Interior Design Books

A visual treat for anyone who appreciates a bit of fantasy and/or enchantment in our living environments... A look into spaces (both personal and commissioned including some very famous and luxurious hotels) designed by some of the worlds most creative designers, architects, artists, etc. like: Philip Starck, Mary McFadden, Mattthew Williamson, and my favorite... the home of artist Michelle Oka Doner whose sculptural creations (inspired by nature) are integral to her gold gilded and pure white environment. This is not a "how to" book by any means... Rather a journey to exotic and indulgent places... A feast for the eyes and imagination!

Sylwanowicz presents compelling arguments that the key concepts of Duns Scotus' metaphysics derive from a common metaphysical inspiration: that essence is by nature self-moving. He contrasts this with the Thomistic inspiration: essence as the passive recipient of an act of existence which it delimits. One comes away from the work with an appreciation of the unique genius of Scotus, an increased capacity to view Scotistic metaphysics from within, rather than through the lens of another system. This is achieved with a minimum of polemical attitude toward Aquinas and ought to be welcomed by all, regardless of philosophical formation. Neither is the analysis for historians of philosophy alone. A reading of this book can only have salutary consequences for anyone who actively considers these issues on their own. Expect to be challenged but to come away enriched.

This book does a great service to those of us who have been struggling with the elusive Nagarjuna. It reveals the depth of his roots in early Buddhist tradition (building on and correcting the work of A.K. Warder and David Kalupahana) and allows his works to be read as a vibrant repristination of basic Buddhist insight. Particularly interesting is the account of the early Buddhist antecedents of Nagarjuna's formulation of the two truths theory (conventional and ultimate truth). Harris also shows how close were the Yogacara (mind-only) and Madhyamaka (emptiness) traditions and how inapposite is the later labeling of them as rival "schools." He blames many of the distortions in our view of Nagarjuna on his most famous commentator Candrakirti, whom he accuses of radicalizing the contrast of the two truths at the expense of conventional truth (pp. 116-17). Candrakirti accuses Yogacara of absolutizing a conventional doctrine (which he has no quarrel with as such), but Harris claims that the Yogacarins "actually agree with him that all dogmas must be, by definition, non-ultimate" (p. 164). Candrakirti's sparring-partner Bhavaviveka attacks Yogacara from the opposite angle, accusing it of devaluing conventional reality; this again misses the substantial overlap of the Madhyamaka and Yogacara traditions. Harris is a master of the sources, which he quotes and translates illuminatingly throughout. He evokes the realm of nirvana and emptiness, the quiescence of fabrications, in lucid pages that have "the savor of liberation." He asserts that emptiness is a state of mind, not an ontological reality, and perhaps goes too far in this direction. He talks of ultimate reality as "an ontologically indeterminate existence realm" (p. 131), which is rather opaque and unhelpful diction. What he means is that it lies beyond the grasp of dualistic categories of being and non-being. (Alas, there are an appalling number of misprints, despite the high price of the book.)

"Converted Spaces" is one of those types of books that makes you want to jump into the pictures and take immediate tours of those incredible spaces. Living in a space that's not designed to be lived in is to live surrounded by character and originality. I particularly loved the lofts in Jersey City (NJ) with the quadruple height ceilings. I did not know that lofts with 50ft ceilings even existed. Apparently Wells Fargo built the building at the turn of the century as a carraige house. We don't have anything like that in Soho. That's Amazing!!!

Students of architecture, hotel and commercial building design, and travel will all find much to attract in Cool Hotels: India, Maldives, Sri Lanka: it features the best hotels of the region, from rustic to big city, and discusses craftsmanship, artistic d‚cor, and landscaping qualities which make each hotel exceptional. The meat of Cool Hotels lies in its full-page color photos of both interior and exteriors of featured hotels.

This book has some innovative pools -- especially the one under a set of glass stairs in the entryway of a London building. There are indoor pools, outdoor pools, indoor-outdoor pools, the now-ubiquitous "infinite edge" pools and even "rustic" pools that look like natural ponds. Gorgeous! The book also covers Jacuzzis and pool-related structures, such as cabanas, waterfalls, and so on, but the focus here is high-end "cool" pools.

This is a great and comprehensive guide to some of the eateries in Shangahi.

Plus, it's nicely designed!

Very well done and professionally produced. I hope they provide updates in the future. Great gift idea for clients in the fashion biz.

The first, most important thing to realize about Van der Poel's book is that he is not interested in the magical parts of Agrippa's work. If you're looking for that, you simply will not find it here -- try my more recent book (shameless plug). This is not to say that Van der Poel downplays the magic, or distorts Agrippa; rather, he focuses on the large but essentially unknown corpus of Agrippan works which deal with theological, legal, and traditionally philosophical topics. Another caveat: this book will be tricky, though not impossible, for those who have no Latin.

Van der Poel is a Neo-Latin philologist, and this training allows him access to this very difficult corpus. He builds up a complex, sophisticated picture of Agrippa as an intellectual very much of his time. By thus situating Agrippa within his intellectual context, Van der Poel is able to provide coherent, effective readings of _De vanitate_ [On the vanity and uncertainty of the arts and sciences] and _De praecellentia_ [On the pre-eminence of the female sex], two rather refractory works.

In addition to his precise analyses of Agrippa's Latin, Van der Poel also carefully goes through the entirety of his large correspondence, resolving or at least clarifying a great many long-standing difficulties in Agrippa's bio-bibliography.

Perhaps most essentially, however, Van der Poel succeeds in placing Agrippa's work in the context of early sixteenth-century humanism, both at a rhetorical and a philosophical level. Those interested in these subjects will find a wealth of material here, scrupulously annotated and painstakingly analyzed. In some respects I suppose some would see this book as plodding, but it is an excellent example of a classic mode of scholarship, much maligned by people who'd rather sound clever than do the kind of hard work Van der Poel does here.

If you are serious about understanding Agrippa as an intellectual of the early sixteenth century, you need to read through this book, along with Nauert's earlier study (_Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought_, 1965). If your interest is in Agrippa as part of the skeptical and humanist movements, this book is absolutely essential. If you want the magic, look elsewhere.

Corporate Interiors No. 3 unfolds the highly dynamic interplay of spatial transformation through some very exciting projects, varying from the classically conservative office space to the more blatantly modern conceptions. It highlights the brilliance of the Design firms by focusing on the innovative solutions through each of the 150 projects that comprise it. The photographs add to the visual stimulation, increasing its value far beyond the paper and the ink. A definate must to have around while studying, working or otherwise!