Bibliotheca Universalis

Take a journey through the makers and shapers of celluloid history. From horror to romance, noir to slapstick, adventure to tragedy, Western to new wave, this selection gathers the greats of 20th-century cinema into one indispensa…

Designing private residences has its own very special challenges and nuances for the architect. The scale may be more modest than public projects, the technical fittings less complex than an industrial site, but the preferences, r…

Not so very long ago, some might have considered wood a material of the past, long since replaced by more modern components such as concrete and steel. The truth is radically different. Bolstered by new manufacturing techniques an…

Drawn from TASCHEN's Illustration Now! series, this go-to catalog brings together 100 of the most successful and important illustrators around the globe. With featured artists including Istvan Banyai, Gary Baseman, Seymour Chwast,…

Making stops in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, this edition rounds up some of today's most exceptional and inspiring interiors across six continents. From rustic minimalism to urbane eclecticism, the…

Since the original TASCHEN edition of Manga Design, Japan's comic phenomenon has produced yet more captivating characters and a whole host of hot new talents. This revised and updated edition delivers the lowdown on the latest and…

The 20th century saw fashion evolve from an exclusive Parisian salon business catering for the wealthy elite into a global industry employing millions, with new trends whisked into stores before the last model has even left the ca…

George Eastman's career developed in a particularly American way. The founder of Kodak progressed from a delivery boy to one of the most important industrialists in American history, and a crucial innovator in photographic history…

The Hermetic Museum takes readers on a magical mystery tour spanning an arc from the medieval cosmogram and images of Christian mysticism, through the fascinating world of alchemy to the art of the Romantic era. The enigmatic hier…

Photographer, writer, publisher, and curator Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a visionary far ahead of his time. Around the turn of the 20th century, he founded the Photo-Secession, a progressive movement concerned with advancing …

In a fleeting 14-year period between two world wars, Germany's Bauhaus school of art and design changed the face of modernity. With utopian ideas for the future, the school developed a pioneering fusion of fine art, craftsmanship,…

We owe a great debt to Jean Baptiste Marc Bourgery (1797-1849) for his Atlas of Anatomy, which was not only a massive event in medical history, but also remains one of the most comprehensive and beautifully illustrated anatomical …

It was the Belle Epoque, a time before air travel or radio, at the brink of a revolution in photography and filmmaking, when Burton Holmes (1870-1958) began a lifelong journey to bring the world home. From the grand boulevards of …

Ever since Henry David Thoreau's described his two years, two months, and two days of cabin existence at Walden Pond, Massachusetts in Walden, or, Life in the Woods (1854), the idea of a refuge dwelling has seduced the modern psyc…

Concrete? That characterless stuff of parking lots or Communist tower blocks, right? Well, yes. And no. Concrete is actually a name applied to a remarkably wide range of building substances, and, when properly handled, is one of t…

Antiquarian, archaeologist, vulcanologist, and envoy to the British Embassy in Naples, Sir William Hamilton (1731-1803) was a leading European figure of his time. Though the romance between his wife Lady Emma Hamilton and Horatio …

Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics-and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the in…

From the eccentric museum La Specola in Florence comes this amazing collection of waxworks depicting human anatomy in all its dazzling complexity. A selection of wax bodies and body part and organ studies from the museum's collect…

From the dawn of time, ever since Adam and Eve, all artists of every age-whether the Egyptian, Greek, or Roman artists of Antiquity, or more recent famous names such as Rembrandt, Courbet, Degas, or Picasso-have succumbed to their…

A flaneur and photographer at once, Eugene Atget (1857-1927) was obsessed with walking the streets. After trying his hand at painting and acting, the native of Libourne turned to photography and moved to Paris. He supplied studies…