Collections Connections (English, French, Hardcover)

This excellent collection of twentieth and twenty-first century design features key examples of the last century's best industrial objects from the Art Nouveau period to the present, with pieces by Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, Shiro Kuramata, Ettore Sottsass, Maarten Van Severen, Richard Hutten, Jasper Morrison, Ingo Maurer, Matali Crasset, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Eero Aarnio and Charles Eames among many others. The collection itself is held by Belgium's Grand-Hornu museum, which opened in 2002 after a decade of conversion and renovation of the abandoned nineteenth-century coal mining facility where it is housed. "Collections/Connections" is generously illustrated, and includes short biographies of the represented designers as well an insightful essay by the well-known design writer and curator of the Milan Triennale, Silvana Annicchiarico.