, with a link to a Spanish news source, we now have the official English release.

Disclosure: Actar is the publisher of the forthcoming Archinect/InfranetLab book series [bracket]
As previously reported, with a link to a Spanish news source, we now have the official English release.

Disclosure: Actar is the publisher of the forthcoming Archinect/InfranetLab book series [bracket]...
ACTAR acquires Birkhäuser’s architecture and design publishing from Springer and becomes the number one publisher of architecture books in the world

Basel / Barcelona, 18 December 2009

ACTAR Publishing has signed an agreement with Springer Science+Business Media (Springer) to acquire the architecture and design activities of Birkhäuser Verlag in Basel. Barcelona and New York-based ACTAR is a leading publisher of books on architecture, graphic design, and contemporary art. ACTAR will continue the Birkhäuser publishing program as an imprint in its current base in Basel, Switzerland.

Birkhäuser’s Natural Sciences publishing program, which includes mathematics, history of science, biosciences, civil engineering and geosciences, will remain with Springer.

“The acquisition of Birkhäuser marks the dawn of a new era for ACTAR. Birkhäuser is a global reference for architecture and design publishing and we are extremely proud to be able to acquire and maintain such a living piece of history. The focus and target groups of the ACTAR and Birkhäuser publishing programs perfectly complement each other and there will be many synergies that will benefit both organizations. Furthermore, this acquisition positions our group as the number one publisher of architecture books in the world, both by sales volume and number of titles. It is a key step in our plan to develop an even stronger content production platform to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the changes affecting the publishing industry”, said Ramon Prat, Founder and Managing Director of ACTAR.

Andreas Kösters, President STM Asia / Local America & Europe / Pharma, added: “This sale will allow us to concentrate on our business in science, technology and medical (STM) publishing. At the same time, the sale allows Birkhäuser to pursue new opportunities with a strong partner specialised in the architecture and design publishing market.”

Founded in Basel in 1879, Birkhäuser is one of Europe’s leading publishers in architecture and design, and a brand of great distinction throughout the world. It publishes almost 100 new titles each year, primarily in English and German, and has a solid international reputation for producing books of the highest quality and content. Birkhäuser titles encompass the works of prominent architects; technical handbooks covering construction, building technology, and the basics of design; books on landscape architecture, urban planning and the history and theory of architecture; and architectural guides on cities, countries, and regions. Birkhäuser is particularly renowned for its editions of Complete Works and Monographs on leading 20th and 21st centuries architects, from Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto to Herzog / de Meuron and Peter Zumthor.

ACTAR will also publish and distribute the design magazine form. Since 2002, form tracks the latest developments in interior architecture, product, graphic and web design. form is published every two months in a bilingual English / German edition and is the leading magazine for industrial and graphic design in the German-speaking countries.

ACTAR will distribute Birkhäuser titles worldwide through its subsidiary ACTAR-D (www.actar-d.com), an international book distributor specializing in architecture, graphic design, and contemporary art titles published by ACTAR, as well as titles from over 80 publishers, museums, and institutions from all over the world.