"Courtyards presents a survey of courtyards, contemporary design guidelines, and a diverse selection of examples. Readers will acquire a basic understanding of the balance that must exist between garden and building, including practical advice for planting."--BOOK JACKET.
A groundbreaking introduction to the photographic work of an iconic modern artist The pathbreaking artist Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) is revered for her iconic paintings of flowers, skyscrapers, animal skulls, and Southwestern landscapes. Her photographic work, however, has not been explored in depth until now. After the death of her husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, in 1946, photography indeed became an important part of O'Keeffe's artistic production. She trained alongside the photographer Todd Webb, revisiting subjects that she had painted years before--landforms of the Southwest, the black door in her courtyard, the road outside her window, and flowers. O'Keeffe's carefully composed photographs are not studies of detail or decisive moments; rather, they focus on the arrangement of forms. This is the first major investigation of O'Keeffe's photography and traces the artist's thirty-year exploration of the medium, including a complete catalogue of her photographic work. Essays by leading scholars address O'Keeffe's photographic approach and style and situate photography within the artist's overall practice. This richly illustrated volume significantly broadens our understanding of one of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century.
This question-and-answer book contains 400 reminders of what is known and what is sometimes forgotten or misunderstood about a city that was founded more than 400 years ago. Not a traditional history book, this group of questions is presented in an apparently random order, and the answers occasionally meander off topic, as if part of a casual conversation.
John Potts Slough, the Union commander at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, lived a life of relentless pursuit for success that entangled him in the turbulent events of mid-nineteenth-century America. As a politician, Slough fought abolitionists in the Ohio legislature and during Kansas Territory’s fourth and final constitutional convention. He organized the 1st Colorado Volunteer Infantry after the Civil War broke out, eventually leading his men against Confederate forces at the pivotal engagement at Glorieta Pass. After the war, as chief justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court, he struggled to reform corrupt courts amid the territory’s corrosive Reconstruction politics. Slough was known to possess a volcanic temper and an easily wounded pride. These traits not only undermined a promising career but ultimately led to his death at the hands of an aggrieved political enemy who gunned him down in a Santa Fe saloon. Recounting Slough’s timeless story of rise and fall during America’s most tumultuous decades, historian Richard L. Miller brings to life this extraordinary figure.
History is not just about great personalities, wars, and revolutions; it is also about the subtle aspects of more ordinary matters. On a day-to-day basis the aspects of life that most preoccupied people in late eighteenth- through mid nineteenth-century Mexico were not the political machinations of generals or politicians but whether they themselves could make a living, whether others accorded them the respect they deserved, whether they were safe from an abusive husband, whether their wives and children would obey them—in short, the minutiae of daily life. Sonya Lipsett-Rivera’s Gender and the Negotiation of Daily Life in Mexico, 1750–1856 explores the relationships between Mexicans, their environment, and one another, as well as their negotiation of the cultural values of everyday life. By examining the value systems that governed Mexican thinking of the period, Lipsett-Rivera examines the ephemeral daily experiences and interactions of the people and illuminates how gender and honor systems governed these quotidian negotiations. Bodies and the built environment were inscribed with cultural values, and the relationship of Mexicans to and between space and bodies determined the way ordinary people acted out their culture.
The underground world of con men, winos, prostitutes, laborers, and artists has been an abundant source of material for great writers from Dickens to Bukowski. The underground world of Taos, New Mexico, is no different. In the late 1950s this mountain town was higher, brighter, poorer, and farther removed than London, Paris, or Los Angeles, but it was every bit as rich for the explorations of a young writer. Max Evans, the beloved New Mexican writer of such enduring classics of Western fiction as The Rounders and The Hi-Lo Country, returns to form with The King of Taos. Set in the late 1950s, the novel tells the stories of sharp-witted Zacharias Chacon, aspiring artist Shaw Spencer, and a circle of characters who drink, fight, love, argue, and—mostly—talk. Readers will enjoy this witty and moving evocation of unforgettable characters as they look for work, love, comfort, dignity, and bottomless oblivion.
The town of Álamos in the state of Sonora, Mexico, a one-day drive from the Arizona border, is one of the most intact colonial-era cities in northern Mexico. Álamos has been declared a National Historic Monument by the Mexican government and is one of only fourteen towns to be designated as Pueblos Mágicos. Founded by Spaniards who discovered silver deposits nearby, Álamos was a prosperous city from its inception. It is situated in a “dry tropical” valley where both desert flora and tropical plants intermingle. The propitious combination of wealth, climate, and New World Hispanic town planning principles led to the development of a remarkable architecture and city plan. Until now, there has never been a book about the architecture and urban form of Álamos. In this much-needed work, John Messina, who teaches architecture and is a practicing architect, provides a well-informed history and interpretive description of the town. He also examines building materials and construction techniques, as well as issues of building preservation and restoration. At the same time, the author considers what other cities might learn from Álamos. Particularly for cities in the American Southwest that are struggling to reduce sprawl and increase density without compromising their quality of life, Álamos offers a range of possible solutions. Thoroughly illustrated and designed for lay readers and professionals alike, this engaging book captures the essence and the uniqueness of Álamos while asking what lessons can be drawn by architects and planners who are attempting to reshape our own cities and towns into more livable, viable, and people-friendly environments.
The Road to Perfection (Camino de Perfección) was written in 1901 and published the following year. It marked a pivotal point in Pío Baroja's development as a writer and thinker. It tells the story of Fernando Ossorio, a young man who makes a spiritual and physical journey through parts of central Spain.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Paris, 1938. As the shadow of war darkens Europe, democratic forces on the Continent struggle against fascism and communism, while in Spain the war has already begun. Alan Furst, whom Vince Flynn has called “the most talented espionage novelist of our generation,” now gives us a taut, suspenseful, romantic, and richly rendered novel of spies and secret operatives in Paris and New York, in Warsaw and Odessa, on the eve of World War II. Cristián Ferrar, a brilliant and handsome Spanish émigré, is a lawyer in the Paris office of a prestigious international law firm. Ferrar is approached by the embassy of the Spanish Republic and asked to help a clandestine agency trying desperately to supply weapons to the Republic’s beleaguered army—an effort that puts his life at risk in the battle against fascism. Joining Ferrar in this mission is a group of unlikely men and women: idealists and gangsters, arms traders and aristocrats and spies. From shady Paris nightclubs to white-shoe New York law firms, from brothels in Istanbul to the dockyards of Poland, Ferrar and his allies battle the secret agents of Hitler and Franco. And what allies they are: there’s Max de Lyon, a former arms merchant now hunted by the Gestapo; the Marquesa Maria Cristina, a beautiful aristocrat with a taste for danger; and the Macedonian Stavros, who grew up “fighting Bulgarian bandits. After that, being a gangster was easy.” Then there is Eileen Moore, the American woman Ferrar could never forget. In Midnight in Europe, Alan Furst paints a spellbinding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare—and the heroes and heroines who fought back against the darkness. Praise for Alan Furst and Midnight in Europe “Furst never stops astounding me.”—Tom Hanks “Furst is the best in the business.”—Vince Flynn “Elegant, gripping . . . [Furst] remains at the top of his game.”—The New York Times “Suspenseful and sophisticated . . . No espionage author, it seems, is better at summoning the shifting moods and emotional atmosphere of Europe before the start of World War II than Alan Furst.”—The Wall Street Journal “Endlessly compelling . . . Furst delivers an observant, sexy, and thrilling tale set in the outskirts of World War II. In Furst’s hands, Paris once again comes alive with intrigue.”—Erik Larson “Too much fun to put down . . . [Furst is] a master of the atmospheric thriller.”—The Boston Globe