Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.
covers
46 books
The Work of Hipgnosis
Storm Thorgerson
On Carin Goldberg’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Why People Photograph
Robert Adams
On Rudy VanderLans’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Vision in Motion
László Moholy-Nagy
On Niels Diffrient’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
(un)Fashion
Tibor and Maira Kalman
On Isaac Mizrahi’s Book List
On list of Books by Maira Kalman
Add to My Reading List
Typologies
Bernd and Hilla Becher
On James Biber’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Tao of Photography
Philippe L. Gross et al.
On Philip Freelon’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Studio and Cube
Brian O’Doherty
On Deborah Berke’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
So Far So Goude
Jean-Paul Goude
On Stephen Burrows’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Rome
William Klein
On Isaac Mizrahi’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Rodchenko and the Arts of Revolutionary Russia
David Elliott
On Carin Goldberg’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Portraits
Richard Avedon
On Carin Goldberg’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Passage
Irving Penn
On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List
On Christian Lacroix’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths
Rosalind Krauss
On Abbott Miller’s Book List
On Victoria Meyers’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
On Photography
Susan Sontag
On Jennifer Morla’s Book List
On Véronique Vienne’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
Corinne May Botz
On James Biber’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass
Edward Ruscha
On Rudy VanderLans’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Mimmo Jodice: Negli Anni Settanta (Mimmo Jodice: In the Seventies)
Filippo Maggia
On Giuseppe Lignano’s Book List
On Ada Tolla’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Marilyn and Me
Lawrence Schiller
On Matteo Thun’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Man Ray: Photography and Its Double
Emmanuelle de L’Ecotais et al.
On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Living Room
Nick Waplington et al.
On Todd Oldham’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Libraries
Candida Hofer et al.
On Sou Fujimoto’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
László Moholy-Nagy
IVAM Centre Julio Gonzalez
On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Infrastructure
Brian Hayes
On Deborah Berke’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Industrial Landscapes
Bernd and Hilla Becher
On James Biber’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
The Human Figure in Motion
Eadweard Muybridge
On Niels Diffrient’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Happy Times
Brendan Gill et al.
On Christian Lacroix’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
Fashioning Fiction in Photography since 1990
Susan Kismaric et al.
On Valerie Steele’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
The Family of Man
Edward Steichen, ed.
On Seymour Chwast’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Exactitudes
Ari Versluis et al.
On Nathalie de Vries’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus
On Todd Oldham’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
The Decisive Moment
Henri Cartier-Bresson
On George Tscherny’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Cyclops
Albert Watson
On Carin Goldberg’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
The Cruel Radiance
Susie Linfield
On Jessica Helfand’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Circles of Confusion
Hollis Frampton
On Abbott Miller’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills
Cindy Sherman
On Todd Oldham’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Chroma
Derek Jarman
On Angus Hyland’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Chic Clicks
Ulrich Lehmann et al.
On Valerie Steele’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Beaton: The Art of the Scrapbook
James N. Danziger
On Christian Lacroix’s Book List
Add to My Reading List
Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks et al.
On Stephen Burrows’s Book List
Add to My Reading List

Best-Selling Design Books at Van Alen Books, New York

1
Building Seagram
Phyllis Lambert
2
Clog 6: Brutalism
Kyle May et al., eds.
3
Project Journal Issue 1
Project
More...

Newest Designers and Commentators

Matteo Thun
Architect, Interior Designer, Product/Industrial Designer, Lighting Designer; Italy
Michael Maharam
Writer; Executive; United States
Fritz Frenkler
Product/Industrial Designer; Germany
More designers...

Newly Chosen Books

De Kooning: An American Master
Mark Stevens
A Book of Spoons
Jasper Morrison
Hidden Forms
Franco Clivio
More chosen books...

20 Books on Textile Design

British Textiles: 1700 to the Present
Linda Parry
Katsuji Wakisaka: Japanese Textile Designer
Katsuji Wakisaka
Textile Arts of India
Kokyo Hatanaka
More books on textile design...

Recent Books by Our Contributors

Diller, Scofidio + Renfro: Lincoln Center Inside Out
Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, and Charles Renfro
Stephen Burrows: When Fashion Danced
Stephen Burrows
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec: Drawing
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
More books by contributors...

Contributors Who Chose...

Delirious New York
Rem Koolhaas
On 8 lists
Jeanne Gang
Architect; United States
Mohsen Mostafavi
Designer; Educator; United States
Galia Solomonoff
Architect; United States
Adam Tihany
Architect, Interior Designer, Product/Industrial Designer; United States
More...