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To date we have published five illustrated books:

VERSAILLES (Connaissance et Mémoires, December, 2007)

VERSAILLES: The Chateau and Its Satellites is a sumptuous, limited-edition artist's book reproducing sixty watercolors of the extraordinary chateaux, pavilions, unbuilt projects, and architectural and garden ornaments of the seat of French kings.

The book is an unrivaled example of the binder's art and employs printing techniques of exceptional fidelity and precision.

280 pages, format 10 X 13 1/2 in. 60 color illustrations and 21 multi-page spreads, superbly reproduced using state-of-the-art techniques on uncoated Curtis 200 g. vellum paper. Two-color texts. Hand assembled and bound in white silk and slipcased.

Available in English and French editions, signed and numbered and limited to 400 copies in each language. Publication price: 1000.00 euros ($1465.00 at current exchange rates). Please use the above link to inquire or to order.

CHINOISERIES (Connaissance et Mémoires, November, 2005)

Chinoiseries presents fifty exacting restitutions of Western pagodas and Chinoiserie garden follies. The volume is prefaced by Hubert de Givenchy and includes an illustrated introductory essay, "The Architecture of Joy."

260 pages, format 24 X 34 cm., with fifty full-page color illustrations, superbly reproduced using state-of-the-art printing techniques on Curtis 280 g. vellum paper, and with 170 g. paper for texts. Hand assembled and bound in the Chinese fashion with silk-covered boards and slipcased.

Available in English and French editions, signed and numbered and limited to 300 copies in each language. Publication price: 800.00 euros ($1170.00 at current exchange rates). Please use the above link to inquire or to order.

Palaces of the Sun King: Versailles, Trianon, Marly, The Châteaux of Louis XIV (Rizzoli, 2002)
Prefaced by Vicomte Olivier de Rohan, President of the Société des Amis de Versailles, and published with the support of Classical America.

Garden Vases/Vases de jardin (Alain de Gourcuff Editeur, 1999)
With an introduction by Gérard Mabille, Curator of French Decorative Arts, the Louvre.

Pleasure Pavilions and Follies/La folie de bâtir  (Flammarion, 1995)
With a preface by Charles Ryskamp, Director, The Frick Collection.

Publishing is an integral, indeed essential, part of our work. Our exhibitions are conceived thematically, with the goal of publication foremost in mind. Our education and training as architects and historians, combined with the intensive process of creating the watercolors themselves, offers us a unique dual perspective on the buildings we study—in essence, by retracing the steps of the original architect. Our approach is far different from that of other architectural historians, who view their subject from the point of view of art historians, and affords us unique insights into the buildings we study.

Though obvious to the layman, it bears repeating that buildings are commissioned, designed and constructed by human beings. We believe the personalities and motivations of these actors are as important to understanding a building and its place in history as the traditional concerns of architectural historians. Thus personal and social histories animated our first book, Pleasure Pavilions & Follies, and were a major impetus in writing Palaces of the Sun King, a fundamental reappraisal of the architecture of the reign of Louis XIV.



Some Reviews

"...it is a joy to be able to admire afresh the conception of their work and its particular elegance. These precious documents retrace an epoch when taste, extravagance and a sense of fantasy were an essential part of the way in which parks and gardens were embellished, by perfectly inscribing them in nature, then furnishing them with dreams. The continuing research of these two great artists enchants me as much as the perfection of their precious drawings."
—Hubert de Givenchy, from his preface to Chinoiseries

"...the pleasure of the book is not only in the lightness with which it wears its considerable scholarship, but in the liveliness with which the personalities of Versailles' creators is rendered. Accessible for the amateur, revelatory for the expert, Palaces of the Sun King is, no less than the buildings it describes, a dazzling delight."
The Art Newspaper, March 2003

"This book [Pleasure Pavilions and Follies] is far more than an architectural history. Through a collection of magnificently illustrated essays, Bernd H. Dams and Andrew Zega open up a world of social excess and wanton extravagance that leaves the reader amazed."
The Times Literary Supplement (England), November 1995

"The authors [of Pleasure Pavilions and Follies] have done—one must stress—a remarkable work of research. Their culture is immense and abundant, permitting them not only to evoke these charming constructions, but also their commissioners, their builders and their users..."
Un Livre Un Jour,  France 3 television, 3 December 1995