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…

The history of photography began nearly 200 years ago, but only relatively recently has it been fully recognized as a medium in its own right. Cologne's Museum Ludwig was the first museum of contemporary art to devote a substantia…

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 …

Originally published in France between 1876 and 1888, Auguste Racinet's Le Costume historique was in its day the most wide-ranging and incisive study of clothing ever attempted. Covering the world history of costume, dress, and st…

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,…

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 …

First advertised as a "mind-stretching experience," Nicolas Roeg's 1976 The Man Who Fell to Earth stunned the cinema world. A tour-de-force of science fiction as art form, the movie brought not only hallucinatory visuals and a hau…

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…

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…

Whether it's Double Indemnity, Kiss Me Deadly, or The Big Sleep, roam a screen world of dark and brooding elegance with this essential handbook to Film Noir. From private eyes and perfect crimes to corrupt cops and doomed affairs,…

Fritz Kahn (1888-1968) was a German doctor, educator, popular science writer, and information graphics pioneer. Chased out of Germany by the Nazis, who banned and burned his books, Kahn emigrated to Palestine, then France, and fin…

The most exciting new buildings today are almost all environmentally aware, sustainable, and conceived to consume less energy than ever before. Discover the best examples of green projects from the Architecture Now! series in this…

A century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. In this neat, dependable monograph, we gather all of Klimt's major w…