Architecture

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29 blog entries

Books on Designers

February 20, 2014

Fifteen books from our contributors on American architect Louis I. Kahn (February 20, 1901– March 17, 1974). Updated May 1, 2022.

Additional books can be found on The Louis I. Kahn Facsimile Project. More...

Architecture

Pureness and a Poetic Dimension: Vincent Van Duysen’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 11, 2013

Architect Vincent Van Duysen: Vincent Van Duysen Architects (Antwerp, Belgium)
Profile Book List
“I like to surround myself with books, not only in my library but also in the bedroom, living room, and kitchen. In most spaces in my home you will find books. This allows me to pick up a book at any moment, at any place,” remarks Belgian architect and interior designer Vincent Van Duysen. More...

Architecture

Scholarship and Imagination: Alan Balfour’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter February 12, 2013

Architecture school dean Alan Balfour: College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta)
Profile Book List
Dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture Alan Balfour divides his book list for Designers & Books in a way that reflects his distinguished career as a scholar, author, and educator. The list contains, he states in his introduction, “first, books that have touched me in the last year or so, most related to supporting and stimulating my own writing; second, writers whose imaginations I can enter, whose books I can get lost within; and third, books that I often return to and continue to value.” More...

Architecture

Michelangelo Suffered During the Design Process, Too: Victoria Meyers’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter February 5, 2013

Architect Victoria Meyers: Hanrahan Meyers Architects (New York)
Profile Book List
“I selected my books for many reasons,” Victoria Meyers writes in the introduction to her list for Designers & Books. “Some books have followed me around for a very long time (I started reading Frank Lloyd Wright’s writings when I was seven or eight). Some books on the list were given to me by relatives whom I was close to (The Poetry of Robert Frost, given to me by my aunt). Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo catalogues a life that I can relate to—suffering because of the design process! More...

Architecture

Anticipating the Future: Florian Idenburg’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter January 15, 2013

Architect Florian Idenburg: Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (Brooklyn, New York)
Profile Book List
In a comment he makes for Designers & Books about Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan, a book he calls “pretty essential for anyone who ‘designs’ for the future,” architect Florian Idenburg notes that it “tells us we cannot predict, thus depict, what the future will be—all we can do is anticipate.” More...

Architecture

Read Slowly and Be Deeply Engaged: Tod Williams’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter October 4, 2012

Architect Tod Williams: Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (New York)
Profile Book List
Architect Tod Williams savors what he reads. “I read slowly and want to be deeply engaged,” Williams says in the introduction to his book list for Designers & Books. More...

Architecture

Never Shout: Hugh Newell Jacobsen’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter September 18, 2012

Architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen: Jacobsen Architecture (Washington, D.C.)
Profile Book List
In his more than 50 years of practice, architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen has been recognized for his eloquent modern residential work (20 awards from Architectural Record alone) that draws inspiration from vernacular American forms and local sites. “I endeavor to design buildings that belong, make the site look better and, hopefully, never shout,” he writes in his “Design Philosophy.” More...

Architecture

Books Every Architect Should Read: Kent Kleinman’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter August 28, 2012

Dean and architect Kent Kleinman: Cornell University, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (Ithaca, New York)
Profile Book List
In time for a new academic year for design and architecture schools, our newest “dean’s list” of books comes from Kent Kleinman, the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. More...

Architecture

Author Q&A with Kenneth Frampton: Five North American Architects

By Steve Kroeter August 23, 2012

Architecture professor and architect Kenneth Frampton: Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (New York)
Profile
In honor of his 80th birthday, Kenneth Frampton—Ware Professor of Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where he has taught since 1972—was invited by the dean of the School, Mark Wigley, to “curate an event.” Frampton chose to structure the event, a symposium, as an “occasion to present something of the current state of architecture as a North American practice,” focusing on the U.S. and Canada. More...

Architecture

The Interconnectedness of Things: Michael Manfredi’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter July 31, 2012

Architect Michael Manfredi: Weiss/Manfredi (New York)
Profile Book List
Architect Michael Manfredi sent along to Designers & Books an “electic” list of books that he says “continue to be my valued friends, mentors, provocateurs, and sources of inspiration.” More...

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

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Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

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