Great Escapes Greece

The Hotel Book. 

The winners of the Pentawards package design competition 2019–2020

Wherever you shop, be it online or in a brick-and-mortar store, the first thing you notice about a product is its packaging. The quality of the packaging has a significant influence on whether or not a customer decides to buy a product. In fact, packaging has become more important than ever in recent years: Unboxing videos are watched by millions of followers on social media platforms, college Packaging Design courses are full to bursting, more and more agencies are specializing in this area, and companies are investing ever greater sums of money in the outward appearance of their products. Packaging design has long since grown to become not just part of our everyday lives, but a powerful marketing tool as well. High-quality packaging can increase the value of an entire brand.

With over 500 projects from more than 45 different countries, the sixth edition of TASCHEN’s The Package Design Book celebrates the 14th anniversary of the Pentawards, one of the industry’s most important international competitions. We will be casting our spotlight on all the winners from 2019 and 2020. With awards in six major categories – Beverages, Food, Body, Luxury, Other Markets, and Packaging Concepts – this spectacular and inspiring collection presents an array of unusual, intelligent and charming packaging concepts, demonstrating once again the importance of this design discipline.

The Package Design Book 6

Great Escapes Italy

The Hotel Book. 2019 Edition

Meet the Queen

The public and private life
of the world’s most famous monarch

Born in 1926, married in 1947, crowned as Queen in 1953, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has carried out her duty for more than six decades. TASCHEN celebrates her remarkable royal story with a new edition of Her Majesty, a definitive photographic collection of her public and private life.

Brimming with history, tradition, glamour, and culture, the book spans the Queen’s early years right through to her most recent state tours and ceremonies. Along the way, we trace her coming of age during World War II; her marriage, motherhood, and coronation; her encounters with such icons of their age as the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, and JFK; and her extensive international travels. We visit the spectacular royal palaces and enjoy the infectious celebration of royal weddings and jubilees. We witness the elegance of official portraits, and the tenderness and humor of informal and family moments.

As much a showcase of top photographers as a royal celebration, Her Majesty includes the work of such luminaries as Cecil Beaton, Studio Lisa, Dorothy Wilding, Karsh, Lord Snowdon, David Bailey, Patrick Lichfield, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rankin, and Annie Leibovitz.

Her Majesty.
A Photographic History 1926–Today

Giving Form to the Future

BIG’s third installment of its TASCHEN trilogy: Formgiving. An Architectural Future History

Formgiving. An Architectural Future History, the new book by BIG(Bjarke Ingels Group), is a visionary attempt to look at the horizon of time. The Danish word for “design” is “formgivning,” which literally means to give form to that which has not yet taken shape. In other words, to give form to the future. Using our power to give form, rather than allowing the future to take shape, is more important now than ever, as humankind’s impact on the planet continues to increase and pose ever greater challenges to all life forms. Architecture plays a special role by proposing spaces for our lives that are fragments of the future in the making. William Gibson’s words embody architecture’s role perfectly: “The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.”

With Formgiving, BIG presents the third part of its TASCHEN trilogy, which began with Yes is More, one of the most successful architectural books of its generation, and continued with Hot to Cold. An Odyssey of Architectural Adaptation. The book is presented in a timeline, stretching from the Big Bang into the most distant future. Projects are structured around six strands of evolution—“Making,” “Sensing,” “Sustaining,” “Thinking,” “Healing,” and “Moving”—the multimedia-based, interdisciplinary concepts encompassing the building industry. Culture, climate, and landscape, as well as all the energies derived from the elements—the thermal mass of the ocean, the dynamics of currents, the energy and warmth of the sun, the power of the wind—are incorporated into these projects. Throughout more than 700 pages, Bjarke Ingels presents his personal selection of projects, including the 12,000-square-meter LEGO House in Denmark, the human-made ecosystems floating on oceans, the redesign of a World War II bunker into a contemplative museum, and the ski slope-infused power plant celebrating Copenhagen’s commitment to carbon neutrality. Through architecture and design, BIG gives shape to a sustainable and simultaneously colorful world.

Bjarke Ingels: “To feel that we have license to imagine a future different from today, all we have to do is look back ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, to realize how radically different things were then than they are today. The same will be true if we can look ahead with the same clarity of vision. As we tackle the complexities of everyday life, these six evolutionary trajectories allow us to place a firm gaze on the horizon of time to prevent us from being derailed by the random distractions of today. Since we know from our past that our future is bound to be different from our present, rather than waiting for it to take shape on its own, we have the power to give it form.”

Formgiving is also a companion volume to the exhibition of the same name, which was conceived at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen and will travel to other venues worldwide. More than 65 projects document BIG’s global work through the eyes of their users, from the drawing board to global construction sites and finished projects. Throughout the book are insights into developments that reach five, ten, or fifty years into the future, and evidence of BIG’s intransigence to reach beyond the ordinary, and beyond worlds, to contribute to the future with each project. Each step not only reveals a world that resembles our dreams but also already tries to realize these dreams pragmatically. We have the power to create the world of tomorrow!

The book features:

• previously unpublished essays by Bjarke Ingels,
• award-winning photography by Laurian Ghinitoiu, Iwan Baan, and Rasmus Hjortshøj, among others,
• planetary proposals for habitats on the Moon and research centers on Mars,
• 20 LEGO master-builder models of BIG’s work,
• a glimpse of Masterplanet—BIG’s ongoing work on a collective, crowdsourced masterplan guide for sustaining our planet.

BIG. Formgiving.
An Architectural Future History

Explore the compositions, postures, and role-playing of the male nude genre from anonymous 19th century erotica through to contemporary work from David Hockney and Duane Michaels. Highlights include the Sicilian homoerotic scenes of Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden and illustrations from Physique Pictorial, the leading organ of the mid-50s gay scene.

A short history of male nude photography

While the female nude has long played a conspicuous role in western iconography, the male nude has not always enjoyed such attention, or acceptance. This ode to the male physiquecelebrates the evolving, at one time illicit, art form from anonymous 19th century erotica through to contemporary work from David Hockney and Duane Michaels.

Through the classic, the playful, and the provocative, it explores the compositions, postures, and role-playing of this often under-explored genre. Esteemed masters such as Herbert List, George Platt Lynes or Robert Mapplethorpe are all there, alongside Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, famed for his homoerotic images of nude youths in classical postures in Sicily. Further highlights include illustrations from Physique Pictorial, the leading organ of the mid-50s gay scene and a pioneer in gay publishing.

Details

All wrapped up

Three-Stripe Thrills

Untold Stories

Kate + Mario = fashion dynamite. This book is the legendary photographer’s personal homage to his greatest muse: a young girl that captured his heart and eye with her beauty, humour and spirit, and whose image in his photographs has captured imaginations the world over. The show-stopping collection includes fashion shoots, candid snaps, and insights from both icons.