Gifts for Architects

Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain

£25.00

Quantity

In the mid-1930s, three giants of the international Modern movement, Bauhaus professors Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, fled Nazi Germany and sought refuge in Hampstead in the most exciting new apartment block in Britain. The Lawn Road Flats, or Isokon building (as it came to be known), was commissioned by the young visionary couple Jack and Molly Pritchard and designed by aspiring architect Wells Coates. Built in 1934 in response to the question 'How do we want to live now?' it was England's first modernist apartment building and was hugely influential in pioneering the concept of minimal living. During the mid-1930s and 1940s its flats, bar and dining club became an extraordinary creative nexus for international artists, writers and thinkers. Jack Pritchard employed Gropius, Breuer and Moholy-Nagy in his newly formed Isokon design company and the furniture, architecture and graphic art the three produced for him and other clients during their brief sojourn in pre-war England helped shape Modern Britain This book tells the story of the Isokon, from its beginnings to the present day, and fully examines the work, artistic networks and legacy of the Bauhaus artists during their time in Britain. The tales are not just of design and architecture but war, sex, death, espionage and the infamous dinner parties. Isokon resident Agatha Christie features in the book, as does Charlotte Perriand, working for Le Corbusier's practice, who Jack Pritchard commissioned for a pavilion design in 1930 The book is beautifully illustrated with archive photography - much of which is previously unseen - and includes the work of photographer and Soviet spy Edith Tudor-Hart, as well as plans and sketches, menus, postcards and letters from the Pritchard family archive In Spring 2018, the Isokon building and Breuer, Gropius and Moholy-Nagy were honoured with a Blue Plaque from English Heritage. 2019 marks the centenary of the foundation of the Bauhaus, so the book is a timely celebration of European design

Stone

£29.95

Quantity

Stone is a fascinating, fresh and insightful global tour of the world's oldest and most beautiful building material Featuring more than 170 structures, from prehistory through to today, the book includes an incredible range of buildings There are also projects by the world's best contemporary architects Arranged to promote comparison and discussion, each project includes an extended caption providing a perceptive commentary on the building An elegant and informative visual exploration, Stone demonstrates the remarkable variety of creative and innovative structures the material has inspired around the world

Mars Axis Pencil

£1.00

Quantity

Designed exclusively for the Moving to Mars Exhibition range, the Mars Axis Pencil features the planet Mars split vertically in to two hemispheres, one red and one pink, on a dark blue backdrop The words Moving to Mars in white also feature near the base of the pencil

Observers Notebook: Astronomy

£13.99

Quantity

A star-filled sky is as mysterious as it is sublime. What are we looking at? How far away and from when? How do I tell the Little Dipper from the Big Dipper? Is that Cassiopeia or Orion? Is the moon waxing or waning? Whether you're an occasional backyard stargazer or would-be astrophysicist, you'll find pages of useful information in the Observer's Notebook: Astronomy Stunning four colour images from the Hubble and ESA space telescopes are interwoven with ruled pages for your own celestial observations, notes and star-based wishes

Acorn Vase

£28.00

Quantity

Innovative and beautifully designed the Acorn Vase allows you to witness a simple acorn you have picked grow into a magnificent oak tree Perfect for urban dwellers, tree lovers, inquisitive children and design enthusiasts to bring the magic of nature into their home and hopefully oak trees for future generations The vase includes a 20-page handbook, which guides the user with detailed steps for germinating the seed and growing an acorn in the Acorn Vase, a handbook with helpful instructions, an oak tree field guide, as well as artistic and literary inspirations to inspire others to plant an oak tree for future generations

Moving to Mars: Design for the Red Planet Catalogue

£19.95

Quantity

Edited by Justin McGuirk, Andrew Nahum and Eleanor Watson  Designed by Studio Julia  Getting humans to Mars has become one of the great challenges of our time. It will be an extraordinary technological feat, but also a feat of design. This is the first book dedicated to designing for the Red Planet. From life on a spacecraft to survival on Mars’ inhospitable surface, new forms of clothing, farming and architecture will be needed. This volume looks at the real work designers and architects are generating now – as well as more speculative proposals of what this future might look like. Some ask whether we should go to Mars at all, while others argue that the rigours of such a mission would force us to design a waste-free way of life.  Illustrated with more than 300 images and featuring original essays by leading thinkers in their field, Moving to Mars: Design for the Red Planet includes projects by NASA, SpaceX and the European Space Agency, as well as new work by designers and architects including HASSELL, Konstantin Grcic, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and RÆBURN. It also includes an interview with the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, who addresses why speculative design is the ideal discipline for imagining the ‘material grammar' of a life on Mars

Architecture of Closed Worlds

£30.00

Quantity

What do outer space capsules, submarines, and office buildings have in common? Each is conceived as a closed system: a self-sustaining physical environment demarcated from its surroundings by a boundary that does not allow for the transfer of matter or energy Contemporary discussions about global warming, recycling, and sustainability have emerged as direct conceptual constructs related to the study and analysis of closed systems. From the space program to countercultural architectural groups experimenting with autonomous living, this publication documents a disciplinary transformation and the rise of a new environmental consensus in the form of a synthetic naturalism It presents an archive of 39 historical living prototypes from 1928 to the present that put forth an unexplored genealogy of closed resource regeneration systems Prototypes are presented through unique discursive narratives with historical images, and each includes new analysis in the form of a feedback drawing that problematises the language of environmental representation by illustrating loss, derailment, and the production of new substances and atmospheres

bauhaus journal: 1926–1931 facsimile edition

£65.00

Quantity

One hundred years after the founding of Bauhaus, it’s time to revisit bauhaus journal as significant written testimony of this iconic movement of modern art. In this journal, published periodically from 1926 to 1931, the most important voices of the movement are heard: masters of the Bauhaus, among others, Josef Albers, Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, and Oskar Schlemmer, as well as Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Gerrit Rietveld, and many more They address the developments in and around the Bauhaus, the methods and focal points of their own teaching, and current projects of students and masters. At the time primarily addressed to the members of the “circle of friends of the bauhaus,” the journal published by Gropius and Moholy-Nagy makes tangible the authentic voice of this mouthpiece of the avant-garde. The facsimile reprint is intended to give new impetus to international discussion and research on the Bauhaus, its theories and designs The exact replica of all individual issues are accompanied by a commentary booklet including an overview of the content, an English translation of all texts, and a scholarly essay which places the journal in its historical context