Book club: engaging reads selected by Wallpaper* editors
Peruse the virtual stacks of the Wallpaper* library
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Selected by Bridget Downing, Executive Editor
No turn at the Wallpaper* book club be complete without a nod to ourselves. A Wallpaper* subscription comes with collectable, artist-designed, limited-edition covers. Past subscriber covers have been designed by the likes of Jony Ive, Yayoi Kusama, Virgil Abloh and Barbara Kruger. Plus you – or your favourite friend – will enjoy the latest and greatest in architecture, design, art, entertaining, beauty & grooming, transport, technology, fashion and watches & jewellery, delivered every month. Subscribe here.
Accidentally Wes Anderson by Wally Koval
Selected by Anne Soward, Production Editor
Kickstarted by an Instagram account, this visual feast is an essential own for Wes Anderson fans. It can be hard to define what makes the American film director’s style so distinctive, but when you see an Anderson-esque location, you know it. The Instagram account began as a collection of such dreamy sites, all faded grandeur, quirky quaintness and pop pastel palettes, before being released as a sumptuous book featuring an edit of around 200 of the best posts, with a story behind each location and a foreword by the great man himself.
Published by Orion, £25
Rimowa: An Archive, Since 1898 by Rimowa
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Selected by Laura Hawkins, Fashion Features Editor
There’s little promise of winter sun getaway this year, but luckily Cologne-based luggage label Rimowa has the at-home escapist answer. It’s latest Rizzoli-published monograph Rimowa: An Archive, Since 1898, provides a decades-and-destination spanning history of the brand, and includes a page-turning exploration of its most imaginative designs, including cases for bar carts, vinyl record holders, computer discs and model aeroplanes. Your suitcase may be gathering dust, but your sense of adventure doesn’t have to.
Published by Rizzoli, $95
Houseplants by Daniel Gordon and Simon Arizpe
Selected by TF Chan, Commissioning Editor
For loved ones who lack a green thumb, but are still eager to jump on the houseplant bandwagon, this new pop-up volume makes for the perfect gift. Inspired by a surge in online discussions of indoor gardening, photographer Daniel Gordon has cut up found imagery of houseplants to create sculptural collages, mixing realistic and fantastical colours for a playful effect. These have been transformed into six intricate pop-ups by the award-winning paper engineer Simon Arizpe. The results are joyful, spectacular and sturdier than the hardiest perennial.
Published by Aperture, $150
Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary
Selected by Ellie Stathaki, Architecture Editor
Among the rich selection of enticing architecture titles on offer in 2020, there’s one book that is closest to my heart; not least because it includes some words by yours truly. Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary is a expansive monograph of the acclaimed Belgian architect, spanning two decades of work and over 40 built projects – several of which have graced the pages of Wallpaper* in the past. Sestig’s sophisticated, yet gentle and unassuming architecture is impressive and highly covetable; just the thing to help us dream during the crisp, dark winter evenings.’
Published by Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers, $75. Photography: Jean-Pierre Gabriel
Alma Allen by Glenn Adamson and Douglas Fogle
Selected by Tilly Macalister-Smith, Contributing Editor
There is something intensely soothing about Alma Allen’s work that seems to resonate now more than ever. His organic forms seem as much carved by the wind as sprouted from the earth, or fallen from a giant bough overhead. His sometimes anthropomorphic works recall shimmering bronze ‘sea urchins’, earthy ‘gourds’, smooth marble ‘snail shells’, and are compellingly elemental; carved in bronze, stone, wood, amber, white desert stone. This fabric covered tome is the first dedicated solely to the work of the self-taught sculptor who was once a furniture designer, featuring new photography from his studios in Joshua Tree, California, and Tepoztlán, Mexico.
Published by Rizzoli, $65
‘The Harrods Edition’ book collection by Oliver Jeffers
Selected by Sarah-Jane Molony, Bespoke Director
The dreamy illustrations of Brooklyn-based artist and author Oliver Jeffers have won over children and adults the world over. It comes as no surprise that he’s unveiling major commissions on both sides of the Atlantic, using his imaginative spark to lift that lockdown gloom and spread festive cheer. At Rockefeller Center he’s presenting a series of holiday murals, while for Harrods, he’s created an immersive experience, called Wonder of Stories, that promises to bring families ‘on a journey over land, sea and above the stars’, alongside launching a box set of his most celebrated Christmas stories. Exactly what we need to end the year in high spirits.
Published by HarperCollins, available at Harrods, £65
Materialising Colour, Journeys with Giulio Ridolfo by Jane Withers and Howard Sooley
Selected by Rosa Bertoli, Design Editor
Giulio Ridolfo is the man behind some of the most impressive chromatic palettes in contemporary design and textiles. Alongside botanical photographer Howard Sooley, the Italian colourist traveled to his native Friuli in Northern Italy, to the Danish coastline, and to Gujarat, western India, then back to Denmark to visit Kvadrat’s manufacturing facilities where his textiles come to life through colour. The journey is narrated by curator Jane Withers (with a further historical essay by Anniina Koivu), and punctuated with travel photography as well as compositions of the found objects that inspire Ridolfo in his work.
Published by Phaidon, £59.95
Abbatt Toys: Modern Toys for Modern Children by Alan Powers
Selected by Jonathan Bell, Transport & Technology Editor
Paul and Marjorie Abbatt were a power couple of British modernism, albeit in a low-key way. Their company was set up in 1932 and soon occupied a magnificent toyshop on Wimpole Street, designed by none other than Ernö Goldfinger with a style and ethos that still looks utterly contemporary. The Abbatts believed in dovetailing play with learning, studying the emerging field of educational psychology and choosing their stock from the best and brightest European designers. Their catalogue was full of puzzles and construction toys, sturdily built to last. Powers’ book chronicles their hugely collectible oeuvre and the modernist circles they moved in.
Published by Design for Today, £25
The Architect’s Studio: Anupama Kundoo by Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Selected by Léa Teuscher, Sub Editor
For most of us, this year has been a bit of a time warp, with life grinding down to a halt, and yet months passing far too quickly. So it’s surely the perfect moment to dive into this book on the Indian architect Anupama Kundoo, whose mantra is ‘To take time is to be alive’. Her approach focuses on learning from, and working with, craftspeople to rethink building traditions. The fourth in a series by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the book features projects spanning a simple farmhouse built for herself as a young architect, to her future Line of Goodwill for Auroville.
Published by Lars Mueller, €45
Rosa Bertoli was born in Udine, Italy, and now lives in London. Since 2014, she has been the Design Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees design content for the print and online editions, as well as special editorial projects. Through her role at Wallpaper*, she has written extensively about all areas of design. Rosa has been speaker and moderator for various design talks and conferences including London Craft Week, Maison & Objet, The Italian Cultural Institute (London), Clippings, Zaha Hadid Design, Kartell and Frieze Art Fair. Rosa has been on judging panels for the Chart Architecture Award, the Dutch Design Awards and the DesignGuild Marks. She has written for numerous English and Italian language publications, and worked as a content and communication consultant for fashion and design brands.
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All hail the arrival of true autonomy? On Tesla’s proposed Robotaxi and techno-insecurity
Tesla’s new marketing push predicts a future of robot cabs, automated buses and autonomous home androids. We already want to get off
By Jonathan Bell Published
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Discothèque perfumes evoke the scent of Tokyo in the year 2000
As Discothèque gets ready to launch its first perfume collection, Mary Cleary catches up with the brand’s founders
By Mary Cleary Published
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This unassuming London house is a radical rethinking of the suburban home
Station Lodge by architect Andrei Saltykov in South West London offers a radical subversion to regional residential architecture
By Ellie Stathaki Published
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20 pairs of bookends celebrate contemporary Scottish design and Dundee’s literary heritage
As Dundee Design Week gets ready for its fifth edition, a bookish commission shines a light on two pioneering female journalists from the city’s storied past
By Alyn Griffiths Published
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‘You’ve got to hang out with Judd furniture… you learn something’: Rainer Judd
As new book ‘Donald Judd Furniture’ lands, the artist’s children Rainer and Flavin discuss their father’s legacy
By Diana Budds Published
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Discover London’s lesser-known design gems with ‘an opinionated guide’
‘An opinionated guide to Design London’ by Sujata Burman and Wallpaper’s Rosa Bertoli is a carefully curated tour of intriguing design spots across the capital
By Tianna Williams Published
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Well hung? We interview Martino Gamper about his new book of (around) 1,000 hooks
Italian maverick designer Martino Gamper doesn't hang around. He has a new book featuring 1,000 hooks made by hand. We ask him how and why...
By Hugo Macdonald Published
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New Louis Poulsen book explores the Danish lighting company's illuminating world
Louis Poulsen: First House of Light, published by Phaidon, is a new design book delving into the Danish company's world of radiant lighting
By Jens H Jensen Published
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‘What We Keep’: 50 creatives on the objects they collect and use in their homes
‘What We Keep’ is a new book by Jean Lin, founder of the New York City design gallery Colony, an ode to objects and the people who obsessively collect them
By Diana Budds Published
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Sir Kenneth Grange’s influential industrial designs are chronicled in a new book
‘Kenneth Grange: Designing the Modern World’ explores the life and work of the pioneering British industrial designer
By Jonathan Bell Published
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LA gallery Blackman Cruz celebrates 30 years of ‘beauty, oddity, and specialness’
‘Beauty & Mischief: The Design Alchemy of Blackman Cruz’ is a new book that charts three decades of the LA antique and modern furniture gallery, with a foreword by Ryan Murphy
By Rosa Bertoli Published