Chosen Books

Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.

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2000 books

Theory and Design in the First Machine Age Reyner Banham On Norman Foster’s Book List On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Michael Sorkin’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List On R. Craig Miller’s Book List On Carl Magnusson’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies Reyner Banham On Norman Foster’s Book List On Nathalie de Vries’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Scenes in America Deserta Reyner Banham On Antoine Predock’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Design by Choice Reyner Banham et al. On Alice Rawsthorn’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Critic Writes: Essays by Reyner Banham Reyner Banham On Deborah Berke’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment Reyner Banham On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung Lester Bangs On Craig Hodgetts’s Book List On Neil Denari’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Typographie Walter Bangerter et al. On George Tscherny’s Book List Add to My Reading List
La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy) Honoré de Balzac On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Informal Cecil Balmond On Terence Riley’s Book List On Florian Idenburg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Atrocity Exhibition J. G. Ballard On Jonathan Barnbrook’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Concrete Island J. G. Ballard On Neil Denari’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Vermilion Sands J. G. Ballard On Greg Lynn’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Super-Cannes J. G. Ballard On Fiona Raby’s Book List Add to My Reading List	High-Rise J. G. Ballard On Michael Sorkin’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard J. G. Ballard et al. On Angus Hyland’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Crash J. G. Ballard On Karim Rashid’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin On Stephen Burrows’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Billy Baldwin Remembers Billy Baldwin On Ralph Rucci’s Book List On Dominique Browning’s Book List On Ernest de la Torre’s Book List On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Billy Baldwin Decorates Billy Baldwin On Dominique Browning’s Book List On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Mezzanine Nicholson Baker On Michael Bierut’s Book List On Nancye Green’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Baedeker’s Rome and Central Italy Karl Baedeker On James Biber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Constantin Brancusi Friedrich Teja Bach On Christian Wassmann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals Hiroki Azuma On Akiko Fukai’s Book List Add to My Reading List
El Libro de Levante Azorín On Diana Balmori’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les contes du chat perché Marcel Aymé On Pierre Bernard’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Portraits Richard Avedon On Carin Goldberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Avedon: Photographs, 1947–1977 Richard Avedon On Isaac Mizrahi’s Book List On Christian Lacroix’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Invention of Solitude Paul Auster On Mikko Heikkinen’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen On Margaret McCurry’s Book List On Michael Sorkin’s Book List On Maira Kalman’s Book List On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Emma Jane Austen On Angus Hyland’s Book List On Jeffrey Bilhuber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Meditations Marcus Aurelius On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List On Hartmut Esslinger’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity Marc Augé On Nathalie de Vries’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Guerre à la tristesse (Fiesta in Pamplona) Dominique Aubier On Christian Lacroix’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood On Alan Balfour’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood On Fiona Raby’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Positron Margaret Atwood On Fiona Raby’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Rivers and Mountains John Ashbery On Maya Lin’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Super Constellation Christoph Asendorf On Christian Wassmann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Enzo Mari—Sixty Paperweights: The Intellectual Work Alessio Ascari et al. On Jonathan Olivares’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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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.

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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.

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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.

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