New York Interiors (Interiors (Taschen)) [Hardcover]

Beate Wedekind (Author), Taschen Publishing (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Interiors (Taschen) | Publication Date: May 1, 1997

This volume contains a collection of the many fascinating ways in which people have made themselves feel at home in New York. It covers 42 different apartments and houses in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island - from a loft sprayed with graffiti to an elegant uptown apartment on Park Avenue.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"These are well-heeled folk, and the inherent elegance and grandeur of the city is revealed in these striking interiors. What would it be like to be a wealthy New Yorker? This book gives you a sneak peek into a rarefied world." Houses Magazine, Sydney, Australia" --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, German, French

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Taschen; First Edition edition (May 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822881821
• ISBN-13: 978-3822881828
• Product Dimensions: 12.5 x 9.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,676,717 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great and beautiful book, September 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: New York Interiors (Interiors (Taschen)) (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book, showing the range of styles in New York city. It contains many large and magificent pictures, and it is an experience to look though it. Anyone who is interested in interior design would love this book!

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting cross section of this City's interiors, January 2, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New York Interiors (Interiors (Taschen)) (Hardcover)

Ms. Wedekind portrays an interesting cross section of this city's interiors through selected homes and apartments. Unfortunately; she has done little research other than browsing through already published glossy spreads in periodicals. I did not find one interior that had not already been published and was disappointed by this volume after having seen her last on Paris. Hopefully, she will do a little research if she continues this series.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From seizure-induction to the sublime., July 3, 2007

By 

M. Stark (Edmonton, Alberta) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: New York Interiors (Paperback)

The forty-two profiled homes featured in this book have at least one thing in common, if only one thing: money. Paragraph-sized introductions relate very basic information about the owners and the homes, while straightforward but revealing photographs are followed-up with some light descriptions.

With the flip of a few pages we go from a 60's psychedelic Fifth Avenue swing-pad to the gritty textures and castle-like feel of a converted factory on Long Island, and it is this type of glaring disparity throughout that is part of this book's strength but more of a weakness.

It's as if the author wished to celebrate the Upper-class abodes in this part of the world, and while the work avoids the homogeny that others in this oeuvre have fallen prey to, one is left with a lingering, indelible question about the interior design of most of these homes: But why? The majority are utterly unlivable ranging from kitsch-heaven to blatant storage receptacles for ill-fitting (if expensive) works of art.

Examples include Brooke Astor's Park Avenue duplex which has an `ungodly-rich-old-granny' flower suffocation theme going, replete with innumerable treasures of art and sculpture; or there's Donald Trump's revoltingly ostentatious gold-dripping suite overlooking Central Park; one Wall-street broker's penthouse has a bench inscribed in large lettering with grade school truisms such as "Killing is unavoidable but nothing to be proud of," amidst a dozen others. The novelty quickly wears thin.

These people, millionaires all, some of them billionaires, have the money to transform almost anything they can conceive into physical reality, and it is quite underwhelming what many of them come up with, indicating a poverty of mind and spirit in many cases. They can afford a Basquiat or Manet but lack the eye of an artist to bestow a sense of proportion or dignity to a room, something not even the contracted architects and designers can give.

Despite these reservations, there are several well-designed rooms in the mix, and a few gems. The best of the lot is Steve Mensch's windowless Manhattan home that has nature sprawling up brick in a large, central courtyard and a sense of guilt-free luxury and calm. For glimpses of a home like this, this book becomes an asset to any library. -Mark Stark