This small but wonderfully designed and printed book on architecture is available, published by the Réunion Island architecture studio Rozo and David Krut Publishing. The book grew out of a workshop on tropical architecture held in May 2004 on Réunion called “Architecture and Vegetation – Hybrid Home Spaces”, which is also the title of the book. The workshop was directed by the Indian Ocean Institute for Research and Creation in Architecture, Vuthemas, in co-organisation with the Institut Francais d’Architecture.The aim of the workshop was to create a network between students of architecture from tropical countries and from Europe and to provide the challenge of working together on tropical climate issues and home building in the enviroment.The objective of the event was to initiate a research program on tropical architecture. The students were invited to design and build a scale 1 model of an experimental house. Each room of this house had to settle a blurred relation between outside and inside. Vegetation had to be used as an architectural material among others.

Mapula: Embroidery and Empowerment in the Winterveld

One of the most important community art projects in South Africa is the Mapula Embroidery Project in the Winterveld. In addition to generating an income for economically disadvantaged women, Mapula embroideries couple high levels of technical and visual artistry with topics that speak eloquently of public histories as well as women’s personal experiences. Dazzling in colour and inventive in design, the embroideries also engage compellingly with social and political issues that have shaped the lives of their makers.Mapula: Embroidery and Empowerment in the Winterveld is the outcome of research that the author has undertaken over a six-year period. The most comprehensive study of Mapula that has been published to date, it is also the first book with an exclusive focus on a community embroidery project in South Africa. Containing an informative text that is organised into four chapters, Mapula: Embroidery and Empowerment in the Winterveld is a full-colour publication with over ninety high-quality illustrations that reveal the exquisiteness of Mapula embroideries and show the context in which they are made.

Light On A Hill : Building the Constitutional Court of South Africa

Light on a Hill: Building the Constitutional Court of South Africa tells the story of this building, celebrating the verve and iconoclasm of the Court as well as its remarkable ability to embody, alongside those qualities, the gravitas of a constitutional court. The book is also the result of a design competition and a three-year collaboration between the architects, photographer Angela Buckland, David Krut Publishing, the book designer Adele Prins, and the Artworks Committee of the Constitutional Court. It reflects the Court’s boldness and warmth, shows its architectural innovations and adaptation to a South African climate and landscape, and conveys its dynamic relationship to the bustling metropolis of Johannesburg. Light on a Hill, published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the South African Constitution, is a fitting tribute to the way in which the Constitutional Court has transformed the forbidding Old Fort Prison of Johannesburg into a beacon of hope and taken its place as a pioneer building in the South African architectural vernacular.

William Kentridge

An important publication is William Kentridge Prints, the first major book published in South Africa on the artist, offering a selected catalogue on his prolific printmaking output. This title extends our bookshop’s impressive list of available titles on the work of South Africa’s foremost artist.

TAXI

The TAXI series of monographs on South African artists addresses the lack of documentation on and accessibility to the work of South African artists. It also serves as a valuable educational resource.
TAXI-013 on Diane Victor is the most recent release, published in March 2008
Read more about the Taxi series or view the Taxi catalogue.