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

The Theater Art of Boris Aronson Frank Rich On David Rockwell’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Theodore Rex Edmund Morris On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Théorie du nuage Hubert Damisch On Terence Riley’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Theories and History of Architecture (Teoria e storia dell’architettura) Manfredo Tafuri On Jorge Silvetti’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Theorizing the City Setha M. Low On Zoë Ryan’s Book List Add to My Reading List	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	Theory of Colours Johann Wolfgang von Goethe On Shashi Caan’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblen On Greg Lynn’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Thermal Delight in Architecture Lisa Heschong On Craig Dykers’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe On Nancye Green’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far Stefan Sagmeister On list of Books by Stefan Sagmeister On Todd Oldham’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien On Nancye Green’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Things You Should Know A. M. Homes On Deborah Berke’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Thinking Architecture Peter Zumthor On Sam Hecht’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Thinking Drawing/Working Drawing Glenn Murcutt On Peter Bohlin’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Thinking in Systems Donella Meadows et al. On John Maeda’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Thinking Print Deborah Wye On Carin Goldberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	33 Richard Saul Wurman On Nancye Green’s Book List On list of Books by Richard Saul Wurman Add to My Reading List	This Sex Which Is Not One Luce Irigaray On Greg Lynn’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Thoughts on Design Paul Rand On Michael Bierut’s Book List On George Lois’s Book List On Tom Geismar’s Book List On Ivan Chermayeff’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Thousand Plateaus Gilles Deleuze et al. On Winka Dubbeldam’s Book List On Galia Solomonoff’s Book List On Farshid Moussavi’s Book List On Jens Martin Skibsted’s Book List On Greg Lynn’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History Manuel De Landa On Craig Dykers’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Three Ecologies Félix Guattari On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Three Essays on Town Planning Paul Kriesis On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Three Found Fonts Jake Tilson On Louise Fili’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Three Levels of Time Harold T. P. Hayes On George Lois’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas On Cleto Munari’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Three Sisters Anton Chekhov On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist Michael Bierut et al. On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List On Rick Poynor’s Book List On list of Books by Michael Bierut On Juergen Riehm’s Book List On Debbie Millman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Tim Hawkinson Lawrence Rinder On Todd Oldham’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Time to Be Born Dawn Powell On Jonathan Adler’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Time to Love and a Time to Die Erich Maria Remarque On Margaret McCurry’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Tintin in Tibet Hergé On Angus Hyland’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Tintin: Le scèptre d’Ottokar (Tintin: King Ottokar’s Sceptre) Hergé On Alberto Alessi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell On Freeman Lau’s Book List Add to My Reading List	To Engineer Is Human Henry Petroski On Giuseppe Lignano’s Book List On Ada Tolla’s Book List Add to My Reading List	To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf On Billie Tsien’s Book List On Diana Balmori’s Book List On Peter Mendelsund’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Tokyo Suburbia Takashi Homma On Florian Idenburg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Tom Sachs Germano Celant On Richard Sachs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Tom Sachs: Lever House “Bronze Collection” Tom Sachs On Reed Krakoff’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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.

Order the book.

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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