"We do not live only with clear-cut forms;rather, we exist in a world of forms that are often indistinct and vague." --Takashi Sugimoto, architect and James Beard Award-winning author Super Potato Design presents the work of internationally-renowned Japanese designer Takashi Sugimoto. After studying metal sculpture at Tokyo University of Fine Arts, Sugimoto began his career designing a series of bars and restaurants including the iconic Radio Bar that became a favorite hangout for designers like Issey Miyake, Ikko Tanaka, Yohji Yamamoto and Tadao Ando. He was soon recruited to design retail spaces including the original Muji "no-brand" shops along with hotels, tea ceremony spaces and wedding chapels. Super Potato's striking interiors have totally revolutionized Japanese design through the use of exposed concrete surfaces, rough-hewn timber and unevenly cut stone juxtaposed with salvaged metal and repurposed objects to create a sense of power and timelessness. The design vocabulary created by Sugimoto is universally imitated today (in Japan and throughout the world). It is what we now think of as "modern Japanese design"--although Sugimoto's own work has never been surpassed. Super Potato Design presents 40 of Sugimoto's most important projects in 320 full-color photographs by Yoshio Shiratori, who has worked with the designer since the beginning. Author and architect Mira Locher introduces Sugimoto's work and provides a thorough description for each project. A foreword by Tadao Ando and discussions with architect Kiyoshi Sey Takeyama and graphic designer Kenya Hara explore the direction of Japanese design today. A list of Super Potato's complete works rounds off this fascinating book.

In this essential TASCHEN introduction to Tadao Ando we explore the hybrid of tradition, modernism, and function that allows his buildings to enchant architects, designers, fashion designers, and beyond. Through key projects including private homes, churches, museums, apartment complexes, and cultural spaces, we explore a uniquely monumental yet comforting aesthetic that draws as much on the calm restraint of Japanese tradition as the compelling modernist vocabularies of Bauhaus and Le Corbusier. With featured projects in Japan, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States, we see not only Ando's global reach but also his refined sensitivity for the environs: the play of light through windows, and, in particular, the interaction of buildings with water. From the mesmerizing Church of the Light in Osaka to the luminous Punta della Dogana Contemporary Art Center in Venice, this is a radiant tour through a distinctly contemporary form as much as a timeless appeal of light, elements, and equilibrium. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture series features: an introduction to the life and work of the architect the major works in chronological order information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts, and plans)

This first complete investigation into Karl Lagerfeld’s (1933–2019) artistry explores his extraordinary 65-year career, from the designs for Chloé and Fendi in the 1960s and 1970s to his celebrated leadership in the 1980s and beyond at Chanel and with his own label. Inspired by the “line of beauty” theorized by eighteenth-century English painter William Hogarth, this dazzling publication pursues the straight and serpentine “lines” and their intersections in Lagerfeld’s work as a means of understanding his unique creative process.

The book’s elegant parchment and cloth cover, emulating an artist’s portfolio, opens onto a pageant of stunning new photography by Julia Hetta of Lagerfeld’s fashion alongside the designer’s original sketches. The juxtaposition of drawings with finished pieces offers a window into Lagerfeld’s creative brilliance. Texts include personal reflections from Lagerfeld’s premières d’ateliers—the seamstresses behind his extraordinary creations—as well as Anna Wintour, Patrick Hourcade, Amanda Harlech, and Tadao Ando.

Not only a lavish objet but also an important resource on Lagerfeld, the book concludes with an illustrated timeline of the designer’s long and illustrious career.