Michael Manfredi
Michael Manfredi’s Book List
How to compile a list of meaningful books? Where to start? The following is a very partial list of books that have been formative to me as an architect, designer, and teacher. It’s an eclectic list. These are books that I revisit often and that, in effect, continue to be my valued friends, mentors, provocateurs, and sources of inspiration.
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McHarg introduced the importance of ecological planning—in the late 1960s a novel and little understood imperative. Given to me as a young architecture student, this book opened up a series of lateral worlds: landscape, ecology—and with that, the promise of a more synthetic approach to design.
As an architect who likes to cook, I can think of few cookbooks that are so “architectural.” Hazan both illuminates the process of making and contextualizes the territory of a particular dish.
Schama’s book focuses on the relationships between real environments and mythical ones, arguing that together real landscapes and the landscapes of the mind constitute that elusive and subjective definition of what we call “Nature.”
I always return to this set of volumes with a mixture of humility and admiration. The work is still fresh and always inspiring.
Given to me as a young adult, this is a book I still return to. Gombrich, one of this century’s great intellectuals, brings history to life in an intelligent and conversational style. It is really a children’s book written for adults.
I studied with Colin Rowe and always suggest that my students read this book. Together, these trans-historical essays constitute a radical argument: that we consider history imaginatively as something alive and present. I can’t think of a more eloquent reminder that architecture is first and foremost about an intellectual and cultural history.
One of my first books. Growing up in Italy and reading this book inspired me with tales of surreal and fantastic places—architectures where the real and the imagined converge.
Proust’s complex and very long quasi-novel has incomparable high points. His description of the nexus of circumstance, emotion, and place—the sheer poetry of everyday existence—is sublime.
Works by Bernini, Borromini, Fontana, and da Cortona are presented against the backdrop of Rome as an emerging global city. It is a lushly illustrated and graphically compelling reminder of the fruitful interchange between great architecture and its urban setting.
Italo Calvino’s meditations on the values and attributes that make great literature: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency. It is as relevant to architecture as it is to literature.
Nabokov’s elliptical autobiography and beautiful exposition of memory. More than a conventional autobiography, it is a set of elegantly written recollections of events, of people, of spaces and places—it is at once dreamy and precise.
An expansive, eccentric, and systemic catalogue of ideas and tools that quickly became a cultural phenomenon. It reshaped how we see the world and its ecological challenges. References to sustainable design, experimental media, and technological innovations privileged, for the first time, the interconnectedness of things.
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.
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.
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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.
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.”
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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