Interior Design Books

This book brought back the wonderful world of Big Biba. I was 19 and in London for the first time when my friend and I walked into Big Biba. What an amazing site--I felt like Alice in Wonderland just stepping into a fantastic new world. We had never seen anything so splendid, creative, beautiful. We didn't have much money to spend but I bought eye shadow, lipgloss, and grapefruit face toner. I kept the bottle for years as a keepsake. I wish the book had even more photos but the ones that are in it are wonderful. What a great way to relive these memories! I recommend this book for anyone interested in fashion, design, the 1970's, or if you were ever lucky enough to have visited Big Biba.

This book makes me want to go back in time and step out in 60's London and experience Big Biba. Such a great story with so many fantastic photos that really capture the punkiness of the atmostphere. Great book. I highly recommend experiencing Big Biba.

What else can I say but buy this book to travel back to a time when fashion was fun! A great read and a treasure to own.

For those who were there, it brings back memories. For those who were not, "Big Biba" shows what you missed. For everyone, a look through this over-sized picture book will fill you with awe-- how could this have been???? But it was... Although, as a transatlantic visitor, I had mixed opinions about Big Biba (see reviews of "The Biba Experience"), it was still a wonder to behold. Time has done nothing to dilute that wonderment. In fact some of the most successful retail concepts (Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters for example) lightly but lovingly tiptoe down the Biba path. "Big Biba" is a classy 96 pages of heavyweight stock including a repro of the 16-page Opening Day Newspaper and a garment hangtag for use as a bookmark. Barbara Hulanicki herself writes the forward and doesn't dwell too much on the crash-and-burn aspect of the Biba phenomenom. As she shouldn't. Biba was obviously a product of its times, and now we have this lovely book for all time.

With its stunning photographs, reproduced in exceptional color, William Morris: Décor & Design is a fine interior design book that belongs on every coffee table. This book will surely win more appreciation for the diverse talents of the great designer, especially when newcomers to Morris see the breadth of his talents presented so beautifully. As a long-time admirer, I have many books about the 19th century designer, poet, fantasist, etc., but this is one of my favorites, as well as one of the most complete books on his design that I have seen. Photographs range from the colorful interiors of houses and public buildings decorated by Morris for clients, to the homes he actually lived in. Insets show details of his striking patterns, from wallpaper to tapestry to upholstery fabric to curtains, as well as pages from his illuminated books and the Morris & Co. catalog. Non-Morris interiors are shown for comparison. A pictorial glossary of his most common patterns completes the book. Further, the biography chapter is a good, comprehensive introduction to Morris, describing his forays into politics and literature, as well as his many efforts in all aspects of design. I recommend this beautifully designed book, a fitting tribute to Morris's own delight in design, to any lover of beauty in art and design.

Elizabeth Wilhide's superb "William Morris: Decor and Design" will be a real treat for William Morris fans. Wilhide combines dozens of sumptuous color photographs of Morris interiors with an overview of his life, his influences, and his artistic goals. I learned a number of interesting things about his personal background, such as:

- His beautiful wife Jane had a long affair with fellow artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti;
- In addition to his design work, he was such a respected poet that he was offered the poet laureateship of England once Tennyson had died;
- Many of his designs are still in active production today, more than a century after his death.

Morris shunned the effect the Industrial Revolution had had on the arts in England (and elsewhere) and proposed that hand-crafted art, furniture, wallpaper, and so on be the goal of an artists' cooperative he helped to found. He felt that art should be in every home and that it should be useful, beautiful to look at, and durable. This success of the cooperative produced the uncomfortable situation, for Morris, of having art be so beautifully and painstakingly produced by hand that, in the end, only the wealthy could afford it.

The photographs of Morris interiors, wallpaper designs, furniture, and more, are absolutely sumptuous, and Wilhide's well-informed and well-written text helps to expand our understanding of the whole of Morris' life. Highly recommended!

With its stunning photographs, reproduced in exceptional color, William Morris: Décor & Design is a fine interior design book that belongs on every coffee table. This book will surely win more appreciation for the diverse talents of the great designer when newcomers to Morris see the breadth of his talents presented so beautifully. As a long-time admirer, I have many books about the 19th century designer, poet, fantasist, etc., but this is one of my favorites, as well as one of the most complete books on his design that I have seen. Photographs range from the interiors of houses and public buildings decorated by Morris for clients, to the homes he actually lived in. Insets show details of patterns, from wallpaper to tapestry to upholstery fabric to curtains, as well as pages from his illuminated books and the Morris & Co. catalog. Non-Morris interiors are shown for comparison. A pictorial glossary of his most common patterns completes the book. Further, the biography chapter is a good, comprehensive introduction to Morris, describing his forays into politics and literature, as well as his many efforts in all aspects of design. I recommend this beautifully designed book, a fitting tribute to Morris's own delight in design, to any lover of beauty in art and design.

With its stunning photographs, reproduced in exceptional color, William Morris: Décor & Design is a fine interior design book that belongs on every coffee table. This book will surely win more appreciation for the diverse talents of the great designer, especially when newcomers to Morris see the breadth of his talents presented so beautifully. As a long-time admirer, I have many books about the 19th century designer, poet, fantasist, etc., but this is one of my favorites, as well as one of the most complete books on his design that I have seen. Photographs range from the colorful interiors of houses and public buildings decorated by Morris for clients, to the homes he actually lived in. Insets show details of his striking patterns, from wallpaper to tapestry to upholstery fabric to curtains, as well as pages from his illuminated books and the Morris & Co. catalog. Non-Morris interiors are shown for comparison. A pictorial glossary of his most common patterns completes the book. Further, the biography chapter is a good, comprehensive introduction to Morris, describing his forays into politics and literature, as well as his many efforts in all aspects of design. I recommend this beautifully designed book, a fitting tribute to Morris's own delight in design, to any lover of beauty in art and design.

With the loss of Colonial Homes magazine, Christmas ideas with a American colonial theme are becoming rare. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation along with Libby Hodges Oliver and Mary Miley Theobald have created not only a historical account of early American celebrations, but a beautifully designed and photographed book. Decorating starts outside with simple wreaths and pine roping to more elaborate fruited creations. Inside the greenery continues along with ideas on table decorations,the Christmas feast and best way to spoil Christmas guests. Chapters cover candles to Christmas trees along with colonial revival and twenty first century interpretations. This book will be a welcome inspiration for anyone looking for Christmas ideas and traditions.

With its lively, readable text and beautiful photography, Williamsburg Christmas is a must have book for anyone who enjoys Colonial history and Williamsburg. It makes you want to make that visit to Williamsburg during the Christmas holidays.

Informative (and occasionally surprising!) text accompanied by exquisite photographs of the holiday decorating style known as Colonial Williamsburg.

The text is coordinated effectively with the photographs to which it refers, making this a helpful guide for those interested in recreating or adapting the patterns for their own decorations. Lists of fruits and greenery that are or are not historically valid as well as diagrams for constructing bases for fan-style and pyramid decorations are both practical and helpful. For those preferring merely to look rather than do, it's still a lovely holiday visit to Williamsburg.

You don't have to like Williamsburg to like this book. Decorations can be used in contemporary homes, colonial or traditional homes. Good thoughts on how traditions such as the first Christmas tree began. I am giving the book to family and friends. It makes a great Christmas present.

This book takes a look at what makes Frank Lloyd Wright's designs still so popular today. The book itself is so gorgeous, focusing not just on the houses but also on the furnishings, which can be breathtaking! The photos were excellent and conveyed the feeling of really being there.

I read three books about this architect this weekend, and this one was the most complete of them all. It gave me a peek into so many of his uniquely designed buildings and the furnishings and decorative arts that he created for them.

Something I had never seen before: at the end of the book there is a catalog of items that can be purchased from different vendors. These are FLW reproductions, items inspired by FLW, and those "in the style of FLW". These items range from furniture to rugs to lamps to fabrics and decorative items.

On my "tour" of over 40 houses (designed by both Wright and his followers), I saw that all of the designs were simple ones, with natural colors and finishes, the buildings seeming to spring out of the earth. I saw the open flowing floor plans that are sheltered by overhanging, gently sloping roofs. Many of the places I "visited" had built-in furniture and fixtures.

It was interesting to view all of the things that Wright designed for his homes....besides the items mentioned above, he also designed the windows (art glass), light fixtures, skylights, wall murals, and even the landscaping!

Wright changed American architecture forever, resulting in open floor plans, multi-purpose rooms, naturally-lit spaces--- and showed us a different way of living.

This is a wonderful book: gorgeous color pictures with an informative and most insightful text. Far beyond a coffee table collection, this is a real contribution to understanding Wright, and American housing. Lind discusses the design ideas of a number of Wright's most famous or typical extant buildings. You get a good idea of the exhilarating play of light and space in his houses, and the real significance of such modern cliches as ranch-style, strip and corner windows, patio doors, and built-ins. Besides real insight into Wright's aesthetic, the book is notable for its unique coverage of 12 houses by Wright disciples, and appendices on interior arts and sources of reproductions. (Wright would be appalled, since he saw furnishings as uniquely integral and scaled to particular houses!) A "dangerous" book, it singlehandedly reawakened my interest in Wright's architecture. It may draw you, too, into learning more of Wright, and influencing your choice of home.

All of the other customer reviews were extremely positive, and I would like to concur in their respective judgments.

Wright's life was filled with controversy, and his work is subject to complex interpretation. Other authors, in my opinion at least, devote way too much book space to these matters; Lind, on the other hand, has done a masterful job in organizing the key elements of Wright's style (furnishings, usonians, etc>) and gathering stunning, modern photographs that illustrate each.

If you buy one book on Wright, this should be the one. Better than anything else I've seen, it will demonstrate why the man's work lives on -- 45 years after his death.

The book has many photographs an does a credible job of detailing each of them. I found that the book well organized. . I would highly recommend this as an intro to Wright's work. The author tries to touch on as many subjects a possible, as result there are times when it was somewhat lacking in depth. That being said there is a great reference of things Wright in the back of the book that is worth the price of admission alone.

This was a used copy, but look new. Worth the money.

The book was very interesting and fun to read. Great information for the new business I am starting up.

I love the show - its my favorite decorating show. I also own the first "Design on A Dime" book. This one showcases some of the episodes. It provides creative, practical decorating advice and ideas. The book breaks down design into six steps and shows how to address these steps with examples from the show. If you enjoy the show, you'll enjoy the book!

This book is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Perfect condition and rapid delivery. Excellent service.

Adobe Details is a small but powerful book. It is well written and beautifully photographed by Karen Witynski and Joe Carr. This book satisfies the reader's appetite for Mexican and New Mexican decor while challenging him or her to venture out to one of the several locations featured. Ideas abound for the novice decorator. If landscape design is more your style, this book will also energize your outdoor spirits!! The vivid color and simple elegance make the book a "must have" for any library, especially those chocked full of information on the southwest.

Adobe Details by award winning Mexican design specialists Karen Witynski and Joe P. Carr is an impressive survey at the culture, furnishings, and especially the architecture prevalent in the American Southwest and the mountains of Mexico. The majority of Adobe Details is devoted to breathtaking, full-color photography of grand living spaces; brief text captions and essays provide rich detail on the history, functionality, and symbolism of these inspirational edifices. Adobe Details is especially for architecture buffs and a welcome addition to academic and community library interior design reference collections.

The collaborative work of Paul Duchscherer (a design historian and interior designer specializing in history preservation work) and Linda Svendsen (a graduate of New York' Parsons School of Design and an expert photographer), Along Bungalow Lines: Creating An Arts & Crafts Home is a guide especially for homeowners interested in renovating and upgrading their vintage homes without sacrificing their unique Arts & Crafts styles. Chapters discuss American Historicism, Prairie Evolution and progressive period-style influence, the inspiration of "Greene Style", and much more, all embracing a closeness to nature and a high regard for elegance and creativity. Full-color photographs on every page allow for a breathtaking tour of beautiful homes, and the brief text debates conundrums affecting projects ranging from enlarging a period home to constructing a new building designed to echo a historic one. A visually stunning collection, filled with equal measures of practical and aesthetic advice.

Whether building a craftsman home or remodeling your bungalow, this book is full of ideas for you. Colorful pictures too!

This is a great book if your looking for idea's for inside and outside of your craftman home. Or if your looking to build one. I loved how it told all about how craftman homes came about and the pictures are wonderful.

This is an exquisite book. Such cosiness and wonderful living spaces, truly exhilirating. I don't have much time to write this review but I read through the book this Saturday morning and it's impact is priceless - I briefly and partially read person's view from Canada below and they say it perfectly.

This book takes you inside some of the most interesting and memorable homes in the Alpine region. Fully trilingual - everything in the book is presented in German and French, along with English - this book also has stunning color and black and white photographs on almost every page. Makes an excellent coffee table book. If you love interior design, and are curious about the Alpine way of living, this book is for you. What a shame that it is currently out of print.

As well as ALL the other books from TASCHEN's "Interiors" series, this book is simply magical. It offers a great trip in the Alpes and simply gives you the opportunity to visit the most beautiful houses -- from simple chalets to deluxe houses -- of the mountains. The printing is fabulous and the pictures are of pure quality. Beautiful!

This was the first book I bought by April Cornell , and I immediately fell in love w/ her style.

In this book ,April categorizes each chapter by color and "regions". April's way of mixing and matching colors in each chapter is soooo inspiring.

Once April Cornell explains that the inspirations for her prints are fantastic locations like India, France, Nova Scotia, Portugal and California, it all comes together. It's amazing to pore over this book and see how easy it can be to create elegant and eclectic tabletops, beds and entire rooms, using the pieces of furniture and decoration that you have already collected and love. That's the way April Cornell does it and as she guides you through each room or her own home, she shows you how easy it can be to apply it to your own. I live in a cottage and find this book invaluable for incorporating our "been -all -over -the-world- look" under one roof.

If you're interested in decorating and gardening, APRIL CORNELL AT HOME is worthy of a good look. It's that rare book where a decorator actually shows the reader some photographs of their lived-in home. It's truly a beautiful book and filled with April's beautiful fabrics and home furnishings.

I loved the dining room that has a plate shelf set below the crown molding. The shelf is charmingly filled with a collection of plates. What appears to be an armoire is against one wall, and is described as " this old British colonial cabinet from India." The table is covered with a yellow and red floral cloth, and the room is personal and very livable.

Even the small area vignettes where Cornell's textiles are displayed are interesting. The gardens have tables covered with lovely cloths and chairs with coordinating cushions. The bedrooms are dressed in the dreamiest of bed linens. Assorted pillows are added to patchwork quilts to make the beds look so comforting and all are delightful to behold.

The studio, kitchen and living room are also shown. Each room, very individual, attractive and comfortable. So often, books of this type are presented with products in artificial decorator settings. In that situation, the rooms often seem too unreal and cold. That's not the case here. I can honestly say that this beautiful book took my breath away!

I'm getting my masters in Architecture and this book is a must-have, must-read for anyone designing in the digital age. It's informational and inspiring not only for architects, but anyone interested in using computer technology as a method for design carried through to manufactuing.

We all know that information revolution has totally transformed the society. Architecture is no exception. Relative to industrial revolution's impact on architecture, "what has this recent revolution done to the field?" is the basic inquiry to the book. This book diligently answers to the question. It is extremely informative and provocative regarding digital technologies available for architecture.

As an outcome of a symposium held at U.Penn. in 2002, the book compiles various scholars and practitioners around the world. They grapple with the current technologies available to design and manufacture innovative shapes/forms/spaces that associate with digital aesthetics.

Spearheaded researchers such as Bill Mitchell(MIT), Chris Luebkeman(Arup), Ali Rahim (U.Penn), and Branko Kolarevic (U.Penn, chief editor of the book); and, cutting-edge practitioners such as Jim Glymph (Gehry), Hugh Whitehead (Foster & Partners), Bernhard Franken (Franken Architekten), etc.; both groups provide theoretical framework and actual applications.

It's interesting to point out that the authors deliberately associated digital architecture with smooth forms. Double curvatures deform structure/ skin/ space of the building. The new modes of design and production enables that complex geometries to be part of building industry.

As a reader, the most challenging claim of the book is that the authors
assert (some explicitly and some implicitly) on the new role of an architect. They believe that this new mode of production will revolutionize the client-architect-contractor relationship. Because architects will be the (single) dominant source of information on the three dimensionally morphed shape, manufacturers and fabricators would rely heavy on architects. The authors predict architect would regain absolute power of medieval master builders.

This book provides a great overview of the developing technolgies in digital design and fabrication. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a comprehensive study in the current trends in digital architecture. A series of 20+ articles by designers working in this area of architecture, this book updates the conversation to what is happening today and what is being projected in the future. Great resource!