Akkadia Joint Projects

East Meets East: William Lim: The Essence of Asian Design


Exploring design works ranging from furniture and temporary art installations to interior design and architecture by CL3, founded by William Lim, and related studios Lim + Lu and Open UU, this book presents a fresh consideration of the essence of contemporary Asian design and how it has evolved over the past few decades. The projects selected share a sensitivity to Asian qualities: a deep appreciation of site and context, craft and design details, with imaginative architectural responses delivering a reinterpretation of cultural heritage and traditions. The book includes a contextual essay by Hong Kong-based architecture critic and author Catherine Shaw, a foreword by architecture and design curator Aric Chen, and a chapter dedicated to conversations on the modern interpretation of eastern aesthetics and the unique experience of designing for a new Asia between William Lim, Swedish museum director, art critic and writer Lars Nittve, and Shanghai-based architect Lyndon Neri. The projects are presented in a clear, vibrant graphic style designed by William Lim and artist and graphic designer Stanley Wong, aka anothermountainman, to evoke an Asian quality. Each chapter includes a text by William Lim and features original conceptual sketches, photographs, floor plans, and drawings.

 

ABOUT RIZZOLI INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Rizzoli make beautiful books that are works of art in their own right. With active distribution networks in more than 70 countries across the globe, the sheer breadth of Rizzoli’s sales channels is matched only by its unrivalled production processes in Italy – the land that, since the Renaissance, has been crafting books on art. For more information on Rizzoli publications, please click here.

Reinventing Cultural Architecture: A Radical Vision by OPEN


Drawing on a series of conversations and site visits to six recent groundbreaking projects, architecture writer Catherine Shaw describes how Beijing-based OPEN Architecture is reinventing and responding to China s complex and fast-changing cultural landscape with projects that mark a new era for contemporary Chinese cultural architecture. OPEN Architecture was founded in New York in 2003 by Li Hu and Huang Wenjing, while their Beijing office opened in 2008. From a contemporary art gallery buried beneath a sand dune to a sculptural open-air theatre in a remote mountain valley near the Great Wall, co-founders Li Hu and Huang Wenjing re-evaluate conventional Western assumptions about culture and design as they base each pioneering project on the needs and plea-sures of humanity within the context of diverse terrains and climates. In doing so, they not only consider how cultural architecture looks, but how it works. Projects are presented with commentary and contextual information as well as new analyses and archival material, including outstanding colour photography, plans and drawings, and exploratory sketches. This book provides a fresh perspective on contemporary cultural architecture and place making, hig-lighting the architects sources of inspiration, their challenges, and their construction methods, showing how each impactful project responds to China s distinctive context.

 

ABOUT RIZZOLI INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Rizzoli make beautiful books that are works of art in their own right. With active distribution networks in more than 70 countries across the globe, the sheer breadth of Rizzoli’s sales channels is matched only by its unrivalled production processes in Italy – the land that, since the Renaissance, has been crafting books on art. For more information on Rizzoli publications, please click here.

Alan Chan: Collecting Inspiration for Design


This rare personal insight into the influences and inspirations behind acclaimed Hong Kong designer and collector Alan Chan gives an intimate view of the collection of objects he has fastidiously assembled throughout his life, and the creative process they have informed. The pioneering, award-winning, and self-taught designer is known for his inventive and innovative designs. Effectively organised by theme, from tea to dragons, and with an emphasis on objects produced for China Trade, many of the elegant pieces photographed for this book showcase Chan s insatiably inquiring mind. They offer insights into how his passion for collecting drives his characteristically whimsical signature take on East and West, tradition and innovation, where there is always a twist of the unexpected. Part autobiography, part reflection on creativity, it is full of insights into Chan s remarkable design process, making it a treat for the eyes and a valuable resource for new and established designers alike.

 

 

ABOUT RIZZOLI INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Rizzoli make beautiful books that are works of art in their own right. With active distribution networks in more than 70 countries across the globe, the sheer breadth of Rizzoli’s sales channels is matched only by its unrivalled production processes in Italy – the land that, since the Renaissance, has been crafting books on art. For more information on Rizzoli publications, please click here.

Louvre: Highlights of a Collection


Inaugurated in November 2017, Louvre Abu Dhabi is the first museum in the Gulf region to embody the universal concept inherited from the museums of the Enlightenment. Akkadia Press worked on the flipbooks of the print publication in separate English, Arabic, French and Chinese editions.

English edition

Arabic, French & Chinese editions

Elias Zayat: Cities and Legends


Born in Damascus in 1935, where he stills lives and works, Elias Zayat is one of the founders of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, where he taught until his retirement in 2000. As a painter and icon restorer, his art is influenced by religious and popular iconography. Zayat’s oeuvre remains intimately concerned with the history, terrain and psyche of his homeland. His parallel life as an art restorer and historian is evident in his rich vocabulary drawn from Byzantine, early Christian, Sufist, and popular iconography. He has published several studies in the history of art, iconography and art criticism. Despite emerging at the height of Pan-Arabist fervour that culminated in the Naksa of 1967, Elias Zayat managed to resist this sweeping aesthetic hegemony to develop his own inimitable visual language. His works are often emotionally charged, with symbols and pleas for peace caught within seemingly impossible struggles to flee human chaos in order to arrive at a better world. His works on paper form a crucial backbone of his practice and philosophical stance, depicting the movements of birds and new lines of flight.

Abbas Akhavan


This represents the first publication covering the practice of Toronto-based artist Abbas Akhavan, examining a large body of his work over the course of his career, ranging from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video and performance. The domestic sphere, as a forked space between hospitality and hostility, has been an ongoing area of research in Akhavan’s work. More recent works have shifted focus, wandering onto spaces just outside the home – the garden, the backyard, and other domesticated landscapes. This title, co-produced with Skira, reflects the conceptual aesthetics of Akhavan’s practice and includes essays by leading curators and professors of art, including, among others, Omar Kholeif and Marina Roy.

Diana Al-Hadid: Phantom Limb


This scholarly catalogue reviews the recent work of Syrian-American artist Diana Al-Hadid at a critical juncture in her fast-growing career. Already represented by a major New York gallery (Marianne Boesky), this bilingual publication (English and Arabic) marks the occasion of her first solo show in the Middle East, at the Art Gallery of NYU Abu Dhabi – a new exhibition venue dedicated to museum-quality exhibitions and scholarly, timely publications.

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Gulf Sustainable Urbanism


Co-produced with in-depth research by Harvard University, this highly erudite and invaluable academic resource addresses a seemingly insurmountable challenge: how to create an environment in which people can enjoy comfortable lifestyles, pursue fulfilling careers, educate their children, and contribute to their societies, without exhausting food and water supplies or polluting the environment, even when the surrounding terrain is hostile and barren. With applicable guidelines, this accomplished work in two volumes presents a credible vision of how an urban population can live sustainably with relative comfort.

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Addressing Climate Change


Working in conjunction with the United Nations Climate Change Conference, this title brings together all the salient discussions and decisions reached during COP 18 (Doha, 26 November to 7 December 2012), including, among others, the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol.

OUR BOOKS