Book List of the Week

The Book List of the Week highlights the list of books provided by invited designers (including architects, fashion designers, graphic designers, interior designers, landscape architects, product designers, urban designers, and other design professionals) who have chosen books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.
189 blog entries
Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 28, 2013

In honor of the remarkable career of architect Hugh Hardy (1932–March 17, 2017), a look back at our interview with Hardy and a list of the books that inspired him, which he describes as “a mixed bag of gifts and explanations: history, architecture, urban affairs, and theater.” We caught up with Hardy, known for his design of some of New York's most celebrated theaters—from Broadway houses to Radio City to Lincoln Center—on the occasion of the release of his book Theater of Architecture (2013, Princeton Architectural Press). More...

Architecture
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...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter November 11, 2013

“Everything I’m currently obsessed with can serve as inspiration for my work: films, exhibitions, music, travel, flea markets. And books!” fashion designer Ann Sui proclaims. ”I love doing the research, learning about something new.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter September 10, 2013

Fashion editor, author, and icon André Leon Talley (1948–January 18, 2022) talked to Designers & Books in 2013 about the books that inspired him, and the books he wrote, including Little Black Dress (2013, Skira/Rizzoli). His most recent book was his memoir The Chiffon Trenches (2020, Ballantine Books). More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 27, 2012

Architecture school dean and architect Mohsen Mostafavi: Harvard Graduate School of Design (Cambridge, MA)  Profile   Book List
Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff (New York)
(New York)   Profile
The venerable Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) celebrates its 75th anniversary during the 2011–2012 academic year. Earlier in the year, critic and author Nicolai Ouroussoff had the opportunity to meet GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi in his office to talk about books. The specific books in question were those on a list that Dean Mostafavi compiled for Designers & Books—books that have particular resonance for him not only because of their intellectual content but also through their very personal connection to him. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 4, 2013

Architecture critic Julie Iovine: The Wall Street Journal (New York)
Profile     Book List
“I look to books for everything imaginable, and unimaginable. They shape my outlook, but also throw open spaces I could never have found on my own. The chance to consider an essential list is wonderfully engrossing, and also a bit of a nasty parlor trick. Must I commit?” is how Wall Street Journal architecture critic Julie Iovine begins her book list for Designers & Books. More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter February 28, 2012

Architect Craig Hodgetts: Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture (Los Angeles)
Profile   Book List
Since the 1970s, when he collaborated with Robert Mangurian in the cutting-edge firm Studio Works, to his talked-about recent installation with partner Hsinming Fung for the “Pacific Standard Time” exhibition California Design, 1930–1965 (on view through June 3, 2012, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Craig Hodgetts has pursued a remarkable range of interests. In his architecture, writing, and teaching, he has drawn on automotive and lighting design, information technology, and theater and film, among many other areas. He has, as he says in the introduction to the list he created for Designers & Books, “an appetite for nearly everything I encounter.” More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter August 2, 2011

Architect Winka Dubbeldam: Archi-Tectonics (New York)
book list
In an interview earlier this year, Winka Dubbeldam recalled that her parents enjoyed buying and building new homes—an obsession that resulted in her moving 15 times in the 17 years she lived with them. It isn’t really a surprise, then, that she ended up as an architect with a particular interest in progressive residential work. Her worldwide reputation now also extends to office tower, commercial, hospitality, and interior design work. More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter June 19, 2012

Architect Neil Denari: Neil M. Denari Architects (Los Angeles)
Profile    Book List
Architect Neil Denari is “primarily a reader of nonfiction.” He tells Designers & Books, “Reports, almanacs, and encyclopedias have always interested me as they dryly lay out apparently unbiased information. I am also interested in the opposite: spurious conjectures, crackpot theories, conspiracies, and theoretical arguments.” More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter February 14, 2012

Architect Galia Solomonoff: Solomonoff Architecture Studio (SAS) (New York)
Profile    Book List
The architect Galia Solomonoff, a native of Argentina, traces her attachment to books to a memorable incident: “In 1975, my parents burned a significant and dear part of our library as Isabel Perón signed a number of decrees empowering the military to ‘annihilate’ the Argentine left. It was a Sunday morning in winter. We were at our suburban house on the Paraná River and I was seven. I passed books to my father in silence; we did a barbecue to cover up the burning of the books.” More...