American Designers' Houses

Rating:
Summary: Details, Details, Details
Review: American Designers' Houses by Dominic Bradbury is a wonderful book. It features the work of consummate designers, in each of its three chapters: "Classic", "Fusion", and "Contemporary", and is replete with wonderful photographs of these artists' domestic "canvases".

Equally at home on your coffee table as in your library shelf, the casual lay reader will enjoy leafing through the handsomely illustrated pages, but the most significant benefit will be had by the professional designer and more capable aesthete. The latter will be able to draw concepts and glean insight by studying the various effects demonstrated in the photos.

Those who understand that taste has very little to do with fashion, and that details are a significant part of the whole will particularly enjoy this book. The designers are perfectionistic in that nonchalant manner that can only be attained with true talent, skill, and experience.

The "Fusion" chapter was arguably the most notable, and I found that I had particular affinity to the work of Marietta Himes Gomez, and Vincente Wolf - the effect of a gilded bench in a generously empty, white space in Mr. Wolf's apartment was simply spectacular. The Neo-Classicist designer, Thomas Pheasant could also transform a three-dimensional space in the most extraordinary of ways.

The texts are competent and informative, and the photography accomplished. It has everything required of a book worth owning, and I cannot but recommend it.