Volume I, Inventors of Tradition, highlights the careers and showcases the work of the designers who translated and then transformed European period styles into a new vocabulary for America. In addition to the work of celebrated tastemakers—Billy Baldwin, Mario Buatta, and Albert Hadley—Gura uncovers the interiors of once-influential, now-obscure designers whose work played an important role in the development of the “New York look.” Among these practitioners are William Pahlmann, the pioneer of contemporary eclecticism; the glamorous Melanie Kahane, with a fondness for shocking pink and tasteful pizazz; and the epitome of southern civility, Joseph Braswell, who believed that “a beautiful environment could make its occupants into better people.”
