas's most talented architects in the late nineteenth century, James Riely Gordon may have been the nation's most prolific designer of county courthouses. Though Gordon's Texas courthouses made his reputation, they represent only half of a career in which we see reflected many issues and events shaping American architecture. Most notable were the effort among architects to organize their craft as a profession, the controversial Office of the Supervising Architect of the United States Treasury, the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and the City Beautiful Movement. Situating Gordon's career, Meister focuses on the public architecture, the pursuit of which took Gordon from San Antonio to Dallas and on to Chicago and New York City as he secured commissions in nine states. Competition was fierce, and Gordon often had to defend his reputation against scandalous charges leveled by jealous architects and unscrupulous politicians. In his interdisciplinary approach, Meister examines political, cultural, and economic forces for their impact on the finished buildings as well as on Gordon's career and exposes the political and legal wrangling so often attendant to the construction of buildings that serve as the nexus for their communities.

Key Modern Architects provides an accessible and thought-provoking introduction to the work of the most significant architects of the modern era. Fifty short chapters introduce fifty key architects, from Le Corbusier to Aldo Van Eyck to Zaha Hadid, exploring their most influential buildings and developing a critique of each architect's work within a broader cultural and historical context. The selection represents the most influential architects working from 1890 to the present, those most likely to be taught on survey courses in modern architectural history, along with some lesser-known names with an equal claim to influence. Emphasis is placed on a critical and interpretative approach, allowing the student to position each architect in a cultural and intellectual context quickly and easily. Artistic, technical, social, and intellectual developments are brought to the fore - built and unbuilt projects, writings and influences. This approach brings to light the ideology behind architectural work, offering insights into each architect's working practice. - Helps students to develop a critical approach to understanding modern architectural history. - One chapter per architect - meaning chapters may be read individually as a concise resource for the study of an architect, or together as a coherent book-length history of the whole period of modern architecture. - Chapters are supported by boxed lists of each architect's most significant projects, along with suggestions for further reading as a springboard to further study and research. Combining the clarity and accessibility of a textbook with in-depth reading and a critical approach, Key Modern Architects provides an invaluable resource for both the classroom and for independent study in architectural and art history.

Villa Vuoto, located in the north hills of Pittsburgh, is home to Matthew Schlueb and his architectural studio, dedicated to the design of private residences. His belief that a home is the most intimate of all space is the foundation for his practice, which he defends in this autobiographical collection of writings. Originally intended to provide insight into the factors that shaped his own family's house, this book ended up a search for the essence of a home, an exploration of his own creative process, and ultimately locating the source of creativity itself ...hidden in the imagination of a child.

Leonard Manasseh was an 'architect's architect', greatly admired by his contemporaries both on a personal and professional level. He came to prominence at the Festival of Britain and went on to be one of the leading British architects of the 1960s, designing private houses and offices as well as major public commissions. Timothy Brittain-Catlin, architect and architectural historian at the University of Kent, describes how the work of Leonard Manasseh and Partners expresses one of the central themes of the 1950s and 1960s - the apparent conflict between the architect as creative artist on one hand, and as rational technologist and scientist on the other. Leonard Manasseh and his partner, Ian Baker, were lauded for producing modernist designs that were in keeping with their historical settings or landscapes. Examples include industrial buildings in rural settings, a study for King's Lynn, undertaken with architect-planner Elizabeth Chesterton, and the project that is most commonly associated with the practice, the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. Lavishly illustrated with images from Manasseh's private archive and stunning new photography, this book is an essential read for architects, students and enthusiasts for modernism wanting to learn more about a key practice in British post-war architecture. This book has been commissioned as part of a series of books on Twentieth Century Architects by RIBA Publishing, English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society.

A pulse-pounding real-life chase for an ancient masterpiece of immeasurable value . . .

Sotheby's. New York City. June 19, 1990.

Nothing of its kind had been sold to the public in more than a century. On a warm June evening on Manhattan's Upper East Side, with the auction-house showroom crammed with the wealthy, the curious, and the press, history was made when an anonymous man in a green golf sweater paid an unprecedented three quarters of a million dollars to win the twenty-five-hundred-year-old chalice. After that night, this historical artifact disappeared, its whereabouts a mystery. "Until now."

It is among the most prized of antiquities: the Greek artist Euphronios's wine cup depicting the death of Zeus's son Sarpedon at Troy. Lost for more than two millennia, the chalice--one of only six of its kind found intact--mysteriously surfaced in the collection of a Hollywood producer, who then sold it to a Texas billionaire. Coveted by obsessed private collectors, dealers, and museum curators, it was also of intense interest to the Italian police, who believed it belonged to their country, where it had first been dug up earlier in the twentieth century.

In this breathtaking tale of history, adventure, and intrigue, archaeologist and journalist Vernon Silver pieces together the extraordinary tale of the lost cup and offers a portrait of the modern antiquities trade: a world of tomb raiders, smugglers, wealthy collectors, ambitious archaeol-ogists, rapacious dealers, corrupt curators, and international law enforcement. Spanning twenty-five hundred years, "The Lost Chalice" moves from the mythic battlefield of the Trojan War to the countryside of twentieth-century Tuscany, the dusty libraries of Oxford University to the exhibition halls of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the cramped law-enforcement offices of the Carabinieri to the tony rooms of New York's auction houses to solve the mystery of the world's rarest masterpiece.

As Silver learns, the discovery of the chalice exposes another riddle--and an even greater missing treasure. Epic and thrilling, "The Lost Chalice" is a driving true-life detective story that illuminates a big-money, high-stakes, double-dealing world, which is as fascinating as it is unforgettable. Silver's thrilling tale opens a window onto Italian history, culture, and life rarely seen.

"Bertie's story is a testament to the 3 T's--tenacity, talent, and triumph. She just kept on fighting and we are all the better for it.--Willa Sorensen, retired principal and school board member.

Thinking About Remodeling? Whether it's big or small, a room addition, a new kitchen, an in-law suite, a new facade, a porch, whole house makeover - or whatever - this unique book will help you arrive at the correct design solution for your specifi c home. Written and illustrated by a licensed architect, nationally recognized for his expertise in the fi eld, this book is specifi cally written to help steer you clear of the many pitfalls encountered in remodeling. Whether you're a do-it-yourselfer, or you intend to engage professional contractors, this is a step by step guide organized to help you make the correct design choices for your home. With over 1000 illustrations and 300 different plans there is likely a plan, or many different plans, that should satisfy your budget as well as your needs.

Text in German & English. The architect is at all times also an artist. How otherwise would he be able to tame the three-dimensionality of space and subdue the urges of physics and structural mechanics with the creations of his fantasy? This creativity is however mostly restricted purely to its own field. In this respect, Rob Krier, born in 1938 in Grevenmacher, Luxembourg, is indeed the proverbial exception that proves the rule. Besides his actual profession, which demands his daily attention, Krier has for years also made a vocation of his love of art, one which he nurtures parallel to his work. Fine art could stand in dialogue with architecture and it is Krier's ambition to have iconographic themes brought into the latter, so that they might speak equally to both the occupants of a building and to bystanders and move them to thoughtful reflection. In the works of Mies van der Rohe it is not rare that one finds naturalistic figures from, for example, Aristide Maillol or Wilhelm Lehmbruck -- as an anthropomorphic contrast to the strict geometry of the architecture, notes Rob Krier in the comments on his journal. If one is already aware of the realisation of his masterful architectural accomplishments through projects such as Potsdam-Kirchsteigfeld (1991 to 1997), De Resident in The Hague (1993-2001), Noorderhof in Amsterdam (1994-99), Veste Brandevoort near Helmond (since 1995), Citadel Broekpolder near Beverwijk (2000-04), or the Cite Judiciaire in Luxembourg (1992-2008) -- be assured, Krier's artistic skills are in no way inferior to his architectural work. Quite the contrary: as a sculptor and illustrator, too, Rob Krier brings together extraordinarily musical qualities and incorporates them into his work: his bronze The Jumper was erected in Montpellier in 2004, the Cowering Woman ten years earlier on Berlin's Friedrichstrasse, the four metre-high duo Bosch i Alsina and Papasseit on Moll de la Fusta in Barcelona in 1992.

American Brad Washburn's impact on his proteges and imitators was as profound as that of any other adventurer in the twentieth century. Unquestionably regarded as the greatest mountaineer in Alaskan history and as one of the finest mountain photographers of all time, Washburn transformed American attitudes toward wilderness and revolutionized the art of mountaineering and exploration in the great ranges. In The Last of His Kind, National Geographic Adventure contributing editor David Roberts goes beyond conventional biography to reveal the essence of this man through the prism of his extraordinary exploits from New England to Chamonix, and from the Himalayas to the Yukon. An exciting narrative of mountain climbing in the twentieth century, The Last of His Kind brings into focus Washburn's deeds in the context of the history of mountaineering, and provides a fascinating look at an amazing culture and the influential icon who shaped it.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, THE LAST VERMEER, STARRING GUY PEARCE: A revelatory biography of the world's most famous forger--a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush--and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world. It's a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: A lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering in mockery of the Nazis. And it's a story that's been believed ever since. Too bad it isn't true. Jonathan Lopez has drawn on never-before-seen documents from dozens of archives for this long-overdue unvarnishing of Van Meegeren's legend. Neither unappreciated artist nor antifascist hero, Van Meegeren emerges as an ingenious, dyed-in-the-wool crook. Lopez explores a network of illicit commerce that operated across Europe: Not only was Van Meegeren a key player in that high-stakes game in the 1920s and '30s, landing fakes with famous collectors such as Andrew Mellon, but he and his associates later cashed in on the Nazi occupation.

On an autumn night in 1992 a Chicago Artist made a sketch of a young woman. A woman he had never seen, in a country he had never visited. Two years later they would meet and fall in love on the war ravaged streets of Sarajevo. A whirlwind romance amid the longest military siege in modern times. As winter closes in and the siege tightens, they ponder a desperate escape from the city, running a deadly gauntlet of snipers, landmines and death. Had fate carried them together across an ocean and through a war only to tear them apart again? Were they prepared to sacrifice everything for love? Their story made headlines. But here, for the first time, is the incredible true story of impossible lovers, and their powerful story of hope and survival. Everything for Love corrects the historical record, revealing a world in which love reigns supreme and remains as humanity's greatest virtue.

The aim of this collection is to offer a series of short monographs which, though brief, nevertheless deal with all aspects of the master's personality: works, constructed or otherwise, primary written sources, critiques and photographic interpretations. The underlying aim is to offer an in-depth, comprehensive overview targeted at anyone interested in learning about architecture including students, professionals or simply those who are interested in the subject, by providing not only basic information but also guidance in terms of gaining more insight into the subject. The volumes are dedicated to some of the best known modern and contemporary architects.

Since he followed it all of his life, Richard Neutra (1892-1970) must have relished the maxim of the Greek philosopher Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living." In his books, articles, lectures, correspondence, and even casual conversations, Neutra constantly examined, not only his own life, but the lives of others - present and past - and the human and natural world they inhabited. Nowhere was this truer than in his autobiography "Life and Shape," first published in 1962, which now, after years of being out of print, has again happily come back to life.

As opposed to "Survival Through Design" (1954), his superb collection of densely philosophical essays, Neutra took a different tack in "Life and Shape," following a lighter and more deliberately relaxed approach. It was as if the usually serious and intense Neutra was giving himself permission to reveal his richly ironic sense of humor and to probe areas in his personal experience which he had not examined as closely before. These included hitherto unrecorded memories of his parents, siblings, and his childhood and education in imperial Vienna, his numbing experiences as an Austrian artillery officer in World War I, and the beginnings of his architectural consciousness in his response to the work of Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Erich Mendelsohn, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

As in the autobiographies of Sullivan and Wright, "Life and Shape" concentrates on Neutra's earlier years, both in Europe and America. While he naturally recounts his memories of such well-known commissions as the Lovell Health House (1929), his own Van der Leeuv Research House (1933) and the von Sternberg House (1935), he also muses on such less famous buildings as the small, and now virtually forgotten, Mosk House (1933). "Life and Shape" also confirms Neutra's obsession with the passage of time and his firm resolution never to waste it.

Like Sullivan and Wright, Neutra eschewed writing a factual chronicle, and - at the age of 70 - composed instead a meditation on the aspects of his life and work that seemed, in retrospect, to be the most interesting and significant. He felt no need to try to "include everything" but rather to present an honest recounting of his memory of his life. In writing my own "Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture" Oxford University Press, 1982; Rizzoli Press, 2006], I relied on "Life and Shape" when I wanted an account of Neutra's experiences told in his own authentic voice. For future generations of architects, historian, and readers, it is good to have it back.

- Thomas S. Hines, UCLA Professor Emeritus of History and Architecture

'It is in its pared-down luxury, however, that the house has its edge. All the panelling, architraves, doors, windows and skirtings were custom-made for the building; new floors were laid in rich brown or bleached oak boards, with limestone used for the hallway and bathrooms; at the flick of a Lutron switch, mood lighting changes the atmosphere of each room; and furniture and mirrors are scaled up to look just right in the large spaces, such as the oversized ottoman and sofa in the living room. Although the house is sparsely furnished, the pieces are of an enviably high quality.' The Times on John Minshaw's award-winning Wimpole Street home. As an Architectural & Interior Design Practice, John Minshaw Designs has been designing and building private residences for over 30 years. At the Design & Decoration Awards in 2005/6, he won both 'Designer of the Year' and 'Classical Residential Interior'. Minshaw says he came to interiors by default. But it is clear that his early training in fine art influences much of his work. "My style is to buy good antiques and design bespoke cabinetry, then put them into pared-down interiors," he says -- a design ethic that is a neat contrast to the cliched froufrou swags and tails often associated with interior design. This book covers ten projects, spanning twenty years, offering a summary of Minshaw's work.

"Art is the signature of a civilization." (Beverly Sills) In times of heated discussions about the allocation of public money, the reduction of funds for cultural organizations in Germany is often demanded by critics and feared by numerous arts institutions. Whatever one's opinion may be, here, we are talking about the cultural identity of a people. Hence it is important to explore alternatives to raise money in order to ensure the financial basis for the promotion of the arts. In this context it suggests itself to look at successful financing models in foreign countries. Moreover, corporations are facing increasing difficulties in addressing their stakeholders effectively. Constant information overload by the media is a huge challenge for external corporate communications. Yet also internal communication strategies play a crucial role in order to reach the highest possible degree of staff satisfaction and consequently optimal output. In view of these aspects, this paper draws a comparison between arts financing and particularly arts sponsorship in Germany and the USA. It is focused on the political and social integration of the arts in society on the one hand and the promotion of the cooperation between the arts and the business world on the other hand. Three practical examples are presented: the Stuttgart State Opera, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the San Francisco Opera.

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.