The Endless Column Ensemble, by famed Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), has been hailed as one of the great works of twentieth-century public art. Commissioned by the National League of Gorj Women to honour the soldiers who had defended the town of Târgu Jiu against a German force in 1916, the tripartite ensemble, erected between 1937 and 1938, is composed of the Endless Column, a 30-metre-high column of zinc and brass-clad, cast-iron modules, and two stone monuments: the Gate of the Kiss and Table of Silence. Over the years the elements took their toll on the sculpture, and although the Column's modules had been replated several times since its construction, by the 1990s it was in dire need of conservation. This stunningly llustrated volume celebrates the history of this extraordinary work of art and tells the story of its recent restoration, landscaping and presentation, supported in large part by the World Monuments Fund (WMF). Brancusi s Endless Column Ensemble launches a series of books co-published by Scala and the WMF, the foremost private organisation dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage around the globe through a programme of fieldwork, advocacy, training and grantmaking. Since its founding in 1965, WMF has worked to stem the loss of more than 430 irreplaceable sites in 83 countries. AUTHOR: Ernest Beck is a New York-based freelance writer and editor. Formerly at The Wall Street Journal, he has been widely published in The New York Times and other arts magazines. Sorana Georgescu-Gorjan, born in Romania, is the curator of the Endless Column archives and editor of the Târgu Jiu journals: Brancusi and Portal Maiastra. She has also authored many books on Brancusi. Richard Newton practised as an architect in the UK prior to moving to the US. He has been a landscape architect with the Olin Partnership since 1993, and managed the landscape restoration of this project. Alexandra Parigoris is Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Fine Arts, History of Art and Cultural Studies, at the University of Leeds. She has taught at Queens University in Canada, and at the Universities of York and of Leeds, where she was a Henry Moore Fellow. Mihai Radu was born in Romania and moved to the US in the 1980s. A successful architect, he eventually become a founding partner of the practice Lauster & Radu Architects (now known as Radu Architects). William Tucker, born in Cairo, spent most of his early life the UK. After studying sculpture in London, he moved to New York in the 1970s. He has since built on his success as a widely acclaimed sculptor, with exhibitions in the US and abroad. 63 colour & 35 b/w illustrations

Why urban design is larger than architecture: the foundational qualities of urban design, examples and practitioners Urban design in practice is incremental, but architects imagine it as scaled-up architecture—large, ready-to-build pop-up cities. This paradox of urban design is rarely addressed; indeed, urban design as a discipline lacks a theoretical foundation. In The Largest Art, Brent Ryan argues that urban design encompasses more than architecture, and he provides a foundational theory of urban design beyond the architectural scale. In a “declaration of independence” for urban design, Ryan describes urban design as the largest of the building arts, with qualities of its own. Ryan distinguishes urban design from its sister arts by its pluralism: plural scale, ranging from an alleyway to a region; plural time, because it is deeply enmeshed in both history and the present; plural property, with many owners; plural agents, with many makers; and plural form, with a distributed quality that allows it to coexist with diverse elements of the city. Ryan looks at three well-known urban design projects through the lens of pluralism: a Brancusi sculptural ensemble in Romania, a Bronx housing project, and a formally and spatially diverse grouping of projects in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He revisits the thought of three plural urbanists working between 1960 and 1980: David Crane, Edmund Bacon, and Kevin Lynch. And he tells three design stories for the future, imaginary scenarios of plural urbanism in locations around the world. Ryan concludes his manifesto with three signal considerations urban designers must acknowledge: eternal change, inevitable incompletion, and flexible fidelity. Cities are ceaselessly active, perpetually changing. It is the urban designer's task to make art with aesthetic qualities that can survive perpetual change.

This exquisite new publication celebrates how Japanese contemporary artists push traditional washi paper beyond its historic uses to create innovative, highly textured two-dimensional works, expressive sculptures, and dramatic installations. Historically, washi paper has been used as a base for Japanese calligraphy, painting, and printmaking as well as a material in architecture, religious ritual and clothing. In recent years, contemporary Japanese artists have turned this supple yet sturdy paper into a medium for expressing their artistic vision – layering, weaving, dyeing, shredding, folding, or cutting the paper to form abstract sculptures, lyrical folding screens, highly textured wall pieces, and dramatic installations. This elegantly designed volume examines the extraordinary creations of these diverse contemporary artists from Japan, France, and the United States. The publication also demonstrates the resilience, versatility, and unique stature of this ancient artistic medium in the realm of international contemporary art. Published to accompany a travelling exhibition: Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA October 10, 2021 – January 2, 2022 Longmont Museum, Longmont, CO January 28, 2022 – May 15, 2022 D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield Museums, Springfield, MA June 11, 2022 - September 4, 2022 Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, Delray Beach, FL November 3, 2022 - April 2, 2023

This is a review of 190 years of literature on copper and its alloys. It integrates information on pigments, corrosion and minerals, and discusses environmental conditions, conservation methods, ancient and historical technologies.

Studies major works by important sculptors since Rodin in the light of different approaches to general sculptural issues to reveal the logical progressions from nineteenth-century figurative works to the conceptual work of the present.

This catalog, published in conjunction with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection of Venice, documents the first major exhibition of Brancusi the photographer. While Brancusi's attraction to the medium is well-known, his photographs have always been seen as secondary to his other studio work. But the 96 photographs collected in this volume are to be seen as an oeuvre in their own right, formally autonomous, showing exceptional aesthetic and technical quality.The book opens new dimensions in space and time of Brancusi's work, especially for three plaster works featured: The Sleeping Muse, The Torso of a Youth, and The Baroness. The exceptional quality and openness of Brancusi-the photographer-gives vantage points on the aesthetic world beyond the realm of his bronze, marble, or wooden works.