Shiro Kuramata, Art & Place and Biennials and Beyond among NY Times' gift recommendations

As big fans of the NYtimes.com you can imagine we're happy to see that the site has picked four of our fall titles for its seasonal gift recommendations.

Among them are: Art & Queer Culture about which the Times' writer Holland Cotter says: “The subject of queer culture is deeply complex, ever more so as a radical past meets the double-edged sword of mainstream acceptance in the present. This book grapples with that complexity, looks good and – this is still too rare – is global in scope.” Cotter also thinks that our Biennials and Beyond is “useful as a reference source and pleasurable as a time machine," a view that we cannot help but share.

Art & Place meanwhile constitutes “An art pilgrim’s bucket list” for writer Karen Rosenberg, while our beautiful Shiro Kuramata book is “long-overdue” according to Eve Kahn.

We thank the Times and its writers for their astute observations as to the suitability of our beautiful books as gifts and would point our loyal readers to look out for our seasonal gifting book selections which will be up on the site from next week. Until then, take a look at the books above and more in our online store.

Shiro KuramataDeyan Sudjic

Price AUD$175.00 Price CAD$150.00 Price £100.00 Price T150.00 Price USD$150.00

This first ever monograph on highly influential Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata (1934-91) is a two-volume title presenting all of his compelling and idiosyncratic work for a diverse audience of designers and design enthusiasts who love Kuramata but will be surprised to discover the breadth and depth of his remarkable body of work.

The first volume includes text by Deyan Sudji, which covers Kuramata's whole life and the radical changes in Japan through which he lived, and explains in detail the ideas, relationships and technical innovations that made his work possible. It also presents a selection of Kuramata's writings that have been translated into English for the first time, giving the reader a sense of his poetic, humorous and thoughtful intellect.

The second volume is a catalogue of works, presenting the over 600 pieces of furniture, products and interiors that Kuramata designed in his lifetime, most of which have never been published (and many of which, including nearly all the interiors, have been demolished). Each project is illustrated with an image from the Kuramata archives and accompanied by an extended caption plus key information.

The two volumes are presented together in a specially designed acrylic slipcase.
Specifications:

Format: Hardback
Size: 312 × 242 mm (12 1/4 × 9 1/2 in)
Pages: 416 pp
Illustrations: 600 illustrations
ISBN: 9780714845005

Deyan Sudjic is Director of the Design Museum, London and a former Dean of the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University. He was previously editor of Blueprint and Domus magazines, and Director of 'Glasgow 1999: UK City of Architecture and Design' and the Venice Architecture Biennale (2002). Former architecture critic for the Observer, he has written and contributed to many books, including The Language of Things (2008) and The Edifice Complex: The architecture of power (2005), as well as Living in the Endless City (2011), The Endless City (2008) Future Systems (2006), John Pawson Themes and Projects (2002), John Pawson Works (2000), all published by Phaidon.

"Long-overdue."—Eve Kahn, The New York Times