Renowned for its breathtaking landscapes, the Shawangunk Mountains, or the Gunks, feature rugged terrain with striking escarpments and serene "sky lakes." Despite their modest height, these mountains have captivated visitors since the 19th century. The surrounding valleys, including the Rondout Creek and Wallkill River, host historic towns like New Paltz, known for its ancient stone houses, and charming hamlets such as Gardiner and Rosendale. This region blends rich history with a vibrant community, attracting both locals and second-homeowners from New York City.
Discover the rarified Peranakan (native-born Chinese of Southeast Asia)
aesthetics that are today highly sought-after for their beauty: distinctive
furniture and ceramics, textiles and jewellery, and many other art objects.
Over a period of several years, noted Chinese cultural historian Ronald G. Knapp traveled throughout Southeast Asia, searching out homes built by the first generations of successful Chinese settlers during the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. In Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia, Knapp presents an eye-opening account of how Chinese migration into Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam spawned a unique hybrid architectural style that combined Chinese, European, and local influences. Many of these overseas Chinese heritage homes are disappearing, but Knapp—along with renowned photographer A. Chester Ong—visited a number of the shophouses, bungalows, villas, and mansions that remain. More than three dozen of these elegant residences form the core of this book, and through essays, historic photographs, paintings, and line drawings, Knapp draws an illuminating portrait of each residence along with background information about the families who built and lived in them. These profiles reveal the entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese as well as their social and economic circumstances. A stunning marriage of scholarship and photography, Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia explores a little known branch of Chinese architecture and provides a new perspective on Chinese migration, settlement, and identity in Southeast Asia.
This pioneering work in Chinese domestic architecture examines for the first time the Chinese house from a cultural perspective. Knapp explores how the typical Chinese home reveals a long folk tradition of craft and symbolism, including the popular practices of fengshui . Extensivelyillustrated with wood block prints from traditional Chinese homes, original line drawings, and Knapp's own photographs, the book vividly portrays a living tradition of amazing resilience.
Things Chinese presents sixty distinctive items that are typical of Chinese
culture and together open a special window onto the people, history, and
society of the world's largest nation. Many of the objects are collectibles,
and each has a story to tell.
Bridges, the least known and understood of China's many wonders, are one of its most striking and resilient feats of architectural prowess. Chinese Bridges brings together a thorough look at these marvels from one of the world's leading experts on Chinese culture and historical geography, Ronald G. Knapp.While many consider bridges to be merely utilitarian, the bridges of China move beyond that stereotype, as many are undeniably dramatic, even majestic and daring. Chinese Bridges illustrates in detail 20 well-preserved ancient bridges, along with descriptions and essays on the distinctive architectural elements shared by the various designs. For the first time in an English-language book, Chinese Bridges records scores of newly discovered bridges across China's vast landscape, illustrated with over 400 color photographs, as well as woodblock prints, historic images, paintings and line drawings.
