Stanley Abercrombie
Stanley Abercrombie’s Notable Books of 2013
Nonfiction, Reference
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To some of us, there is nothing more handsome or interesting than a wall of books. This is the book for us. For its preparation, the author, director of studies in architecture and art history at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and his masterful photographer visited 82 libraries in 21 countries. Their chapters carry us chronologically from “Lost Beginnings” to “The Future of Libraries in the Electronic Age” with stops along the way including “Cupboards, Chains and Stalls” (the 16th century) and “Angels, Frescoes, and Secret Doors” (the 18th). The oldest extant example we see is the ancient Roman Library of Celsus in Ephesus, Turkey, c.135 AD, and the most recent the 2012 Liyuan Library in Jiaojiehe, China, designed by Chinese architect Li Xiaodong, its rustic twig-faced exterior hiding an elegantly finished interior.
The book amply demonstrates the changing nature of functions in library design and also changes in technology and in books themselves. We see the results of trying to discourage those things that endanger books: fire, insects, mold (or, in this book, mould), and theft. We are told that in the beautiful 18th-century libraries at Mafra and Coimbra, both in Portugal, colonies of tiny bats are used to feed on book-destructive beetles. “The only downside is that the bats leave droppings … that need to be cleaned up every morning.” Electronic surveillance systems now play the role once played by locking books away and chaining them to desks. And “damp Alexandria was one of the worst places in Egypt to choose as the site of a great library.”
Missing, intentionally we assume, is Seattle’s much-touted Central Library designed by Rem Koolhaas in 2004, and mentioned but not shown are any of Andrew Carnegie’s roughly two thousand American libraries in which so many of us first fell in love with books. But these omissions are petty compared with the wonders and delights that have been included. Of all these, my guess is that the author’s own favorite may be the marble-clad Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and finished in 1965. A full-page image of its interior, with the translucent marble furnishing a golden glow, introduces the 20th-century chapter, and Campbell says, “The result [of Bunshaft’s design], executed with great skill, is a space of almost unimaginable power and simplicity.”
Not sidestepped, however, is the topic that casts a shadow over this whole subject. In his preface the author asks “[W]ill this study serve merely as a memorial to a defunct building type?” The book’s final words answer that “… humankind has created an extraordinary variety of spaces in which to read, to think, to dream and to celebrate knowledge. As long as humankind continues to value these activities, it will continue to build places to house them. Whether they will involve books or will still be called libraries, only time will tell.” If indeed what we now know as the library disappears, this book will be the perfect reminder of all that we will have lost.
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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.
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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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman
Love Letter to a Garden
By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025
From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.
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.”
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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