Hilar Stadler – författare

The Swiss Eduard Spelterini (1852-1931) was perhaps Europe's greatest pioneer of ballooning in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was the first to cross in a balloon and photograph from the air the Alps in 1898 and to take aerial photographs of the pyramids of Giza, ancient Persian cities and South Africa's gold mines. Born an inn-keeper's son in a remote village in Switzerland he lived an extraordinary life and became an international celebrity as an aeronaut and socialised with Europe's rich and noble of the Belle Epoque. What makes Spelterini interesting and important are his achievements in aerial photography. The talented and soon accomplished photographer made the camera a firm part of his balloon equipment from 1893. A vast number of his sensational images have been coloured in an elaborate technique at the time and were used by Spelterini to illustrate the many hundred lectures he gave about his travels and expeditions in many countries. A sequel to 'Eduard Spelterini - Photographs of a Pioneer Balloonist', this new book presents a selection of around 80 of these coloured photographs.The remarkable quality of the colouring enables an altogether new view at Spelterini's spectacular work as a photographer. The pictures in 'Eduard Spelterini and the Spectacle of Images' are complemented by essays on historical and technical aspects of photography and air travel by expert authors.

Since it was first published in 1972, Learning from Las Vegas has become a classic in the theory of architecture and one of the most influential architecture texts of the 20th century. The treatise by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour enjoys a reputation as a signal work of postmodernism in architecture and urban planning. None of the book's editions have ever featured high-quality colour images the authors produced to illustrate their argument. Las Vegas Studio, originally published in hardback in 2008, was the first publication ever to present these significant photographs in large colour reproductions. Now available again in a new paperback edition, this unique book features 102 of these iconic images and film stills, alongside essays by Swiss scholars Stanislaus von Moos and Hans Ulrich Obrist exploring how the pictures contemplate the phenomenon of the modern city. Also included is a discussion with Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and Swiss artist Peter Fischli that speaks to the strong and lasting influence these images still have on contemporary art and movies.Also available:A Difficult Whole: A Reference Book on the Work of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown ISBN 9783906027845