China Contemporary (Ciltli)

In more than 300 large color photographs, this wide-ranging survey of the new directions in style taken by the designers of Beijing, Shanghai, and other major Chinese centers chronicles a boom in the decorative and fine arts, in interior design, and in architecture to parallel China's rapid economic growth in recent decades. In the Green T House, Beijing, for example, the elegant lines of Ming Dynasty chairs have been lengthened and curved to create spectacularly modern artifacts, while older factories and apartment blocks of the Communist era are being refurbished in visually exciting ways, and designers now embrace influences from other cultures, as in the spectacular Shanghai apartment of art dealer Pearl Lam.