The loft is increasingly the residential image most identified with New York. Originally popularized by artists and designers, the enormous raw spaces, most often in old industrial buildings in lower Manhattan, have been laboratories for the creativity of architects. Some of the most striking and important residential design of the latter part of the twentieth century has been created for lofts.
Celebrated design arbiter Mayer Rus has had unparalleled access to the most exceptional new projects. He has gathered a great variety of architects and designers -- all widely published in popular and trade magazines -- for the book: Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Hawkinson, Peter Stamberg and Paul Aferiat, Architecture Research Office, and Deborah Berke. Paul Warchol's exquisite photographs, most taken especially for this volume, capture not only the design and details but the qualities of light, context, and history that make each loft unique. The engaging text highlights the designers, owners, and their residences, in addition to evoking the dramatic qualities of loft living.
Rus, editor-in-chief of Interior Design, teams with architectural photographer Warchol for a visual tour de force of 21 domestic loft projects completed in the last four years in downtown Manhattan by established and emerging architects and designers. A five-page essay about New York City loft culture and creativity introduces an exciting array of design strategies, some of which fetishize the raw, unfinished space with industrial embellishments, textures, and motifs and some of which sleekly obliterate it. Each project unfolds like a chapter with a single page of text and a simplified floor plan, followed by a suite of ten to 12 full-page, light-filled, captionless interior photographs. Writing and photography are superb--the spare descriptions counterbalance the inventive camera work. Recommended for architecture, art, and design collections.--Russell T. Clement, Univ. of Tennessee Lib., Knoxville
More Reviews and RecommendationsMayer Rus is the design editor of House & Garden and the former editor of Interior Design; he has also written for Vogue, Mirabella, Elle, the Village Voice, and Out.
Paul Warchol was educated at Cooper Union and worked for Ezra Stoller. His work has been featured in Architectural Record, Interior Design, Elle Decor, and Architectural Digest, as well as many international publications, and exhibited in New York and Washington.