Art Nouveau in Helsinki is the new architectural guide to discover a selection of nearly 200 of the 600 buildings we can find in Helsinki with Art Nouveau forms, colours and materials. Alongside more popular monuments such as the Pohjola Insurance Building and National Museum, the guide also includes a number of residential buildings that range from the majestic stone-built blocks in Katajanokka to the mansions in Eira and wooden buildings in Vallila, as well as schools, churches, hospitals and commercial and industrial buildings, all integral elements of Helsinki's urban landscape. Old and new images provide a detailed picture of Helsinki's Art Nouveau past and present.

Various authors, 2019 / Art Nouveau in Helsinki
HELSINKI CITY MUSEUM, HELSINKI
251 pp., 15.5 x 17.5 cm, 240 colour and black-and-white illustrations. Published in Finnish and English
Available in paperback /  26 euros. For sale at the Helsinki City Museum shop.
For more information: http://www.helsinginkaupunginmuseo.fi/en/2019/05/31/a-new-architecture-guide-takes-you-around-the-art-nouveau-helsinki/

Manuel Cusí. Devoció per la bellesa ("Manuel Cusí: Devoted to Beauty") is a biography of the painter Manuel Cusí (1857-1919), who was considered to be a master of Catalan painting of his time. Essentially dedicated to portraiture, he also often captured the opulence of the Liceu opera house in paintings renowned for their technique of depicting artificial light, with which he gained major recognition among the bourgeoisie.
From typical folkloric paintings to those of worldly, turn-of-the-century bourgeois women, the book is an opportunity to discover Manuel Cusí's life and work, his life context, artistic development and the subjects that interested him most, which he depicted in his many canvases.

CASANOVA, Rossend, 2019 / Manuel Cusí. Devoció per la bellesa
MANEL TERRÓN CUSÍ, BARCELONA144 pp, 24 x 30 cm, colour and black-and-white illustrations. Published in Catalan
Available in hardcover / 30 euros
For more information: mtcomunicacio@gmail.com

The drawings by Antoni Gaudí, which represent the exterior and interior of the Colonia Güell's Church in Santa Coloma de Cervelló, allow us to approach Gaudí's architectural conception. The documents of incalculable value, also show Gaudí's technical conception, experimentation and ingenious solutions aimed at overcoming Gothic structures, reducing columns and buttresses.

The two sketches, dated between 1908 and 1910, are painted on top of an inverted photograph of the mock-up of the church, by sculptor Vicente Villarrubias. From the negatives, enlargements were made on photographic paper, and on top of these extensions, Gaudí drew the outer elevation and an interior view of the church.

For more information (in Spanish) click here.

Villa Majorelle, a true gem of French Art Nouveau, was designed by the architect Henri Sauvage and built between 1901 and 1902 for the Nancy's cabinetmaker, Louis Majorelle.

Paul Mezzara (1866-1918). Un oublié de l'Art Nouveau (Paul Mezzara [1866-1918]: One of Art Nouveau's Forgotten Ones). This artist decorator was an indispensable force in renewing French decorative arts in the 1910s, of which the private mansion in Paris designed by Hector Guimard was to be a true reflection. A militant and aesthete, in Hôtel Mezzara this tatting and embroidery manufacturer collected furnishings by other notable creators of the period prior to 1914 (Jallot, Brandt, Follot, Jourdain and others), in an authentic unfinished manifesto of modern decorative art - the "1910 style". Utopian, libertarian, pacifist and an ardent defender of a social art, he was unable to complete his fraternal dream fed by his esoteric reflections: the coming of a new society, finally in harmony with design in its lived setting.

MONTAMAT, Bruno, 2018 / Paul Mezzara (1866-1918). Un oublié de l'art Nouveau
MARE et MARTIN ARTS, PARIS
293 pp., 24 x 16 cm, 98 colour illustrations. Published in French
Available in paperback / Euros39
For more information: www.librairie-descours.com