From interior design icon Vicente Wolf, an inspirational guide for home decorators to designing unforgettable spaces based on the four natural elements. Based on Vicente Wolf’s belief that the classical elements—earth, water, air, and fire—form the basic building blocks of great interior design, the book is divided into four sections. Through breathtaking photography (by Wolf himself) and an engaging narrative, Wolf walks the reader through the process of designing around these principles. Air showcases projects that contain a lightness of spirit, open in feeling, with a palette that creates an atmosphere without boundaries. Earth features grounded interiors, where stone, wood, and natural textures form the foundation. Water shows fluidity and environments with reflective shades of blues and aqua, while deep colors, reds, and dramatic qualities are showcased in Fire. The dwellings presented, in rich detail, include more than a dozen projects, such as Long Island beach houses, Manhattan apartments, and sumptuous homes in New York, Connecticut, and California. Through this unique concept, Wolf proves why he is the uncontested master of cool, luminous rooms that combine strength and sensuality.

The Four Elements of Design: Interiors Inspired By Earth, Water, Air and Fire

Religion & Spirituality

Wolf, Vicente

Other Eastern Religions & Sacred Texts

Rizzoli

Design luminary Vicente Wolf, master of a restrained, elegant, and global aesthetic, distills his decades of experience into an essential guide to interior design. In this book, celebrated AD100 designer Vicente Wolf shares the expertise he has honed over forty plus successful years in the business. Wolf's work is characterized by a passion for integrity and simplicity; a sophisticated sense of space, color, and ease; masterful handling of furniture, fabrics, and art; and the use of rare antiques and exceptional handcrafted pieces (many acquired on annual globe-trotting adventures). This new volume distills his knowledge into wide-ranging and easily applicable recommendations. Organized topically and illustrated with Wolf's own photographs, the design principles are engaging, absorbing, and above all practical--from coping with the challenges inherent in life transitions to overcoming space and budget limitations to working with art and other collections and remaking outdated spaces. The book also includes an in-depth look at Wolf's own loft in New York City and how he designs for himself.

Creative Interior Solutions

Arts & Photography

Russell, Margaret

History & Criticism

Acclaimed as one to the country's top one hundred interior designers by both Metropolitan Home and Architectural Digest, Vicente Wolf is the uncontested master of cool, luminous rooms that combine strength and sensuality. From a rich but disciplined palette of materials, he creates a signature minimalism that is simple, handsome, and eminently comfortable. In Learning to See, Wolf shares the secrets of his alchemy, insights into a design process that he says starts with taking his traveler's eye into every environment. If you, like he, can simply transfer the special excitement and intense sensations you feel when you are in nature or when you first encounter something exotic to the way you want to feel on entering a room for the first time, you can learn to see. With incisive text and more than one hundred sixty photographs, Wolf walks you through this process. While providing step-by-step instructions on such practical matters as how to create floor plans, treat windows, arrange furniture, hang pictures, use flowers and mirrors and other accents, he helps instill confidence to trust your own aesthetic inspiration.

Learning to See: Bringing the World Around You Into Your Home

Artisan

Good design knows no boundaries. —Vicente Wolf Famed interior designer Vicente Wolf is known for a modern and elegant design sensibility that is guided by integrity and simplicity. He is also a photographer of note, capturing images of his own design work and of his travels. Crossing Boundaries is a fascinating combination of the two, a spirited approach that pairs travel and design based on visits to Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria, Madagascar, and Borneo. Wolf is an adventurous voyager, and he is captivated by how people express themselves: in the colors and patterns of clothing, the forms and features of architecture, and so on. These influences are incorporated into his own designs, sometimes directly–a collection of brightly colored woven caps that add personality to a Wyoming log cabin–and sometimes indirectly–a composition of gray-blues and gray-greens drawn from succulent plants in a dry riverbed.

Crossing Boundaries: A Global Vision of Design

Photography & Video

The Monacelli Press

Simplify, Connect, Expand. These principles, each fundamental to the practice of design, provide the framework for interior designer Vicente Wolf’s engaging new book. Wolf is famous for his modern and elegant style, always guided by integrity and simplicity. Lifting the Curtain on Design delves into his selected themes from myriad viewpoints: through the prism of international travel, via the detailed focus on a single project, and finally by means of the sweeping perspective of a seasoned design mind. Wolf, an inveterate voyager, leaves his New York studio once a year to immerse himself in the culture of a distant land. In this volume, illustrated entirely with his own photographs, he recounts a trip to Namibia: with its sand dunes and sunsets, this southern African country is “a landscape that has been reduced to its essence.” A journey to Papua New Guinea makes clear the connections between cultures, as well as the connections that may be fostered through skilled design. And Bhutan is a lesson in expanding horizons and experiences. It is in Wolf’s design that the essence of his three principles, suggested in his travels, is fully illuminated. In a step-by-step account of two recent interiors—a traditional apartment and an open loft—Wolf describes his initial design process, the various phases of construction, the expert selection of color palettes and furniture, and the final installation of art and decorative objects. He also explains the development of the dramatic tablescapes for which he is so well known, which balance style, form, and color with humor and ease. Finally, a dazzling presentation of Wolf’s current projects touches on grand design gestures and minute yet indispensable details. Lifting the Curtain on Design offers a glimpse into the mind of the designer at work, from inspiration through implementation to unforgettable finished room.

Lifting the Curtain on Design