Unapologetic originals.
In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re spotlighting four women who reshaped design, art, and architecture. Though their media and approaches differ wildly—Corita Kent’s joyful activism, Charlotte Perriand’s holistic modernism, Dyani White Hawk’s fusion of traditions, and Denise Scott Brown’s incisive eye—each book offers a window into worlds that are deeply personal, rigorously crafted, and boldly exceptional.
Ordinary Things
Will Be Signs For Us
Edited by Julie Ault, Jason Fulford,
and Jordan Weitzman
J & L Books, 2023
Endlessly browsable and guaranteed to bring a smile, this book celebrates the curious eye of everyone’s favorite activist-artist nun, Corita Kent. Drawing from vibrant 35mm slides, it offers joyous views of street signs, children’s art, ephemera, gatherings and grocery stores. For Kent, these images offered inspiration. “Anything can be a source, even a mistake,” she wrote. “The sorcery or the thievery is the art of relating sources into new solutions.”
Charlotte Perriand:
The Modern Life
Edited by Justin McGuirk
Design Museum Publishing, 2021
Alive from 1903 to 1999, Charlotte Perriand’s life mirrored the arc of modernism itself, from the rise of the machine age to its late-century reappraisal. Drawn entirely from her archive—sketches, notebooks, blueprints, clippings and personal and professional photographs—this thoughtfully crafted book examines her full oeuvre and asserts her rightful place alongside the male peers and collaborators who long overshadowed her contributions.
Dyani White Hawk:
Love Language
Edited by Siri Engberg and Tarah Hogue
Walker Art Center, 2025
The accompanying catalog to the recent landmark Walker Art Center exhibition, Love Language explores the work of Sicangu Lakota artist Dyani White Hawk, whose practice bridges abstract and Indigenous art traditions. From monumental paintings to a new series of towering columns made from loomed beads, White Hawk reimagines modernism through Lakota visual language and intergenerational knowledge. The result is a body of work that treats pattern, color and material as a living conversation between cultures.
Encounters: Denise Scott
Brown Photographs
Edited by Izzy Kornblatt
Lars Müller Publishers, 2025
Encounters gathers hundreds of photographs by one of the 20th century’s most influential architectural theorists and practitioners. For Scott Brown, photography was an essential research tool. She asks, “If high-style architects are not producing what people want or need, who is, and what can we learn from them?” The photographs suggest that careful observation—of the banal, overlooked, mainstream and pop—can transform how designers understand real human desires and needs.
Conversation starter.
Made from a glass fiber reinforced concrete that is stronger and lighter than typical concrete, these playful, monolithic tables are ready to take your conversation about the weather indoors or out. Glossy finish gives you something to stare at while you search for other topics. Nest both sizes together if you decide you want to get deep.
