Taschen

A Photo Tour of Enchanting Tree Houses for Grown Ups

Philip Jodidio, one of the world’s most popular writers on the subject of architecture, has written a fantastic new book, Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air. Preview it… Read More

The Best Illustrations from 130 Years of The Brothers Grimm

Few things from our childhood are as culturally universal as fairy tales, particularly those collected by the Brothers Grimm. These stories — Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Puss ‘n Boots, and many more — have been reinterpreted and retranslated over and over around the world. An integral part of the experience and enjoyment of stories like these is the imagery, of course. After all, often some of our first experiences with stories comes from looking at illustrations while the text is read aloud. In what we think is a fairly brilliant move, Taschen’s Noel Daniel has created a new compendium of some of the most well-loved Grimm fairy tales, each accompanied by the best vintage illustrations he could find, culled from the hundreds of adaptations, translations and reissues of the stories from the 1820s through the 1950s. In addition, the book’s layout is accented by lovely original silhouettes from the 1870s interwoven with new silhouette designs created specifically for this publication. The only downside is that the collection doesn’t come out until September, but click through for some images of the stunning illustrations to whet your appetite, and we’re pretty sure you’ll be pre-ordering your copy on the quick. … Read More

The Evolution of Travel Ads

A new book from Taschen, 20th Century Travel: 100 Years Of Globe-Trotting Ads, looks back at travel advertisements of the 20th century. If you’re heading somewhere this somewhere (but more especially if you’re not), it’s a handy and fun way to mainline some nostalgia and wanderlust. Think of it as a window into another world — when Amtrak and even Greyhound were classy, airplanes had lounges, and Conrad Hilton wanted to build a hotel on the moon. … Read More

Guessing Game: Roadside Relics

In Roadside America, his new book for Taschen, photographer John Margolies documents over 30 years (and 100,000 miles) worth of the unusual architectural relics found along American highways. We’ve rounded up a few of our favorite photographs after the jump. Did you log enough time in the family station wagon to correctly identify where each of these photos was snapped? … Read More

Daily Dose: The Art of Bollywood

Editor Paul Duncan’s The Art of Bollywood pays tribute to the Indian film industry’s varied artistry — and it’s not all about over-the-top musicals.

From horror to history, adventure to romance — and with a few unclassifiable choices, like Rocket Tarzan and White Face, thrown in for good measure — the featured selections make Bollywood style accessible in stunning reprints of posters, street displays, and iconic images. More than just a reflection of color-crazed, dance-happy films, these hand-painted works feature a visual language that goes beyond the stories they’re meant to represent. … Read More

Art Cinema: The World Beyond YouTube

Video art was a suspicious, outsider’s medium not long ago. To be sure, it has paradigms, heroes, and conventions — which new generations are feeling confident enough to subvert — but from the ancient perspective of the art-historical canon, it’s an adolescent. Perhaps due to this aura of youthfulness, or maybe because video-based art is very like tiny, short movies, we can’t get enough of it. And at the center of all the fuss is Remote Viewing curator and Art Cinema author Paul Young, whose current LA exhibition culled from the LOOP Video Art Fair is the equivalent of an indie blockbuster. … Read More

Daily Dose Pick: Walton Ford

Walton Ford’s paintings of wild animals combine the austere mastery of New England-style naturalism with a dark sexuality and satirical humor.

Ford’s latest project is Pancha Tantra, a signed and numbered edition from Taschen; its title is a reference to the Sanskrit tradition of animal fables as sociopolitical commentary. The artist’s exotic birds of prey, equine species, and their surreal orgies, tea parties, and surroundings act as metaphorical indictments of the insatiability and violence of his own species’ appetites.… Read More

The Morning’s Top 5 Cultural Stories

1. Twitter trumps the mainstream media in its streaming coverage of the Iranian protests, in which 7 people were killed yesterday. (The service even postponed an important upgrade.) Also, read this. [via Brietbart]

2. After losing an advertiser and on the verge of a 2-year contract renewal, David Letterman apologized to Sarah… Read More

Give Comic Sans a Much-Needed Makeover, Win Fancy Books

As we mentioned

For over seventy-five years, domus has been hailed as the world’s most influential architecture and design journal. Founded in 1928 by the great Milanese architect Gio Ponti, the magazine’s central agenda has always remained that of creating a privileged insight toward identifying the style of a particular age, from Art Deco,… Read More