Contemporary Details: A Visual Sourcebook of Architectural Features, Fittings, and Decorative...

Niesewand ( The Complete Interior Designer ), design editor of British Vogue , summons up the sleek bits of things that help to shape, furnish and otherwise distinguish the swooping, clean-featured spaces that often go under the name ``contemporary.'' Lighting, for example: the fey, bobbing halogen lamps that look like aquatic species suspended from their element. Or the undulant panels that some people put on their walls. Or sheer steel doors and knotty little faucets. With each page laid out in pictorial facets with captions unobtrusively attached, the book does what it says we should do, creating the impression of clear vistas that are actually well-stocked. Niesewand's ideas seem both glamorous and functional, grounded in minutiae and backed up by an ample directory of suppliers, designers and manufacturers in Queens, Italy and places in between. But a question lingers: Can the wallet handle this? (Mar.)