Ask Vicente: Favorite Design Books

Name: Lindsey Bond
City: Birmingham
State: AL
Country: US
Comment:

Vicente,

What design books inspire you? I have an obsession with books and would like to know your suggestions for my design library.

Thank you for all your wonderfully inspiring words – Lindsey

Vicente Responds:

Lindsey, I share your obsession with books and have many design books. Here’s some of the books on my top list:

David Hicks: A Life of Design by Ashley Hicks – Rizzoli

Style & Substance by Margaret Russell – Filipacchi Publishing

The Hamptons: Life Behind The Hedges – Ellen Harris

Styles: Compendium of Interior by Francois Baudot – Assouline

Class Act: William Haines Legendary Hollywood Decorator by Peter Schifando – Pointed Leaf Press

Baroque Baroque: The Culture of Excess by Stephen Calloway – Phaidon Press

Frances Elkins: Interior Design by Stephen M. Salny – W. W. Norton & Company

Invitations 2 By Daniel Ost - Lannoo International

New Classic Interiors by Alessandra Branca – Stewart, Tabori & Chang

(I’ve also taken the plunge and linked to Amazon.com’s Affiliate system with links on the right hand side of my blog from which you can buy these books – anything to keep the $$’s coming in, right?)

This entry was posted on May 11, 2010, 1:00 pm and is filed under Ask Vicente, Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

#1 by EM on May 11, 2010 - 2:39 pm

Great topic. Let’s take it to the next level and talk about libraries.

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#2 by helen louisy on May 11, 2010 - 7:53 pm

Dear Vicente:

I also reccommend “The New Traditional”
by interior designer Darryl Carter.

Helen.

#3 by Gary Nelling on May 12, 2010 - 1:20 am

It is a pleasure to have a library of books that allow me explore and revisit the work of great urban planners, architects, designers and artists. Here are a few favorites of mine:

“Zaha Hadid”– Detlef Mertins et al – Guggenheim Museum – 2006
“The New Urbanism” – Peter Katz – McGraw Hill – 1994
“Pre Fab”- Allison Arieff & Bryan Burkhardt – Gibbs Smith – 2002
“Architecture Without Architects”- B. Rudofsky – MOMA – 1964
“Maison Christian Liaigre”- Herbert Ypma – Thames & Hudson – 2004
“Rooms” – Mariette Himes Gomez – Regan Books – 2003
“Williamsburg – Decorating with Style” – Tricia Foley – Colonial Williamsburg Foundation – Clarkson N. Potter – 1998
“Vermeer and His Contemporaries” – Leonard Slatkes – Abbeville Press – 1981

All are available from Amazon, thought the older out-of-print books go up in price for a new or mint copy. Museum and foundation books are probably less expensive directly through the original source. – Gary

#4 by Vicente on May 12, 2010 - 8:04 am

Great list, Gary! Thanks for sharing. Helen, I do have that one on my shelf as well – it’s a great one. EM, what would you like to talk about regarding libraries?

#5 by mandy on May 12, 2010 - 1:04 pm

I like both books about christian liagre. Also the architecture and design series of books by beta-plus is fantastic.

#6 by EM on May 12, 2010 - 1:15 pm

I never could understand why so many people like to talk about bath and kitchen renovations. The library is my favorite room in the house! Vicente, in one sketch somewhere on this site, you featured a living room with a wall of books fronted by the couch, which faced the windows. I wanted to ask you how you ensured that the books would be protected from the sunlight.

So do you get to design rooms/spaces for books? What about for real book collections that are really read? Do you like doing them? It’s my dream to have a library like the one in the old opening credits of “Masterpiece Theatre.” Perhaps one day there may even be a murder there (oops, that’s Christie’s “The Body in the Library.”) So many designers these days (and I guess I should use the term loosely) feature walls of bookshelves with leather bound books in another language or paper covered books, all for the visual appeal. It looks nice, but egads!

Signed,

EM, the closet bibliophile

PS – Then, we can talk about my second favorite room–the dressing room!

#7 by Whitney on May 12, 2010 - 7:41 pm

I fell completely head over heals for Billy Baldwin in both his books Billy Baldwin Decorates and Billy Baldwin Remembers. It helped me remember why I chose this career and what a real designer acts like. I just love him. He also reminded me a lot of how I think Vicente Wolf would be if I hired him as my designer.

#8 by Gary Nelling on May 12, 2010 - 11:27 pm

Whitney – I have both “Billy Baldwin Decorates” and his autobiography, which are quite charming and informative. I imagine he was the spiritual forefather of many of the sophisticated modernist designers we know today. – Gary