Heirlooms to Live In: Homes in a New Regional Vernacular

Preface by Mark Hutker, Edited by Leo A. W. Wiegman and Oscar Riera Ojeda, with photography by Brian Vanden Brink and Alison Shaw (Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers, $75)

For those have ever wondered what goes on behind the design of iconic coastal New England homes, Heirlooms to Live In: Homes in a New Regional Vernacular explains each step. The beautifully illustrated yet understated book chronicles the evolving style of design of architect Mark Hutker over the past 25 years.

Text by Peter Allison, Adam Lindemann and interviews with David Adjaye, with principal photography by Robert Polidori and Lyndon Douglas

David Adjaye: A House for an Art Collector reads more like architectural plans than a book, a result that was most likely exactly what the progressive architect and the writers Adam Lindemann and Peter Allison - the latter has written two other books on Adjaye-intended. Adjaye is most well known for designing the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, the Noble Peace Center in Oslo and the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. 77E77 was an entirely different animal. Over the course of five years of designing and construction, the abandoned 1897 Lenox Hill carriage house was crafted into both a home and an art gallery, full of interlocking living spaces, dark grandeur and sophisticated design. The 128-page House for an Art Collector opens with construction shots, elevation diagrams and blueprint-like plans: not your ordinary coffe table book. It gradually guides readers through the process of transforming the classic Upper East Side carriage house into an innovative home replete with idea spaces to showcase a rotating art collection alongside room for an expanding family. Some high points: textured black concrete, a glass staircase that also operates as an intercom and a glass elevator. A glass bridge connecting the living room to the floating library is another showstopper, but in a house such as 77E77, it's simply impossible to name them all. The multiple pages of blueprints and floor plans can be a bit much to take, but just as the mind begins to wonder, the focus is intuitively shifted, with the reader being rewarded with a detailed photo of some textured surface within the house. This seems par for the course in A House for an Art Collector - intermixing more tedious diagrams with sexier, textured photos.

Perhaps the most interesting point within the volume was the preface by Lindemann, which told the tale behind the townhouse-his current home with wife Amalia, their five children and their extensive art collection. Their collection includes works such as The Undesirables by Tim Noble and Sue Webster, which sat in storage for years prior to the construction of the home; Urs Fischer's Paris 1919; and Franz West's White, Blue, Yellow. In fact, it was the art collection that spawned the creation of 77E77, not a burgeoning family. In it, Lindemann acknowledges that this labyrinth of a home may not do it for everyone: "Undoubtedly this building and décor will not appeal to everyone; however, it was specifically designed not to."

In New York, the rooftop garden is a bit of urban heaven, an oasis high above the noise and grime of the city, a bright island of green in an ocean of concrete. Denise LeFrak Calicchio and Roberta Model Amon's Rooftop Gardens is garden porn for those who wistfully daydream of indulging their every horticultural whim amid the skyscrapers - and inspiration for those who actually have access to a rooftop space and aren't quite sure what do to with it. Rooftop Gardens balances flawlessly this juxtaposition of the haves and the have-nots.

Gardens is introduced by Evelyn H. Lauder, who writes of her own rooftop garden experi- ence pruning and tending plants early in the morning in a garden free of groundhogs and squirrels (a distinct perk of the urban terrace). Gardenless herself, Dominique Browning, the former editor in chief of the now defunct House & Garden, recounts craning her neck upward, itching to catch just a single blade of grass from a garden in the sky.

In each verdant chapter, extraordinary spaces abound: a breathtaking terrace remi- niscent of a rural cottage; a garden with an exotic twist-artifacts from Thailand, Burma and China; an impeccable 42-foot-by-20-foot Japanese garden with weeping cherry trees and a stone tsukubai, or water basin, with a bamboo spout.

Far from merely a green appendage, gardens fulfill the universal longing of nearly every New Yorker - more square footage. In fact, Calicchio and Amon refer to rooftop gardens as "a direct extension of the interior: outdoor living in an urban context," like a French country getaway in Manhattan, with an inviting terrace surrounded by boxwood hedges, a bistro-style dining area and uphol- stered outdoor lounges replete with pillows and cushions. Gasp at a modern terrace that combines the elements of water, air, fire and the Greek element ether, considered by ancient Greeks to be the "pure upper air that the gods breathed," which is in fact the perfect description for a Manhattan outdoor space.

The most coveted feature of a rooftop garden for those breathing that godly "upper air"? Undoubtedly the view of the mortal city below. The authors offer readers a voyeuristic view from the Time Warner Center, a Park Avenue perch replete with red maples and a perfectly mowed grass lawn - with a perfect view of the Great Lawn - on Central Park West.

Rooftop Gardens is a jewel because Calicchio and Amon let Norman McGrath's photographs carry it, as they should. Unparalleled are McGrath's photographic accounts of the sought-after outdoor space that is a rooftop garden. Not pictured? The status that comes with.

Catch the exhibit "Untitled (Painting)," an exhibit by multiple artists, paired with Larry Clark's 64-minute black-and-white film Tulsa, 1968 at Luhring Augustine before its close on Feb. 5. The nine contemporary artists showing all exhibit a unique approach to both traditional and nontraditional methods and abstract painting. A visual smorgasbord (531 West 24th Street).

"The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives," featuring entries from Charlotte Brontë, opens Friday (The Morgan Library).
See a really old floor-we're kidding! But no, really. Catch the Roman Mosaic from Lod, Israel, at the Met (till April 3).
Koo Schadler shows off her best egg tempera paintings at J. Cacciola (617 West 27th Street).

See More of What We Love This Week. >> MUSIC.

Give your high-school student a chance to unleash their creative spirit at the Whitney Museum by constructing their own version of art at the Teen Artist Workshop: Karthik Pandian. Mr. Pandian, best known for highlighting the interaction between modern society and its treatment of monuments, currently has an exhibit, "Unearth," on display at the Whitney (4:30-6 p.m. Thursday, Whitney Annex at 33 East 74th St., free, registration required).  

See students' night photography at the School of Visual Art's "Night Shift" (opens Friday, SVA Gallery).

Witness the eclectic geometric shapes of "Kandinsky at the Bauhaus, 1922-1933" (Guggenheim).

"Performance 11: On Line/Trisha Brown Dance" is art and live performance at MoMA (Wednesday-Sunday).

NEXT>> DANCE

Andy Warhol's newest exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, "Motion Pictures," is a must-see this season. The exhibit of black-and-white film projected on screens throughout the gallery is slowed from 24 to 16 frames per second, which mimics the speed of film from the 1890s through the 1920s. These are the images as Warhol intended-proving once again that it's Warhol's world, we're just living in it (through March). 

Play with your art at Feng Mengbo's video-game installation Long March: Restart (P.S.1). 

"Postermat" is a collection of posters inspired by the iconic East Village shop (104 Greene Street, free). 

A piano player sits inside a carved-out portion of a piano in Performance 9: Allora & Calzadilla (MoMA, through Monday).

NEXT ON THE PROGRAM > MUSIC

Mark Morris' quirky reinvention of the tired and true seasonal ballet, The Hard Nut, may be just what you need this holiday season. The androgenous, offbeat play is set in the 1960's, and features an Elvis inspired Rat King, tutu-ed male dancers and a hand-jive--all to the original Tchaikovsky score (through Sunday, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, $25-$75).

Kids will love the Little Orchestra Society (Saturday, Lincoln Center).

Sample an authentic Scandinavian Christmas dinner--or julbord--at Aquavit (11:30 a.m. Sunday, $65).

Ronnie Spector's Christmas Party features former Ronettes singer (7 p.m., Friday, B.B. King Blues Club & Grill).

NEXT ON THE PROGRAM > EVENTS

Nathan Sawaya's new exhibit highlights the artist's claim to fame-making installations entirely out of Legos. The newest series of works and sculpture at Agora Gallery showcases his giant suspended human forms and other figures fashioned entirely out of the colorful little blocks (530 West 25th St., through Dec. 14).

See the new exhibit by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: "Any Number of Preoccupations" (Studio Museum in Harlem).

Discover "Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera" (Brooklyn Museum).

Examine more than 100 photographs by legendary shutterbugs Stieglitz, Steichen and Strand (Metropolitan Museum).

NEXT ON THE PROGRAM > THEATER

Go to the opening of JapanNYC, a citywide, 65-event festival running through March. Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra will perform Dec. 14, 15, 18 and famed Maestro Seiji Ozawa himself will return on April 1 and 2 to lead the Seiji Ozawa Ongaku-juku (Seiji Ozawa Music Academy Orchestra) as part of this unique festival exploring the juxtaposition of Japanese beliefs and Western influences.

Bollywood DJ Rekhia spins beats the first Thursday of every month at Basement Bhangra (S.O.B.'s).

Hear the Nordic chamber music at the Risør Chamber Music Festival--the first in the U.S. (Carnegie Hall).

Take in Schubert's Winterreise, performed by Met Opera tenor Adam Klein (Saturday,  Gershwin Hotel).

MORE OF WHAT WE LOVE THIS WEEK > SEASONAL

Anton Corbijn at the Stellan Holm Gallery depicts greats such as Alexander McQueen and Kate Moss (through Dec. 15).

"Hide: Skin As Material and Metaphor" explores the many uses of skin (Museum of the American Indian).

Catch Jim Campbell's light installation in Madison Square Park (through Feb. 28).

NEXT ON THE PROGRAM > TALKS