Here’s a second new project by Dutch architets UNStudio : these images show a proposed flagship store for fashion house Louis Vuitton in Japan. The location and construction schedule of the ten-storey building are secret for now.

The design for the 10 storey (54 meter tall) flagship Louis Vuitton store in Japan aims to establish an architectural equivalent of the identity of Louis Vuitton in which classical and modern qualities are blended, reinforcing each other. The design inspires the visitor with a feeling of being in the House of Louis Vuitton by celebrating the qualities that make up the essence of the company, its products, its history and its future. Read more »

Buildings have been built of a very wide range of materials, the most common being timber, baked and unbaked clay, stone, slate, reeds, grass or straw, glass, concrete, iron and steel. But that all derestricting us to use something new. This art instalation is called “House of Books” and it is set in Calouste Gulbenkian´s Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal!
One can actually step inside and take a look at the infinite world of books!

House of books, originally uploaded by CláudiaM.

This is a newly revised and expanded version of The Houses That Sears Built. This new edition includes more than 20 new photos of existing Sears Homes throughout the country as well as a plethora of recently discovered information.

This major revision also includes reproductions of newly-discovered original documents from the Sears Modern Homes Department as well as compelling interviews with men who worked at the Sears Mill in Cairo, IL. You’ll also hear the fascinating stories from Sears Homeowners who actually built their own Sears Kit Home many decades ago!

Want to learn how to identify a Sears Home? This book contains new graphics, photos and easy-to-reference bulleted points that will tell you and show you – step by step – how to identify a Sears Home.

It also includes four brand new chapters, such as “Chapter 3 – The Amazing Mr. Sears; A Brief Look at The Handsome Genius and His Store,” “Chapter 5 – Milling About Sears Homes, A Look Inside the Sears Mill at Cairo, Illinois,” “Chapter 8 – Homart Homes, The ‘Other’ Sears Homes, “Chapter 11 – Those Dandy Houses, Testimonials; Trivia and Reminiscences of Building a Sears Modern Home.”

Since the first edition of The Houses That Sears Built was published in Spring 2002, the author has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning News, PBS’s History Detectives, A&E’s Biography and WGN-TV News, as well as the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News and more than 50 regional publications. As a result of this publicity, Ms. Thornton has received more than 1,000 emails and letters from readers all over the country, telling stories and sharing precious memories about their own “Sears Modern Homes,” and she incorporated many of these stories into this new edition.

This new edition of The Houses That Sears Built is more than a revision – it contains a tremendous amount of new information and trivia and wonderful photos that the Sears Home enthusiast will treasure and enjoy!

About Sears Homes: Between 1908-1940, Sears customers ordered about 75,000 houses out of the Sears Roebuck and Company mail-order catalogs. The houses were shipped by rail to city lots and farms all over the country.

Each “kit home” contained 30,000 pieces, including 750 pounds of nails and 27 gallons of paint and varnish. A 75-page instruction book showed home buyers, step by step, how to assemble those 30,000 pieces of house.

Only 10% (approximately) of the Sears homes in the country have been discovered.

Because of this, our communities’ best architectural treasures – our grand collection of Sears homes – are being damaged by remuddling and worse, demolished.

There is tremendous interest in this topic and hopefully, The Houses That Sears Built will spur that interest even further.

When you have finished reading The Houses That Sears Built you will be your community’s expert on Sears homes. You’ll learn how to identify Sears homes from the inside, outside and from courthouse documents. You’ll learn the interesting details of Sears homes’ construction. One chapter is devoted to the $1 million order of Sears homes that was shipped to Carlinville, Schoper and Wood River (Illinois).

Another chapter is devoted to “The Lost Sears Homes.” These are Sears homes which appeared only once in obscure Sears Modern Homes catalogs and were not included in “Houses by Mail: A Guide To Houses from Sears, Roebuck and Company,” by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl.

About the Author:
Since 1999, Rosemary Thornton has traveled throughout the Midwest studying, researching and learning more about Sears Homes.

This newest revision of The Houses That Sears Built features pictures of Sears Homes in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maryland, Washington, DC and Virginia.

Rose has appeared on CBS, PBS, A&E, WGN-TV and her book has been featured in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dallas Morning News and many more.

Her email and other contact information is in the back of the book, if interested readers would like to write her for more information.
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Craftsman House in Seattle, originally uploaded by cityflickr.

Read more about this restored and renovated craftsman home in Wallingford on the photo below by brewbooks taken in September of 2006 before I coincidentally ran into the same house many months later. My friend Phat was driving me through historic neighborhoods (knowing my affinity for craftsman homes). As we drove by this one at the circle, I yelled out to stop, because it reminded me of one I’d seen on flickr (brewbooks’ version). I didn’t realize until uploading it that it was the same house!

Frank Lloyd Wright: Nathan G. Moore House 1895 (1), originally uploaded by cocolinda.

About Frank Lloyd Wright, He was the 1st architect I would ever learn about. I learnt much more about his works later on when I was studying architecture in university. I became fascinated by his architecture and his philosophies on space, form and nature. I learnt about so many modern architects but no one ever stood out like FLW to me. I was utterly captivated by his ingeniousness. When I was in Chicago, I had the privilege to visit his ‘prairie houses’ in person. I had seen and studied a lot of his works through books but nothing compared to seeing them in person. You do not necessarily have to love FLW’s taste in design, colours and form but I think when you understand the principles behind his architecture you realize what a genius he was and how ahead of his time he often was. If you drive through Oak Park and do not recognize his buildings, you would think some of them were designed in the 70s most likely_ but they were all built between 1890-1910_ a time when Victorian houses with pitched roofs were being erected. The most fascinating thing about FLW is how his architecture always evolved and how his career spanned over 70 years. His understanding of space and form in unison with nature (organic architecture) was complimented by his great knowledge in engineering and structural integrity_ he was a true Master.