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Country & Cozy: Countryside Homes and Rural Retreats

by Gestalten editors (Gestalten)

Even if the post-pandemic mass exodus from our cities hasn’t materialised quite as predicted, the hardest urbanite still might yearn for a bit of fresh air and a simple country bolthole. Gestalten’s new book includes rural homes from upstate New York to a village outside Beijing: naturally, many homeowners are in the creative industries such as designer Nigel Coates’ Tuscan retreat or interior architect Ilkka Mälkiäinen’s Finnish farmhouse, while others are the clients of brilliant architects, as is the case with Will Gamble Architects’ Parchment Works, a contemporary extension to a partially ruined 17th-century factory. The underlying message is that the countryside is not just somewhere to get away from it all, but a place to better connect with what matters.

Yves Saint Laurent Museum Marrakech

by Catherine Sabbah (Phaidon)

Not many contemporary buildings warrant their own monograph, but Studio KO’s Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech certainly feels deserving of the honour. The museum opened in 2017, with Studio KO working with Saint Laurent’s former partner Pierre Bergé to design a fitting tribute to the French couturier, with exhibition rooms, a library, bookshop and cafe. In diary format, the book takes readers behind the scenes of the making of the building – a heavenly hymn to local materials and craftsmanship, with decorative brickwork and a lush garden – illustrated with sketches, plans and photographs alongside images of Yves Saint Laurent’s couture creations. The start-to-finish creative process, and the story of a fascinating collaboration, are laid bare.

Design Emergency

by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli (Phaidon)

This book started life as an Instagram account of the same name, set up in April 2020; its protagonists, MoMA curator Paolo Antonelli and design critic Alice Rawsthorn, wanted to explore the positive role that design could play in the pandemic. It broadened to embrace all the ways that design can build a better future, and now the book puts that into print. The essays and interviews here contain considerable cause for hope, even in unpromising circumstances, with interviewees including Ilse Crawford, who speaks about her work with Food for Soul, which fights food waste while encouraging social inclusion; Francesca Coloni, head of design for the UNHCR’s refugee camps; and Alex Ansen, campaigner for African land restoration project The Great Green Wall. The noughties brought us museums, theatres and galleries designed by starchitects who were often working far from their home countries and cultural roots; Beijing-based OPEN is an example of how native architects subsequently regained that ground, putting local context to the fore. This book profiles six projects by the practice, including the utterly extraordinary Ucca Dune Art Museum on China’s coast, a series of cellular cave-like spaces shaped by hand in concrete by locals; and Shenzhen’s Pingshan Performing Arts Center, whose size and grandeur is softened by public green space. They pose questions about what we want from our cultural institutions today, shifting from distanced admiration of objects to places with a strong emphasis on social interaction.

Reinventing Cultural Architecture: A Radical Vision by OPEN

by Catherine Shaw (Rizzoli)