New York Interior Design, 1935-1985, Vol. 1: Inventors of Tradition - Hardcover

Gura, Judith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0926494511 ISBN 13: 9780926494510

Publisher: Acanthus Press, 2008

Synopsis

New York City has always been home to the chic and urbane a place where Andy Warhol entertained in his French Empire salon and where Babe Paley served martinis and cigarettes in her taxicab-yellow living room. Who made this city the center of cosmopolitan interior design as we know it today? The answer is found in the lavishly illustrated profiles of the nearly 100 interior designers featured in the two-volumes of New York Interior Design 1935 1985.

Over 600 photographs assembled by author Judith Gura present a visual biography of the city s interior innovators. From the refreshed Francophilia of Eleanor McMillen Brown to the high-tech minimalism of Ward Bennett, New York Interior Design unfolds a glittering panorama of New York s old world duplexes, river and park-view towers, and its minimalist downtown lofts.

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 pizzaz; and the epitome of the southern civility, Joseph Braswell, who believed that a beautiful environment could make its occupants into better people.

Inventors of Tradition is accompanied by Volume II, New York Interior Design, 1935-1985: Masters of Modernism, which examines the work of the designers who moved away from European tradition, incorporated new materials and cutting-edge technologies, and pioneered the architectural approach to interior decorating.

About this title

About the Author:

JUDITH GURA is professor and faculty member at the New York School of Interior Design, where she directs the design history program. A graduate of Cornell University, she has a Master s degree in Design History from the Bard Graduate Center. She has taught at Pratt Institute and FIT, and has contributed to exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Gura is the author of Sourcebook of Scandinavian Furniture: Designs for the 21st Century; Guide to Period Styles for Interiors; Harvey Probber: Modernist Furniture, Artworks and Design; and Edward Wormley: The Other Face of Modernism. She is a contributing editor for Art+Auction, and lectures frequently about design.

Review:

Hefty and amply illustrated...Gura's two-volume set is New York, the definitive inside edition. Don't miss it. --Veranda, March 2009

New York Interior Design, 1935-1985, a two-volume set by Judith Gura, documents the fearlessness of residential designers in Manhattan, who lined ceilings with neon tubes and covered wals in tortoiseshell vinyl. Mrs. Gura, a professor at the New York School of Interior Design, spent hundreds of hours interviewing designers (most older than 70) and digging up images of projects like the Denning & Fourcade 1980s interior with cloisonne elephants (on the cover). --The New York Times, July 31, 2008

Hefty and amply illustrated...Gura's two-volume set is New York, the definitive inside edition. Don't miss it. --Veranda, March 2009

New York Interior Design, 1935-1985, a two-volume set by Judith Gura, documents the fearlessness of residential designers in Manhattan, who lined ceilings with neon tubes and covered wals in tortoiseshell vinyl. Mrs. Gura, a professor at the New York School of Interior Design, spent hundreds of hours interviewing designers (most older than 70) and digging up images of projects like the Denning & Fourcade 1980s interior with cloisonne elephants (on the cover). --The New York Times, July 31, 2008

About this edition

• Publisher: Acanthus Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0926494511
• ISBN 13: 9780926494510
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 318