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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Nonfiction, Architecture

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318 books

Louis Kahn: On the Thoughtful Making of Spaces Michael Merrill Add to My Reading List	Architettura addio Alessandro Mendini On Alberto Alessi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Design with Nature Ian McHarg On Michael Manfredi’s Book List On Craig Dykers’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things William McDonough et al. On Zoë Ryan’s Book List On Philip Freelon’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Morphosis - Combinatory Urbanism: The Complex Behavior of Collective Form Thom Mayne Add to My Reading List	Quotidiano sostenibile Ezio Manzini et al. On Paolo Deganello’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Unbuilding David Macaulay On Richard Saul Wurman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Pyramid David Macaulay On Philip Freelon’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Trotzdem, 1900–1930 Adolf Loos On Kent Kleinman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Your Private Sky: R. Buckminster Fuller Claude Lichtenstein et al. On Christian Wassmann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Between Zero and Infinity Daniel Libeskind On Anthony Dunne’s Book List On list of Books by Daniel Libeskind Add to My Reading List	Edifices de Rome Moderne Paul Letarouilly On Michael Graves’s Book List On Peter Pennoyer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Planned Assaults Lars Lerup On Kent Kleinman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of Ludwig Wittgenstein Bernhard Leitner On James Biber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Object to Be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon Matta-Clark Pamela M. Lee On Christian Wassmann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	L’Architecture Claude-Nicolas Ledoux On William Georgis’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Ronchamp Le Corbusier On Christian Wassmann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Aircraft Le Corbusier On Norman Foster’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Le Modulor Le Corbusier On Norman Foster’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Towards a New Architecture (Vers une Architecture) Le Corbusier On Norman Foster’s Book List On Michael Graves’s Book List On Richard Meier’s Book List On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List On Andrés Duany’s Book List On R. Craig Miller’s Book List On Winka Dubbeldam’s Book List On Cesar Pelli’s Book List On Victoria Meyers’s Book List On Emanuela Frattini Magnusson’s Book List Add to My Reading List	When the Cathedrals Were White Le Corbusier On Richard Meier’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Essential Le Corbusier: L’Esprit Nouveau Articles Le Corbusier On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Creation is a Patient Search (L’atelier de la recherche patiente) Le Corbusier On Steven Holl’s Book List On Craig Hodgetts’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Devil in the White City Erik Larson On Galia Solomonoff’s Current Reading list On Jens Holm’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Too Much Is Never Enough Morris Lapidus On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Building with Nantucket in Mind J. Christopher Lang et al. On Hugh Newell Jacobsen’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Joe Colombo Mateo Kries et al. On Michael Maharam’s Book List On Glenn Pushelberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of Community Léon Krier On Andrés Duany’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture: Choice or Fate Léon Krier On Witold Rybczynski’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals Spiro Kostof On Kent Kleinman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Town and Revolution Anatole Kopp On Mels Crouwel’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Fundamentals Rem Koolhaas On Carlo Ratti’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Delirious New York Rem Koolhaas On Terence Riley’s Book List On Adam Tihany’s Book List On Andrés Duany’s Book List On Jeanne Gang’s Book List On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List On Galia Solomonoff’s Book List On Phil Patton’s Current Reading list On Aric Chen’s Book List On Michael Rock’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping Rem Koolhaas et al. On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	S, M, L, XL Rem Koolhaas et al. On Terence Riley’s Book List On Farshid Moussavi’s Book List On Florian Idenburg’s Book List On Mels Crouwel’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Saarinen’s Quest: A Memoir Richard Knight et al. On Jonathan Olivares’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Charles and Ray Eames Pat Kirkham On Wim Crouwel’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Perfect Acts of Architecture Jeffrey Kipnis On Terence Riley’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Brunelleschi’s Dome Ross King On Richard Meier’s Book List Add to My Reading List	American Architecture Fiske Kimball On Jaquelin Robertson’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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