taschen

Yes is More is the easily accessible but unremittingly radical manifesto of Copenhagen-based architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG.Unlike a typical architectural monograph, this book uses the comic book format to express its groundbreaking agenda for contemporary architecture. It is also the first comprehensive documentation of BIG’s trailblazing practice—where method, process, instruments, and concepts are constantly questioned and redefined. Or, as the group itself says:

“Historically, architecture has been dominated by two opposing extremes: an avant-garde full of crazy ideas, originating from philosophy or mysticism; and the well organized corporate consultants that build predictable and boring boxes of high standard. Architecture seems entrenched: naively utopian or petrifyingly pragmatic. We believe there is a third way between these diametric opposites: a pragmatic utopian architecture that creates socially, economically, and environmentally perfect places as a practical objective. At BIG we are devoted to investing in the overlap between radical and reality. In all our actions we try to move the focus from the little details to the BIG picture.”

Bjarke Ingels attracts highly talented coworkers, but also gifted and ambitious clients from all over the world. He then creates intelligent synergies from wild energies and unforeseen dynamics, and transforms them into surprising, functional, valuable, and beautiful solutions to the specific and complex challenges in each task.

BIG projects have won awards from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Architecture Biennale, as well as many other international prizes. Yes is More is a play on words that represents the company’s ethos and sums up its irreverent attitude towards excessive formalism, and its determination to involve the population at large in its creations. As an extension of its methods and results, its debut monograph uses the most approachable and populist means of communication available—the comic.

For Sebastião Salgado, Genesis is a “love letter to the planet.” TASCHEN’s postcard set allows you to send on that wonder with 25 individual images from the complete Genesis portfolio, now the world’s most-visited photography show of all time.

The boxed set spans the breadth of Salgado’s project across five focal territories: Planet South, Sanctuaries, Africa, Northern Spaces, and Amazonia and Pantanal. In exquisite black and white textures, each image celebrates the pristine splendor of nature, animals, and indigenous peoples that have, so far, escaped the imprint of modern society, from a Nomadic Nenet girl in Siberia to sunlit Buffalo herds in Botswana’s Okavango Delta.

“Genesis is a quest for the world as it was, as it was formed, as it evolved, as it existed for millennia before modern life accelerated and began distancing us from the very essence of our being” — Lélia Wanick Salgado

Brighten up your desktop with seasonal blooms! Each day you’ll encounter a fresh image from Basilius Besler’s hand-painted 17th-century engravings of the Garden at Eichstätt in Bavaria,

one of the most beautiful gardens in Europe. This is greenery that keeps on giving, too—at the end of the year, just turn back to the beginning and let the floral pleasures continue!