Fairy tale design and architecture

Steven Guarnaccia's books should be in every art and decorative arts museum gift shop. Guarnaccia is a program chair at the Parson's School of Design. 

The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale retold and illustrated by Steven Guarnaccia. Abrams, 2010

 Three little pigs leave their mother's house, aka Gamble House to build homes of their own.  The architectural visions of Frank Gehry, a house of scraps aka Gehry House,  Phillip Johnson, a house of glass aka The Glass House, and Frank Lloyd Wright's stonework Fallingwater, are presented as each little pig builds their dream home.  Alas when the big bad wolf arrives in his black leather jacket on a Phillippe Starck Voxan GTV 1200 the scraps and glass do not fare well from wolfish huffing and puffing.  The concrete and stone of "Fallingwater's" construction do survive and the wolf is foiled by the third little pig's trickery.

Designers will recognize high design interiors but Guarnaccia provides reference drawings on the end papers for the rest of us.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears: a Tale Moderne retold and illustrated by Steven Guarnaccia. Abrams, 2010

 

Traditional telling but with a very moderne twist as the bears in this family are connoisseurs of the decorative arts and cutting edge modern design.  The chair that Goldilocks breaks is a Charles&Ray Eames molded plywood LCW chair, 1946 (the end papers provide a excellent index to the bears' furniture and interior design aesthetic)

Mama Bear's chair is a Arne Jacobsen Danish Egg chair, circa 1957.  The beds are Allessandro Becchi and D'Urbino Lomazzi.

Papa Bear looks like a Beat poet, Mama Bear is a bohemian while Baby Bear wears a vintage coonskin cap. 

These traditional retelling are excellent read alouds.  I can imagine a fun library lesson paired with photos and information about the designers and architects.   More please.