Accompanied by photographer Anaik Frantz, Francois Maspero embarked on a journey along the RER, the express subway which leads through the Paris suburbs. Getting off the train at each stop, he and Frantz present a picture of daily life in France which tourists seldom see: a world where names don't make sense, where immigrants from Burkino Faso live in run-down tower-blocks called Debussy on the avenue Karl Marx, their children dodging the police between the lycee Jules Valles and the Yuri Gagarin youth-club; a world where there are still memories of the Commune, the Popular Front or the camp at Drancy from where French officials sent a hundred thousand Jews to Auschwitz; a world where no one is a racist, but National Front posters are everywhere. Maspero's aim is to put this world back on the map.

At the beginning of the twelfth century, the region around Paris had a reputation for being the land of unruly aristocrats. Entrenched within their castles, the nobles were viewed as quarrelling among themselves, terrorizing the countryside, harassing churchmen and peasants, pillaging, and committing unspeakable atrocities. By the end of the century, during the reign of Philip Augustus, the situation was dramatically different. The king had created the principal governmental organs of the Capetian monarchy and replaced the feudal magnates at the royal court with loyal men of lesser rank. The major castles had been subdued and peace reigned throughout the countryside. The aristocratic families remain the same, but no longer brigands, they had now been recruited for royal service. In his final book, the distinguished historian John Baldwin turned to church charters, royal inventories of fiefs and vassals, aristocratic seals and documents, vernacular texts, and archaeological evidence to create a detailed picture of the transformation of aristocratic life in the areas around Paris during the four decades of Philip Augustus's reign. Working outward from the reconstructed biographies of seventy-five individuals from thirty-three noble families, Baldwin offers a rich description of their domestic lives, their horses and war gear, their tourneys and crusades, their romantic fantasies, and their penances and apprehensions about final judgment. Knights, Lords, and Ladies argues that the aristocrats who inhabited the region of Paris over the turn of the twelfth century were important not only because they contributed to Philip Augustus's increase of royal power and to the wealth of churches and monasteries, but also for their own establishment as an elite and powerful social class.

Paul Andreu is well known for the more than 50 airports in Europe, Asia and Africa which he designed as head architect of the Aéroports de Paris, and for the Grande Arche de la Defense in Paris. The French Channel Tunnel terminal with the adjacent Cité Europe shopping centre is one of his recent European achievements. For several years Andreu has been increasingly active in the Far East, responsible not only for the airport of Shanghai and the Guangzhou Gymnasium, but also the Canton Sports Centre, the Osaka Maritime Museum and the Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre. In 2004 the Beijing Opera house, a futuristic dome in Tianarmen Square, will be opened, one of Andreu`s most spectacular projects and crowning achievements. The internationally renowned author Philip Jodido describes and documents the most influential stages of Andreu ́s work.

International airports have become an inherent part of many urban regions and key transport infrastructures for metropolitan economies. Yet they are also a source of tensions, often associated with the contrasting impacts of their operation. Taking the example of Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG) in Paris, the author analyzes the factors influencing urban development and the related spatial strategies. Step by step, she traces the history of the airport, examines prominent conflicts and their management by planners, and derives broader lessons. Intended for town planners, policy makers, and urban designers, the book makes an important contribution to understanding the challenges and assessing the effectiveness of planning approaches for airport regions.

Disguised as a passenger, a homeless woman lives in Paris's Roissy airport until she meets a man who makes her confront her past. Every day the narrator of this gripping novel hurries from one terminal to another in Charles de Gaulle Roissy airport, Paris, pulling her suitcase behind her, talking to people she meets--but she never boards an airplane. She becomes an "unnoticeable," a homeless woman disguised as a passenger, protected by her anonymity. When a man who comes to the airport every day to await the Rio-to-Paris flight--the same route on which a plane crashed into the sea a few years earlier--attempts to approach her, she flees, terrified. But eventually, she accepts his kindness and understands his loss, and she gives in to the grief they share, forming a bond with him that becomes more than friendship. A magnificent portrait of a woman who rediscovers herself through a chance connection, Roissy is a powerful, polyphonic book, a glimpse at the infinite capacity of the human spirit to be reborn.

Das internationale Schriftschaffen nach 1950 wurde maßgeblich geprägt vom Schweizer Adrian Frutiger. Sein Schriftprogramm Univers und die zum ISO-Standard erklärte, maschinenlesbare Schrift OCR-B sind ebenso Meilensteine wie die zur Frutiger weiterentwickelte Schrift der Pariser Flughäfen – ein Qualitätsstandard für Signalisationsschriften. Mit den Corporate Types prägte er Firmenauftritte wie den der japanischen Kosmetiklinie Shiseido. Insgesamt entstanden rund 50 Schriften, darunter Ondine, Méridien, Avenir und Vectora. Auf Gesprächen mit Frutiger basierend sowie auf umfangreichen Recherchen in Frankreich, England, Deutschland und der Schweiz, zeichnet die Publikation den gestalterischen Werdegang des Schriftkünstlers exakt nach. Es werden alle Schriften – vom Entwurf bis zur Vermarktung – abgebildet sowie mit Bezug zu Technik und zu artverwandten Schriften analysiert. Bisher unveröffentlichte, nicht realisierte Schriften sowie über 100 Logos vervollständigen das Bild. Mit dieser zweiten Auflage, einer korrigierten und durch einen Index erweiterten Studienausgabe, lässt sich Frutigers Werk noch besser erschliessen.

Since their emergence at the start of the 20th century, airports have become one of the most distinctive and important of architectural building types. Often used to symbolize progress, freedom and trade, they offer architects the chance to design on a grand scale. At the beginning of the 21st century, airports are experiencing a new and exciting renaissance as they adapt and evolve into a new type of building; one that is complete, adaptable and catering to a new range of demands. As passengers are held in airports far longer than they used to be, they have also now become destinations in their own right. Airports celebrates the most important airport designs in the world. Beginning with an exploration of the first structures of aviation, and early designs such as the Berlin Tempelhof, the book explores the key airports of the century up to the present day, including Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal in New York, Renzo Piano's Kansai Airport and Norman Foster's Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong.