Architecture

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29 blog entries

Architecture

Author Q&A with Victoria Newhouse: Site and Sound

By Steve Kroeter July 5, 2012

Architectural historian Victoria Newhouse (New York)
Profile

Architectural historian Victoria Newhouse talks about some of the remarkable music performance spaces that appear in the pages of her newest book, Site and Sound: The Architecture and Acoustics of New Opera Houses and Concert Halls (The Monacelli Press, April 2012). 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

Compelling Collisions: The Book Lists of Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano

By Steve Kroeter May 15, 2012

Architects Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano: LOT-EK (New York and Naples)
Profile Book List
Profile Book List

LOT-EK (read “low-tech”) founding partners Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano have gained high visibility for their groundbreaking approach to construction, materials, and space and through the adaptive reuse (“upcycling”) of existing industrial objects and systems not originally intended for architecture. More...

Architecture

Every Carefully Selected Word and Each Elegantly Constructed Sentence: Deborah Berke’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter September 13, 2011

Architect Deborah Berke: Deborah Berke & Partners Architects (New York)
book list
In an essay called “Here and Now,” written for a monograph on her work published by Yale University Press, Deborah Berke discusses the evolution in her thinking about architects and architecture over the course of her more than 25-year career. Focused in the late 1990s on what she at the time called “the everyday in architecture”—for which she earned renown—her approach to building was about “embracing and learning from that which is not expressly constructed through high culture or self-conscious design.” Looking back on that time, she feels that “what I was trying to do through my buildings was see if it were possible to make an architecture of exceptional everydayness.” More...

Architecture

Exploring, Through Design, the Big Ideas and Issues of Our Time: Susan S. Szenasy

By Steve Kroeter December 13, 2011

Editor Susan S. Szenasy: Metropolis (New York)
Book List Essay

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of the magazine Metropolis, whose mission is to “examine contemporary life through design.” At the helm for the past 25 years has been editor in chief Susan S. Szenasy. Her role in the design world as it has evolved since 1981 prompted Designers & Books to ask Susan for her thoughts on the most notable design books published during the magazine’s three decades—as a sort of capsule summary of the important ideas dominating design from the late 20th century into the early 21st. Susan came back to us with a slightly different idea. More...

Architecture

In the Cube: James Biber’s Book List—Interview by Michael Bierut

By Steve Kroeter November 29, 2011

Architect James Biber: Biber Architects (New York)
Book List Video

Graphic designer Michael Bierut: Pentagram (New York)
Profile

Graphic designer and Pentagram partner Michael Bierut and one-time aspiring biologist turned architect James Biber have been friends, business associates, or both for over 20 years. They also share a major interest in books. Between the two of them they cover just about all the important ways that books can intersect your life: reading them, writing them, designing them, collecting them, being inspired by them—and in one case, fighting over them with a parent. 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

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

Of Philosophy and Reading: The Book Lists of Steven Holl and Juhani Pallasmaa

By Steve Kroeter February 22, 2011

The architects Steven Holl and Juhani Pallasmaa have a history of connections. Holl (an American) and Pallasmaa (a Finn) have important ties to each other’s home country. One of Holl’s best-known buildings is in Helsinki (the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, for which Pallasmaa was the local architect). Pallasmaa, who has held visiting professorships at four American universities, is an honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. 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...

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.

Order the book.