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.

author a–z

Nonfiction, Urban Design

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75 books


The American City from the Civil War to the New Deal	Ciucci, Giorgio et al.	Comments:
Mayhew’s London	Mayhew, Henry et al.
Twenty Years at Hull-House	Addams, Jane
Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Language of the Novel	Alter, Robert
Pop-Up City	Beekmans, Jeroen
Horizons	Bel Geddes, Norman
The Origins of Modern Town Planning	Benevolo, Leonardo
Kinshasa: Tales of the Invisible City	Boeck, Filip de et al.
Journeys: How Travelling Fruit, Ideas and Buildings Rearrange our Environment	Borasi, Giovanna
Learning from Hangzhou	Borysevicz, Mathieu
Cities of the World	Braun, Georg et al.
Plan of Chicago, 1909	Burnham, Daniel Hudson et al.
The Concrete Dragon	Campanella, Thomas J.
The Power Broker	Caro, Robert
Re-cycle	Ciorra, Pippo
The Concise Townscape	Cullen, Gordon
Zone 1/2	Feher, Michael et al.
People and Plans	Gans, Herbert J.
The Levittowners	Gans, Herbert J.
City of Darkness	Girard, Greg et al.
Communitas	Goodman, Percival et al.
Infrastructure	Hayes, Brian
The Invention of Tradition	Hobsbawm, E. J. et al.
Tokyo Suburbia	Homma, Takashi
Location and Space Economy	Isard, Walter
Discovering the Vernacular Landscape	Jackson, John Brinckerhoff
The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes	Jackson, John Brinckerhoff
The Death and Life of Great American Cities	Jacobs, Jane
The Economy of Cities	Jacobs, Jane
Solution 239–246	Kalliala, Martti et al.
Metropolis: Center and Symbol of Our Times	Kasinitz, Philip
Energy and Form	Knowles, Ralph L.
Delirious New York	Koolhaas, Rem
Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping	Koolhaas, Rem et al.
History Builds the Town	Korn, Arthur
The Beer Can by the Highway	Kouwenhoven, John A.
Three Essays on Town Planning	Kriesis, Paul
Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon	Kubernik, Harvey
Charter of the New Urbanism	Leccese, Michael et al.
Object to Be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon Matta-Clark	Lee, Pamela M.
Le Droit à la ville (Right to the City)	Lefebvre, Henri
Crossing the BLVD: Strangers, Neighbors, Aliens in a New America	Lehrer, Warren et al.
Theorizing the City	Low, Setha M.
The Image of the City	Lynch, Kevin
Designs on the Land	MacLean, Alex
Quotidiano sostenibile	Manzini, Ezio et al.
Design with Nature	McHarg, Ian
Politics, Planning, and the Public Interest	Meyerson, Martin et al.
Urban Traffic: A Function of Land Use	Mitchell, Robert B. et al.
You Have to Pay for the Public Life	Moore, Charles et al.
In the Life of Cities	Mostafavi, Mohsen
The City in History	Mumford, Lewis
The Culture of Cities	Mumford, Lewis
The Highway and the City	Mumford, Lewis
The Wealth of Cities	Norquist, John
Istanbul	Pamuk, Orhan
Scarp	Papadimitriou, Nick
The Private Future	Pawley, Martin
Supercrit #2—Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown	Rattenbury, Kester
As I Was Saying	Rowe, Colin
The Idea of a Town	Rykwert, Joseph
Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture	Schorske, Carl E.
American Architecture and Urbanism	Scully, Vincent
Miami Modern Metropolis	Shulman, Allan T.
Personal Space	Sommer, Robert
Twenty Minutes in Manhattan	Sorkin, Michael
Paradise Planned	Stern, Robert A. M. et al.
Design Like You Give a Damn	Sinclair, Cameron et al.
The 100 Mile City	Sudjic, Deyan
Patrick Geddes in India	Tyrwhitt, Jaqueline
Town Planning in Practice	Unwin, Raymond
Everyday America	Wilson, Chris et al.
Family and Kinship in East London	Young, Michael
The Making of Classical Edinburgh 1750–1840	Youngson, Alexander John Brown
Sense of the City	Zardini, Mirko

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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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