Architecture

Never Shout: Hugh Newell Jacobsen’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter September 18, 2012

Hugh Newell Jacobsen

Architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen: Jacobsen Architecture (Washington, D.C.)

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.” *

At the same time he has designed libraries in Athens and Cairo; U.S embassies in Paris and Moscow; museums in Washington, D.C, Vermont, and Oklahoma; buildings for college campuses; and a winery. He has been one of only six architects to work on the U.S. Capitol in the history of the building.

His Designers & Books list (he says in his book list introduction that his personal library consists of “over 4,000 titles”) recalls some of the many locations and residential forms that he has been drawn to. His selections encompass books on architecture from Nantucket to Florida, and extend from Swedish houses to the tropical modernist structures of Brazil and India.

He also includes Banister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture, originally published in 1905, calling it “the great book! It lives up to its title”; and Derek Ostergard’s From Mackintosh to Mollino: Fifty Years of Chair Design, which Jacobsen says is “a valuable survey.”

Hugh Newell Jacobsen, Architect: 1993–2006, 2007 (Rizzoli International Publications)

Jacobsen’s work, which has received 114 awards for design excellence, is the subject of three monographs, including the most recent, Hugh Newell Jacobsen, Architect 1993–2006, published in 2007 ((Rizzoli International Publications). The architect is the editor of A Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C., first published in 1965 and revised many times since then.

What is Jacobsen reading now? He tells Designers & Books that it’s Stephen Longstreet’s We All Went to Paris: Americans in the City of Light 1776–1971, about the city that inspired the plans for Washington D.C., and has attracted notable Americans for generations, among them Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

* http://hughjacobsen.com/Philosophy.htm

View Hugh Newell Jacobsen’s Profile

View Hugh Newell Jacobsen’s Book List

See more architects’ book lists

comments powered by Disqus

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.

Order the book.

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.”

Order the book.

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.