Amy Azzarito's blog

In the recent New York Times feature, Shopping With…, designer Kelly Wearstler visited the Los Angeles bookstore, Potterton Books and revealed books that have inspired her. Many of Kelly’s inspiration books are in the collection of The New York Public Library including the article's pièce de résistance “A Speciman Book of Pattern Papers.” Although Kelly paid $3200 for the book, you can look at it for free at the Library. (Just keep in mind that you’ll have to look at it on site, but bring your camera—you can take as many pictures as you want.) If you can’t make it to the Library, there are some beautiful patterns on the Digital Gallery, including my new favorite, to the right. For while rare books may be expensive, inspiration is always free.
Here are some of the other books mentioned in the article:
(Unless otherwise noted, the books are at the Humanities Library)
"The Bathroom: A New Interior"
"Goodbye Picasso"
"The Hermès Shop Windows"
"Horst: Interiors" (at the Mid-Manhattan Library)
"The Shell: Five Hundred Million Years of Inspired Design" (at the Science Industry and Business Library)
"Ettore Sottsass : a critical biography"
 

You’re probably familiar with the tree houses in children’s stories--Swiss Family Robinson, Tarzan, Winnie the Pooh, to name a few. But did you know that tree houses were immensely popular in Renaissance Italy?

Cosimo de Medici outfitted his tree house at Villa Castello with marble table and plumbing, but was bested by his son Francesco, whose tree house had, not only a marble table, but also marble benches and a fountain and two staircases. Although the Medici tree houses are no longer in existence, there is this tree house from the 17th century at Pitchford Hall in England, which bears the distinction of being the oldest tree house in the world.

The fascinating evolution of the tree house, is chronicled in Peter Nelson’s 1994, Tree Houses: The Art and Craft of Living Out on a Limb. Anthony Aikman takes a more scholarly look at life in the tree tops, in Treehouses. To whet your treehouse appetite, his chapter titles include, "Treehouse of Europe" as well as "Treehouse Adaptations" and "Fantasy Treehouses." Both books also explore the ins and outs of building your own tree house.

For a modern take on tree house design, Dwell Magazine did a story in 2006 called "High Life" illustrating the work of some very designed tree houses. The first photo is an image from Dwell of the Sustainability Tree House designed by Dustin Feider, a mini geodesic dome in the sky.

This is a photo of the Map Division at the New York Public Library. One of the many beautiful spaces at the Library.  Not only is it a great source for map research, it is also an inspiration for any design enthusiast. Gold leaf ceiling, anyone?
And although New York Public is my daily source of inspiration, I found a wonderful online exhibition of great libraries all over the world from Curious Expeditions. One of my favorites is the Joanina Library University of Coimbra, Portugal. I’m a sucker for a library ladder.

 
This has to be one of my favorite mid-century modern chairs. Other than just being my favorite, it also has the distinction of being one of the early stacking chairs.
This is the Landi chair designed by Hans Coray in 1938. The design won a competition held by the Swiss Parks authority to be the official seating for the Swiss National Exhibition. Among the judges were the modernist giants, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier.   The chair was so popular that it was used again at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels and is still in production today (albeit with some design modifications). 
 Although the chair is in major museum collections, it’s a little difficult to find much information on it. One of the best sources is an amazing book on aluminum from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum here in New York. It’s called Aluminum by Design: From Jewelry to Jets. You can also usually find information about specific pieces of furniture in more general books. One of my favorite design historians, Penny Sparke mentions the Landi chair in her book, Furniture: Twentieth-century Design. She writes about the fact that as post-war homes became increasingly smaller, the stacking feature of the Landi chairs would become a model for many other stacking chairs.
Some Like-minded Designs
Magis
Ronde Armchair
Supernatural
 

It would be impossible to write about design from New York Public Library and not mention the Library building itself.  When I first came to work at the Library, I would marvel at its grandeur, the overwhelming scale of the staircases, the height of the ceilings, the copious amounts of marble. But now, after working in this building everyday for five years, it is the details that amaze me–a hidden staircase, a lion mask on a chandelier, the carved acanthus leaves crowning a wooden column.  The architects of this grand Beaux-Arts building designed everything from the overall space to the chairs, benches and even the trash cans.
And who were these detail-oriented architects? John Mervin Carrère and Thomas Hastings. These gentlemen and their firm of Carrère & Hastings are the focus of a recently published glossy book by Acanthus Press.  This book is, of course, available for browsing in the very building that the authors of Carrère & Hastings Architects call “an undeniable turning point for the firm.”