Shelf Life - 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers - ArchDaily

8/6/2014
Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

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Architects often dont make time to read. Students and professionals alike will admit that
the unread books on their shelves outnumber the ones theyve read - which is unfortunate
because literary contributions to the field of architecture, from Vitruvius to Le Corbusier,
have shaped the way we build and use buildings for centuries. With this in mind,
ArchitectureBoston polled their readers, asking them to share their favorite architecture and
design titles, to compile a list of important architecture books you should set aside some
time for. The list covers a wide range of subjects, from historical theory to the practicalities
of starting a firm. See all thirty-three titles, after the break.
1. Bookwork: Medium to Object to Concept to Art by Garrett Stewart
An inventive and sophisticated study of the book form as sculptural medium. These
bibliobjects, as the author calls them, reside at the nexus of artists book s and
conceptual art and point to new modes of literacy. Good Dada-fun: Duchamp meets
MORE PROJECTS
Buzz Spector! - Martin Antonetti, curator of rare book s and director of the book studies
concentration, Smith College Libraries
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Some cities in Latin America have become paradigms of urban renewal, with design,
architecture, and politics at the core of positive transformation. McGuirk renders a
portrait of a complex continent that is so hard to get to k now, but that we can learn a lot
2/10
8/6/2014
Botton
Calvino

Architectural Books
Italo
Juhani Pallasmaa
Mumford
Koolhaas
Lewis
Paul Goldberg er
Rem
Sanford Kwinter
Tom
Wolfe
from. - Paola Antonelli, senior curator, Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern
Art
Vincent Scully
3. House by Tracy Kidder

Published 30 years ago, House remains an outstanding narrative about the design and
construction process, and about the birth of an architecture firm. - Stephen Schreiber
FAIA, program director in Architecture + Design, University of Massachusetts/Amherst
1.2k
4. Matter: Material Processes in Architectural Production edited by Gail Peter Borden
Like
107
Tw eet
12
and Michael Meredith.

Offers an expanded architectural design practice and educationone that tests spatial
and material ideas through fabrication at multiple scales, in new time frames, to reimagine architecture and our experiences. - Karen Nelson, head of the School of
Architecture, Boston Architectural College
5. Sir Banister Fletchers A History of Architecture
37
The foremost history of Western architecture, extensively illustrated.

Yo u may also like
6. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara

Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein
:
Smena Fitness Club
za bor architects
A compendium of pieces that, when link ed through examination of the natural world,
create wholes, to the delight of the people who use buildings.
7. The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
A small and personal analysis of the features of architecture that bring joy into our lives.
8. The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment by Lawrence
Halprin
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Architecture as the choreography of people in the built landscape.- Diane Georgopulos

FAIA, MassHousing
9. The Shingle Style and the Stick Style by Vincent J. Scully, Jr.
Changed how we see 19th-century architecture and how we design in the 20th and 21st
centuries.
10. The Highway and the City by Lewis Mumford
Passionate and eloquent essays; why dont we write and argue about architecture lik e
this today?
11. The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro
The best book ever written on how the American city is built and unbuilt.
12. Hav by Jan Morris
A tantalizing travel guide to a city you never heard of.
13. Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell
Nobody look s more closely, listens more carefully, or writes better about New York .
- Jay Wick ersham FAIA, Noble & Wick ersham
14. Chicagoisms: The City as Catalyst for Architectural Speculation by Alexander
Eisenschmidt and Jonathan Mekinda
That rare book able to interest both academics and non-architect city lovers,
Chicagoisms is a catalog of smart, readable essays and illustrated interludes
uncovering the citys appetite for the spectacular (Ferris wheel, Burnhams Plan,
Kapoors Cloud Gate), balanced with fascinating new scholarship on, among other
things, Chicagos surprisingly large influence on European urban theory.
4/10
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15. Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan by Rem Koolhaas
Before S, M, L, XL, there was Delirious, the book that made Rems name. In his hands,
New York becomes remythologized as a gridiron palimpsest of architectural capitalism.
16. From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe
Wolfes retelling of the Modern Movement is acerbic, hilarious, and often wrong, but a
useful reminder to architects of the suspicion Modernism still arouses in America.
17. Architecture in the United States by Dell Upton
Less a comprehensive history than a project to reclaim architecture from architects,
Uptons wry prose casts a gimlet eye onto the pretensions of art-architecture from the
colonial era to the present.
18. The Details of Modern Architecture, Volumes 1 and 2 by Edward R. Ford
As the pioneeering Modernists were inventing new forms, so were they inventing new
constructional methods. Fords astonishingly researched study, illustrated with
invaluable drawings, reveals the ingenuity of this ad hoc tectonic, as well as its
misalignment with Modernist rhetoric.- Ian Baldwin, lecturer at Rhode Island School of
Design
19. A Guide to Archigram 196174 by Dennis Crompton
The impact of the Archigramproject was in shifting the architectural site of inquiry from
the building and urban scale to a smaller human scale and then scaling up again. In
1994, when the first edition of this monograph was released, students were still wrestling
with Deconstruction and the fallout of Postmodernism. Archigram filled a void that many
of us felt in attempting to engage architecture at a more human, visceral levelone
where the human/user was integral to a larger system of factors and network s.
20. Incorporations (Zone 6) by Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter.
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What Archigram seemed to prefigure in technological and mechanical terms at the

scale of the body, Incorporations more deeply addressed through explorations in
biology, neurology, art, and film. This edited collection of dossiers spok e directly to the
idea that the body was not necessarily becoming a site of architecture, but that
organism of the body, in all its complexity, was precisely the site of architecture. At a
deeper level, the book planted the idea that a failure to think this way was quick ly
becoming a failure to think architecturally at all. - Lee Moreau, principal at Continuum
21. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses by Juhani Pallasmaa
The first half is the history of how we have developed, since the Greek s, as a culture
around sight; the second half is about how architecture (together with landscape) can
awak en our other sensessmell, touch, hearing. Written by a Finnish writer/philosopher
with great examples that span art, design, and buildings.- Tamara Roy AIA, principal at
ADD Inc
22. Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China by Paul Theroux
Experience the lesser-k nown China by rail at the juncture of socioeconomic upheaval,
through the eyes of a prolific travel writer who details people, places, and ambiance with
brutal honesty.
23. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Imaginary conversations between the Venetian traveler Marco Polo and the aged Mongol
ruler Kublai Khan frame approaches to think ing about cities and the forms they might
tak e.- Sho-Ping Chin FAIA, principal at Payette
24. Design with Nature by Ian L. McHarg
Post-Katrina and Sandy, McHargs vision of communities hugging the high ground while
floodplains are used to manage water flow and provide productive land for agriculture is
more relevant than ever.
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25. TASCHENs Architecture Now! series by Philip Jodidio

Essential catalogs of the best work globally, these inspiring book s represent an
efficient means of instruction across the design professions.- Charlotte Kahn, former
research analyst at The Boston Foundation
ARCHITECTURE BOSTON STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS
26. Why Architecture Matters by Paul Goldberger
Raises awareness of proportion, scale, space, texture, materials, shapes, light, and
memory; in doing so, readers appreciate and experience the built world anew.
27. Fifty Typefaces That Changed the World by John L. Walters
A witty discussion about the meaning and influence of type, from the ancient world to
the digital future.
28. A Field Guide to American Houses: The Definitive Guide to Identifying and
Understanding Americas Domestic Architecture by Virginia Savage McAlester
An invaluable easy-to-use resource for everyone who wants to k now more about the
culture and history of their own homes and communities.
29. The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
A typographer-poet combines the practical, theoretical, and historical in this masterful
style guide.
30. The Library: A World History by James W. P. Campbell; photographs by Will Pryce
Each age and culture has reinvented the library, and this combination of authoritative
text and stunning photography illuminates the story in a single volume.
7/10
8/6/2014
31. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

This irresistible, deeply researched true story parallels Daniel H. Burnhams meticulous
construction of the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair with the diabolical building plans of H.H.
Holmes, a fraudster and serial k iller who exploited the fair for richesand victims.
32. Design Writing Research: Writing on Graphic Design by Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott
Miller
This beautifully illustrated study is a vital source on the art and history of book s, letter
forms, symbols, advertising, and theories of visual and verbal communication.
33. 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick
A jargon-free zone of clarity and utility. Not a substitute for a masters degree, but an
invaluable supplement.
If you enjoyed this, you can read more ArchitectureBoston articles
on http://www.architects.org/architectureboston/books
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8/6/2014

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

Book Recommendations From

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

Till House / WMR

Top 300 US Architecture

Shelf Life: 33 Book

BIG Unveils Design For

New Images Leaked of

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

3. House by Tracy Kidder

and Michael Meredith.

The foremost history of Western architecture, extensively illustrated.

6. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

Architecture as the choreography of people in the built landscape.- Diane Georgopulos

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

What Archigram seemed to prefigure in technological and mechanical terms at the

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

25. TASCHENs Architecture Now! series by Philip Jodidio

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

31. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Bo o k Reco mmendatio ns Fro m Architects

Share your thoughts

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

Shelf Life: 33 Book Recommendations From Architects & Designers | ArchDaily

THANKS FOR VISITING

ArchDaily 2008-2014. All rights reserved.

All images are each office/photographer mentioned.

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