Papadakis Publisher is an independent art, architecture and natural science book publisher founded in London, United Kingdom, by Andreas Papadakis and his daughter Alexandra Papadakis. Since 1968, Papadakis Publisher and its predecessor Academy Editions have published more than a thousand titles, on art, architecture, science and the decorative arts.
History
Greek Cypriot-born British academic and entrepreneur Andreas Papadakis opened the Academy Bookshop in Holland Street, Kensington in 1964 and moved into publishing as Academy Editions in 1968. From then until 1990, when the company was sold to VCH Germany (now part of John Wiley) Academy published more than a thousand titles mainly on art, architecture and the decorative arts. The company was the first to publish many international architects in the 'Architectural Monographs No...' series, which included Alvar Aalto (No 4), Michael Graves (No 5), Edwin Lutyens (No 6), John Soane (No 8), Terry Farrell (No 9), Richard Rogers (No 10), Mies van der Rohe (No 11), Hassan Fathy (No 13), Tadao Ando (No 14), Daniel Libeskind (No 16), etc.; and Victor Arwas's Art Deco, first published in 1980 remains the standard work on the subject.
In 1997, Andreas and his daughter Alexandra founded Papadakis Publisher. In addition to books on architecture and the decorative arts, the company broadened its list to include natural science books with an emphasis on visual appeal and design. One of the new company's first publications in this field was the acclaimed series Pollen, Seeds and Fruit, a collaboration between seed morphologist Dr. Wolfgang Stuppy and visual artist Prof. Rob Kesseler in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The series was lauded for marrying science and visual art in a unique way, featuring vividly coloured electron micrograph images of microscopic plant structures and informative scientific text. The first two books of the series were awarded a joint gold medal by the American Independent Publisher's Association as Outstanding Books of the Year in 2007, and subsequent editions won the same award in 2011. The series also led to Andreas Papadakis being elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society a year before his death in June 2008.
Recent titles
Under Alexandra's directorship, the company have maintained a reputation as producers of groundbreaking art, architecture, photography and natural science books, and have undertaken a number of high-profile collaborations. Notable recent titles include Hunting the Higgs: The inside story of the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, published in association with CERN, Green Universe: A Microscopic Voyage Into the Plant Cell with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Nanoscience: Giants of the Infinitesimal which was awarded a gold medal in the Science category at the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2015.