Interviews, Essays, Etc.
During the early 1990s, Juhani Pallasmaa was dean of the Faculty of Architecture at Helsinki University of Technology. Because of his belief in the importance of reading, particularly the reading of classic literature, each year he sent out to the School’s newly accepted students a list of books they were expected to have read before arriving on campus.
Here is the list of 40 titles that was sent out to the class that entered in 1992.
(An asterisk* denotes a book recommended elsewhere on Designers & Books.)
1. Gaston Bachelard,The Poetics of Space*
2. Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
3. Ingmar Bergman, Laterna Magica
4. Heinrich Böll, Billiards at Half-past Nine
5. Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths*
6. Joseph Brodsky, Less Than One*
7. Joseph Brodsky, Watermark*
8. Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh: The Autobiography of Luis Buñuel
9. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities*
10. Albert Camus,The Outsider
11. Albert Camus, The Fall*
12. Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
13. Bo Carpelan, Axel
14. Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
15. Anton Chekhov, Short Stories
16. Anton Chekhov, The Steppe and Other Stories
17. Fyodor Dostoyevsky,Crime and Punishment*
18. Anton Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order of Art: A Study in the Psychology of Artistic Imagination*
19. Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom
20. Günter Grass, The Flounder
21. Mark Helprin,Winter’s Tale*
22. Herman Hesse,The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi)*
23. Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf
24. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*
25. Franz Kafka, Short Stories
26. Franz Kafka, The Trial
27. Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus
28. Thomas Mann, Death in Venice*
29. Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man
30. Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*
31. Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style
32. Jean Renoir, My Life and My Films
33. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet*
34. Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
35. Pentti Saarikoski, Diaries of Youth (available only in Finnish)
36. Susan Sontag, On Photography*
37. Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time: The Great Russian Filmmaker Discusses His Art
38. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
39. Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth
40. Paul Valéry, “Eupalinos, or the Architect,” in Dialogues*
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.
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.
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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