Library

Liquid Spaces: Scenography, Installations and Spatial Experiences

Sofia Borges, Sven Ehmann, Robert KlantenSurprising spatial experiences for all senses: This book features art, interior design, architecture, and striking scenography that leave lasting impressions. It is not a paradox that today—in the era of digitalization and e-commerce—the creation of tangible spaces is gaining in importance. A personal encounter triggers profound thoughts, strong feelings, and memories that last. In other words, the foundation of a meaningful relationship between artist and audience, museum and visitor, shop and customer, or brands and their communities is based uopon an unforgettable experience. Yet all these groups are more discerning than ever before: They want a personalized moment, want to be informed and entertained, pampered, surprised, and inspired. Liquid Spaces shows the many different ways in which this desired effect can be achieved. Galleries, museums, temporary events, pop-up shops, and flagship stores provide the settings for a wide spectrum of unconventional architecture and interior design, where playfully experimental installations or complex productions can be presented. Surprising materials, colors, shapes, and surfaces provide the props, which alongside innovated smells, sounds, and lighting concepts come together in expansive, stage-like gestures with sculptural details. High-end cars are presented like works of art. Art is displayed in the laboratories. Workshops become sacred sites of authenticity. The line between art and commerce is fluid; the quality of the experience is all that matters. Artists, scenographers, and architects, as well as interior and exhibition designers create these extraordinary situations. Liquid Spaces presents the most innovative concepts, most radical designers, and most demanding clients. Those who manage to create incomparable event spaces with local and international appeal, and those responsible for adding the next destination of must-see locations to the map.

Laurie Baker: Truth in Architecture

Atul DeulgaonkarLaurie Baker was an eminent architect originally from England who made India his home on Mahtma Gandhi's advice. In his style we find the confluence of Gandhiji's thoughts and Baker's own artistic view. His art pieces are beyond the time and space. They provide us with a power to think to deep inside our mind. It has a potential to create a curiosity about every micro and macro events in the nature. It also offers an inner strength for contemplation. In a chaotic environment of information and technology surrounding us, it is Baker's masterpieces that are the classic art forever.

Ando

Masao Furuyama, Peter GösselA monumental touch: Tadao Ando, master of the serene yet mighty

Philippe Starck describes him as a “mystic in a country which is no longer mystic.” Karl Lagerfeld regards him as a 21st-century genius who “saw everything, learned everything, then forgot everything and remade everything.” For the Pritzker Prize jury, “originality is his medium.”

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:
Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Architecture series features:an introduction to the life and work of the architectthe major works in chronological orderinformation about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutionsa list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildingsapproximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts and plans)

The Art of Boudoir Photography: How to Create Stunning Photographs of Women

Christa Meola"Cultivating sex appeal and looking great naked is not about crash dieting or Photoshop, but rather is about a woman’s attitude, confidence, playful personality, and feeling good in her own skin.” –Christa Meola, boudoir photographer

In this greatly anticipated book The Art of Boudoir Photography: How to Create Stunning Photographs of Women, pro photographer Christa Meola goes beyond photography instruction to include detailed information on how to help women look and feel beautiful by cultivating their sex appeal. This beautifully illustrated guide will not only enhance your understanding of how to bring out the best in every woman, but also sharpen your photography skills in order to capture her successfully.

Whether shooting with a pro model, plain-Jane, curvy gal, or soccer mom, Christa gets to know her subject intimately in order to help her look and feel beautiful, sexy, and confident. Christa shares her personal tips and techniques throughout the entire process, creating an amazing experience that produces photographs packed with emotion. She covers every step in creating a successful boudoir shoot, including how to prepare a subject who has never posed before, coaching sensual movement, beautiful lighting setups with minimal equipment, how to flatter every figure, and more. With “Before and After” profiles and “Do and Don’t” scenarios throughout, essential lists, practical tips for male photographers, metadata for every shot, as well as post-processing techniques in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, this book offers clear and inspiring instruction.

The Art of Boudoir Photography is about transformation. It’s about cultivating sex appeal and enthusiastic positivity. It’s that jolt of confidence and bolt of sexual prowess to tease out of your subject. It’s for each woman to recognize her individual beauty, provide an opportunity for her to break through her comfort zone, honor her body, and celebrate femininity. For photographers with varying levels of experience, this book is for you–to appreciate and embrace boudoir photography, enhance your understanding of what it is, what it can do for women, and most importantly, how to have fun with it!