FGP Atelier is a global practice led by Mexican architect Francisco Gonzalez Pulido whose mission is to contribute to social and economic advancement through the alignment of the core principles of Design, Science and Technology. The work of The Atelier is guided by Transparency, Openness and Freedom. These values are reflected in the approach to process and collaborations, as well as in the buildings and spaces that result. Logic, Intuition, Multidisciplinary Collaboration, Scientific Research and Work Experience drive the design of Spaces that are Active as well as Infrastructure and Urban Networks that respond to Atmosphere, Ecology, Comfort, Economy, Culture and the Technological Context. In working towards the dissolution of archetypical interventions, the Experience of these spaces and buildings is valued over Typology in order to ground the ultimate value in human existence. Progression presents a series of projects and related essays that illustrate the principles that guide the work of FGP Atelier. Through examining these principles, the themes, ideas, and goals that are common to the projects emerge and provide a means of understanding how a diverse set of buildings relate as well as what might come next. The book is divided into three sections: Values, Network, and Ambition. "Values" is comprised of three chapters that discuss sustainability, the practice, and ethics. "Network" is comprised of four chapters that discuss how technical design is influenced by context, the alternative futures that planning can offer, the role that infrastructure plays in creating equitable cities, and challenges facing housing in the future. The final section, "Ambition" suggests ways that the discipline of architecture can evolve. Ultimately, the goal of this book is to be provocative on multiple levels. It should inspire the reader through the completed buildings executed in often challenging conditions. At the same time, it should be a catalyst for discourse and debate regarding what should be built and how a philosophy guides a practice, the design of future buildings, and the conservation of existing buildings.

Although his popularity is eclipsed by Rembrandt today, Peter Paul Rubens was revered by his contemporaries as the greatest painter of his era, if not of all history. His undeniable artistic genius, bolstered by a modest disposition and a reputation as a man of tact and discretion, made him a favorite among monarchs and political leaders across Europe--and gave him the perfect cover for the clandestine activities that shaped the landscape of seventeenth-century politics.
In "Master of Shadows," Mark Lamster brilliantly recreates the culture, religious conflicts, and political intrigues of Rubens's time, following the painter from Antwerp to London, Madrid, Paris, and Rome and providing an insightful exploration of Rubens's art as well as the private passions that influenced it.

Taking in travel, cities, politics, sex, race, deception - and baseball - the extraordinary story of Spalding's World Tour could well be titled 'Around the World in Eighty Games'. In October 1888, Albert Goodwill Spalding - baseball star, sporting-goods magnate, promotional genius, serial fabulist - departed Chicago on a trip that would take him and two baseball teams on a journey clear around the globe. Their mission, closely followed in the American and international press, had two (secret) goals: to fix the game in the American consciousness as the purest expression of the national spirit, and to seed markets for Spalding's products near and far. In the process, these first cultural ambassadors played before kings and queens, visited the Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower, and took pot shots with their baseballs at the great Sphinx in Egypt. In the UK they travelled the length and breadth of the country, taking in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Belfast along the way.This expedition to lands both exotic and familiar, is chronicled with dash and wit in Mark Lamster's Spalding's World Tour, a book filled with larger-than-life characters often competing harder for love and money off the baseball diamond than for runs on it. Getting themselves into scrapes and narrowly escaping international incident all around the globe, these innocents abroad gave the world an early peek at the American century just around the corner.

When Philip Johnson died in 2005 at the age of 98, he was still one of the most recognizable--and influential--figures on the American cultural landscape. The first recipient of the Pritzker Prize and MoMA's founding architectural curator, Johnson made his mark as one of America's leading architects with his famous Glass House in New Caanan, CT, and his controversial AT&T Building in NYC, among many others in nearly every city in the country--but his most natural role was as a consummate power broker and shaper of public opinion. Johnson introduced European modernism--the sleek, glass-and-steel architecture that now dominates our cities--to America, and mentored generations of architects, designers, and artists to follow. He defined the era of "starchitecture" with its flamboyant buildings and celebrity designers who esteemed aesthetics and style above all other concerns. But Johnson was also a man of deep paradoxes: he was a Nazi sympathizer, a designer of synagogues, an enfant terrible into his old age, a populist, and a snob. His clients ranged from the Rockefellers to televangelists to Donald Trump. Award-winning architectural critic and biographer Mark Lamster's THE MAN IN THE GLASS HOUSE lifts the veil on Johnson's controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. A rollercoaster tale of the perils of wealth, privilege, and ambition, this book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful, and tells the story of the built environment in modern America.