Udotopia

Luisa Jean CooperArt, Furniture & Decorative Arts

Maverick, villain, libertine, genius. Austrian eyewear designer Udo Proksch has been known by many names, but the book excerpted here dives deeply into his archive, puts emphasis on his working methods, fecund productivity, and the undeniable impact he had on design in the twentieth century—and to this day.

Books: Treasure House

Chris WaddingtonBooks

John Soane’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Yale University Press, $45) certainly lives up to its title. For starters, it’s a visual delight, leading readers through the haunting, eclectic maze of a London relic: a house museum, frozen in amber since 1837, that displays its trove of forty thousand objects in arrangements fixed by the architect and collector who bequeathed it to the nation.