Gestalten Books

You have to wonder if tea tastes better when sipped in the Too-High Teahouse outside Chino City in Nagano, Japan. It’s a small, whimsical building supported by two chestnut tree trunks. The altitude is meant to have a calming effect on guests. The teahouse’s style is what you could call rustic chic. Or woodsy eclecticism. It’s featured in Arcadia: Cross-Country Style, Architecture and Design (Gestalten; $75), a coffee table book about recent buildings and furniture which are surrounded in, and/or inspired by, nature. The book also showcases faux-rustic bowls and utensils, making some sections seem like a housewares catalog for affluent dwarves. (Dutch designer Jo Meesters’s pitchers made of paper pulp and resin are the best of that group.)