B Is For Bauhaus An A Z Of The Modern World

Description

This book is not a dictionary, though it tells you all you need know about everything from Authenticity to Zips. It's not an autobiography, though it does offer a revealing and highly personal inside view of contemporary culture. It's an essential tool kit for understanding the world around us. It's about what makes a Warhol a genuine fake; the creation of national identities; the mania to collect. It's also about the city as seen from the rear view mirror of Grand Theft Auto V; digital ornament and why we value imperfection. It's about drinking a bruisingly dry martini in Adolf Loo's American bar in Vienna, and about Hitchcock's film sets. It's about the modern world of fashion, technology, design and art. Born in London, Deyan Sudjic studied architecture in Edinburgh, edited Domus in Milan, was the director of the Venice architecture biennale, and a curator in Glasgow, Istanbul and Copenhagen. The author of The Language of Things and The Edifice Complex, Deyan Sudjic is now Director of the Design Museum, London.

Reviews

A memoir and a master class in musing on modern design ... It's a collection of thoughtful, absorbing essays about many aspects of modern design, a subject nobody writes better about than Sudjic ... There are many rewarding pieces here on subjects ranging from the genius of Dieter Rams, the beauty of the Jumbo jet, the success of Ikea, the troubled concept of authenticity, and the contradictions of Leon Krier, to the development of the zip and the end of the typewriter and the analogue camera London Evening Standard

Author description

Deyan Sudjic is the director of the Design Museum. He was born in London, and studied architecture in Edinburgh. He has worked as a critic for the Observer and the Sunday Times, as the editor of Domus in Milan, as the director of the Venice architecture biennale, and as a curator in Glasgow, Istanbul and Copenhagen. He is the author of The Language of Things and The Edifice Complex.