Dezeen have teamed up with the publishers Skira to give away five copies of their monograph about Italian architect and designer Fabio Novembre.

The 224-page book by Beppe Finessi, with graphic design by Massimo Pitis, was published by Skira in 2008.

It is structured into three parts: the first is a flow of connected images of Novembre’s work, accompanied by critical text. The second part describes sixty projects completed between 1988 and 2008. The third is a biography, which outlines the designer’s life and work.

This competition has now closed.

The five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published at the bottom of this page and in a future edition of our Dezeenmail newsletter.

Here’s some more information from the publishers:

–

INTRODUCTION BY BEPPE FINESSI

A voice apart, apart from fashions, a free agent, lucid and explosive, Fabio Novembre is a true exception in the world of architecture and design, and not just in Italy.

Over the last twenty years of work, lived in a minute, at the speed required by the times, with very pertinent projects of interior architecture, installations and design, Novembre has found a place for himself on the international scene as one of the few authors capable of speaking his own language, without succumbing to influences, in complete freedom. Far from widespread stylistic dictates, alien to the minimalism that held sway for many years, he was immediately a champion of strong, eloquent, explicit, evident architecture, never modest and silent.

In his spaces, obtained by “mixing ancient and modern materials, regulating the time lag between Byzantium and Blade Runner” (PAOLA ANTONELLI), the user has a disorienting, totally absorbing experience, where everything blends amidst acceleration and knowledge.

In his studio, an English dictionary is permanently open to the word “Love”, which for him means an apt list of recurring thoughts: Action, Heart, Woman, Energy, Sinuous form, Sensuality, Sex.

Reckless (“I want to breathe till I suffocate”) and romantic (“I want to love till I die”), acrobatic and pragmatic, Fabio Novembre is perfectly at ease in any place where design culture intertwines with the pleasure of life, a life that is lived intensely, in his case, on a first-name basis. A form of address that isn’t even necessary for architecture and design, with which he identifies completely.

CONTENTS

12 – Art is – Architecture is – Design is – Oxygen is, 2006 (F.N.)
17 – FROM HEART TO HOME (B.F.)
145 – Decalogue for a rainbow, 2003 (F.N.)
161 – PROJECTS 1988 -2008 (B.F.)
217 – Lungs – Roots – Wings, 2007 (F.N.)
221 – A BIOGRAPHY (B.F.)
230 – Design Victims – Godard – Absence of Gravity, 2000 – 2002 (F.N.)

MAP FOR NAVIGATORS BY BEPPE FINESSI

A book on such an original designer could not be organized in a traditional way, not even in terms of its chapters.
So a structure has been created that is subdivided into three parts, each with a different weight, each potentially exhaustive, capable of telling the story of Fabio Novembre and his way of working.

The first is a continuous “flow” of images, connected by passages of signs and senses, where every photograph connects to the next in a potential unfinished film “from heart to home” accompanied, in parallel, by critical reflections on “method”.
The second is an “encyclopaedic” register that presents, in chronological order, sixty projects made from 1988 to 2008: each work is described in profiles, images complementary to those seen in the first part, with a bibliography and reference texts.
The third is a biographical narrative of text and imagery, covering training, education, early projects, professional success and critical acclaim.

The parts are separated by four intermezzi selected from the many works of communication by Novembre himself, between theory and literary image: “Art is – Architecture is – Design is – Oxygen is”, an impassioned reinterpretation of the female body; “Decalogue for a rainbow”, a visionary hypothesis of a multicoloured dream; “Lungs – Roots – Wings”, a graphic sign to talk about breath and rhythm, freedom and tradition; and “Design Victims – Godard – Absence of Gravity”, staged by an erudite, sophisticated auteur.
Three parts plus four intermezzi: as a whole, the attempt to find another way to narrate “another kind” of designer.

BOOK SHEET

Title: Novembre
Author: Beppe Finessi
Graphic designer: Massimo Pitis
Description: 24×28cm, 224 pages, 435 colors, hard cover.
Collection: Architecture, Monographies
Edited by Skira
Language: English
Year: 2008
ISBN (978) 8876246449