BOOKS

Lake Flato Houses: Respecting the Land by Helen Thompson New York: Rizzoli International Publications, $85 272 pages, 237 illustrations (200 color)

This attractive book is a generous survey of 16 houses completed by the widely admired Texas firm Lake Flato since 2014 (the year, coincidentally, cofounders David Lake and Ted Flato entered into the Interior Design Hall of Fame). Naturally, most of the projects are near the architects’ offices in San Antonio and Austin but one is in Las Vegas and two in New York State. All share the firm’s zealous penchant and ability for relating to nature. This is done partly with natural materials—walls of rammed earth or rough-hewn limestone blocks, sod roofs, various woods in a plethora of applications—and with floor plans that accommodate courtyards,terraces, and other outdoor living areas. One house in the artsy outpost of Marfa, for example, consists of a cluster of eight separate pavilions.

But rough and natural as the house materials may be, they are never handled roughly but impeccably detailed and expertly joined to one another. As Lake and Flato write, “We love the chisel marks in soft Texas limestone and the wavy grain of the slender Douglas fir.” This rare intimacy with nature has been apparent since the firm’s founding in 1984. But in today’s world, when the ecosystem about us is increasingly threatened, the work of LakeFlato seems increasingly valuable. This book is a monument tothat value. New Mexico’s capital of Santa Fe has long been known for its stunning views, skies, and light. This new book shows that it should now be equally well-known for its modern houses. Here are 20 of them, some adobe, some Cor-Ten steel, some wood, many with timber-beam ceilings and white plaster walls, all with great expanses of glass focused on those views, and all handsomely photographed by Casey Dunn and written about by the prolific Helen Thompson, who also authored the other book reviewed in this section.

Architects and designers include Stephen Beili, Norman Foster, David Lake and Ted Flato, Scott Specht, Larry Speck, and Mark Wellen. Furniture is consistently and appropriately modern (spiced here and there with a characterful antique), including pieces by Alvar Aalto, Gae Aulenti, Eileen Gray, Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Gehry, Le Corbusier, Bruno Mathsson, George Nakashima, Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen, and Hans Wegner.

Surrounded by Santa Fe’s active art scene, almost all the fortunate residents in these houses seem to be collectors, too; there are artworks by Richard Avedon, Olafur Eliasson, Andy Goldsworthy, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Gerhard Richter, and Ed Ruscha, among others.

As an extra treat, the center of the book comprises a 16-page caption-free portfolio of black-and-white photographs of the splendid natural environment that enfolds these splendid houses. What’s not to like?

Santa Fe Modern: Contemporary Design in the High Desert by Helen Thompson New York: Monacelli, $50 240 pages, 220 color photographs

books edited by Stanley Abercrombie

What They’ re Reading...

Julia Gamolina

Associate principal at Ennead Architects and founder and editor in chief of Madame Architect Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History edited by Briar Levit New York: Princeton Architectural Press, $20 192 pages, 85 illustrations (69 color)

“Baseline Shift is certainly invigorating me for the year ahead. There is an unlimited supply of stories that have been under-told, or not told at all—in the book as well as in history and our current reality. Having recently joined Ennead Architects to focus on business development, I'm discovering that there is a lot of ambition and creative thinking on how to evolve the practice further. I look forward to diving deeply into these efforts, alongside continuing to tell the narratives of women in the design world on my website, madamearchitect.org, and through all kinds of media. I would love nothing more than to stay engaged with our audience and, in my combined roles, see what’s on the top of minds in the industry right now.”