ARQUITECTURA Y DISEÑO

Emblematic of Italian excellence since its founding in 1889, Bonacina is a family-owned design brand that has defined a unique and timeless style, embodying an artistic sensibility, attention to detail, and the superior workmanship of rattan—a natural raw material that grows in the Far East. The story begins in remote lands where the natural material grows before traveling to Italy and then, in the hands of some of the best interior designers, to stylish residences, gardens, hotels, and restaurants around the world.

From the outset, the concept developed by Stefano Boeri for a residential building in 2004 proved to be forward-looking as it anticipated the new frontiers of urban living. Ten years after its inauguration, the Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) has kept all its promises and launched a new way of imagining contemporary cities. This book celebrates an architectural work that has become the symbol of a renewed collective sensibility toward care for the environment and the plant world. Edited by Stefano Boeri Architetti, it traces its entire history. “The Bosco Verticale is one of the few ‘living’ buildings whose life is still followed ten years later.” This was the inspiration behind the editorial structure of the volume, which is formed of three sections that evoke the growth of a tree: roots, trunk, and branches and leaves.

This is Bunny Williams’ most ambitious book to date. Inviting us into her impressive grounds with charming personal anecdotes, expert advice, and hundreds of stunning photographs–printed on two different speciality stocks–Bunny Williams illustrates every aspect of the gardens surrounding her eighteenth-century manor house in Northwestern Connecticut in different lights and seasons. A popular stop on the Garden Conservancy circuit, Williams’ property boasts a parterre garden,year-round conservatory, extensive vegetable garden, orchard, woodlands, an aviary with exotic fowl, and a rustic poolside Greek Revival–style folly. Each section of the garden is accompanied by adirectory of featured plants—from native ferns and succulents to a wide variety of flowering specimens.

The Wunderkammer, or “cabinet of curiosities,” saw collectors gathering objects from many strands of artistic, scientific, and intellectual endeavor, in an ambitious attempt to encompass all of humankind’s knowledge in a single room. From the Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici and Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to Archduke Ferdinand II of Habsburg, these aristocratic virtuosos acquired, selected, and displayed the objects in real-life catalogues that represented the entire world―spanning architecture, interior design, painting, sculpture, gemology, geology, botany, biology and taxonomy, astrology, alchemy, anthropology, ethnography, and history. Marvel at the unicorn horns (narwhal tusks), gems, rare coral growths, Murano glasswork, paintings and peculiar mechanical automata. Browse through illustrations of exotic and mythical creatures and discover the famed “Coburg ivories,” an astounding collection of crafted artifacts. These collections are nothing short of a journey through time, from the Renaissance and Age of Discovery, the Mannerist and Baroque periods, up to the present day. Although many of these cabinets of curiosities no longer exist, others have been meticulously reconstructed, and new ones born.

The sophistication and modern femininity of the American luxury fashion house Carolina Herrera is captured in this evocative and vividly hued volume photographed by Elizaveta Porodina. A collaborative series of images, the first chapter of which was created in 2020 over Zoom, feature Porodina’s signature timeless, painterly style—an effect achieved through complex lighting techniques and equipment— capture the brand’s evolving collections designed by Creative Director Wes Gordon in a dreamy, otherworldly light. Inspired by dance, movement and the Herrera signature of bold color, this mesmerizing tome is flooded with photography of models and dancers in motion to reflect the vibrant energy and optimism of the clothing, arranged according to the chroma wheel instead of chronologically. Ethereal beauties, including singer and actress Dove Cameron, dancers Wendy Wheelan and Misa Kuranaga, and models Maggie Maurer and Mao Xing Xing, wear sweeping ballgowns, bold, saturated colors and dramatic silhouettes across ten collections designed by Wes Gordon over the past four years, capturing the fantastical universe of Beauty that is Carolina Herrera.

This is the first major book on Zegers, who practices an intensely artistic and ecological form of architecture based on landscapes in which she builds. Working frequently in timber, Zegers reaches unique, sustainable, and recyclable solutions that combine and rescue the traditional work of Chilean carpenters with modern techniques. In an almost metaphysical journey, in which organic forms, curves, diagonals, and verticals are combined, Zegers affirms her rising presence as a force in ecologically minded architecture.