Witold Rybczynski
Books Every Architect Should Read
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An anti-modern architectural rant. Krier’s language is inflammatory but his drawings are delightful, and the combination of the two produces the best kind of indignant propaganda. His ideas about urbanism, especially, are compelling.
Scott (1884–1929) was a scholar and garden designer who worked on Bernard Berenson’s garden at I Tatti, and wrote this lovely evocation of the Baroque that contains important insights into the nature of architecture and how buildings touch us.
If you never took Scully’s course at Yale, or had the privilege of hearing him lecture, this book is a good substitute. This is not a conventional history, rather a series of essays that examine the intersection of the built environment and the natural world: Greek temples, Italian urbanism, French classical gardens.
Architects should know history, not only the history of buildings but also the history of interiors—not at all the same thing. Thornton, of the Victoria and Albert Museum, provides a magisterial survey, examining the architectural shell as well as the loose furnishings within, and illustrating each period with contemporaneous paintings, drawings and (for the latter part of the nineteenth century) photographs.
Collins was my architecture professor at McGill, and this wide-ranging history of architectural ideologies examines the 200 years from 1750 to 1950. For three years I memorized buildings and architects, assisted by a well-thumbed copy of Bannister Fletcher. Collins’s quirky but razor-sharp intelligence is apparent throughout Changing Ideals, which punctures many modernist dogmas. The “gastronomic analogy” still fascinates.
Venturi, who knows a lot of architectural history and has an extremely good eye, brings the past to life. His lucid book predates the descent into obfuscatory jargon that bedevils most theoretical texts. Still a stimulating read, even if the movement it helped to launch—postmodernism—fizzled out.
Art historians merely describe the appearance of buildings, whereas Ford shows how they were actually built. A combination of philosophy and technological history, this book discusses iconic buildings of early modern architecture, from H. H. Richardson to Frank Lloyd Wright. The comparison of the (sophisticated) building technology of Beaux-Arts architects with the (crude) details of the early modernists is particularly fascinating. A companion volume covers the period 1928–1980.
I have to include something by the old wizard. Wright’s own books are flawed by his self-promotional histrionic style, but he produced many important essays and lectures, which are gathered here together in one volume. It spans from “The Art and Craft of the Machine” (1901) to “The Natural House” (1954), which remains a practical guide by one of the great house builders of all time.
You don’t have to agree with the author’s philosophy—or share his taste in architecture—to appreciate this compact and sensible distillation of architectural wisdom. The roughly 250 patterns cover towns and neighborhoods as well as buildings. Something every young architect should own.
Unwin raised town planning to the level of an art. His wide-ranging urban manual is full of useful information and encapsulates a lifetime of practice. Should be read in conjunction with Camillo Sitte’s The Art of Building Cities. I wish more new urbanist planners would read these books and broaden the palette of what is sometimes a rather narrow range of solutions.
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Understanding Understanding: New from Richard Saul Wurman
Understanding Understanding
by Richard Saul Wurman
Publisher: Richard Saul Wurman and Jack Dangermond
Published July 30, 2017
From the author of Information Architecture, who says about his newest book: “This is a book for people to dip into, as they would walk in and out of the room of a dinner party and embrace their interests. . . Before the rules on how to organize information, before you learn grammar, before you work hard at expanding your vocabulary and go through the exercises of parallel meanings of things as using a Thesaurus and as one writes papers in class, before any learning one must understand.”
The Hard Life by Jasper Morrison
The Hard Life
by Jasper Morrison
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published in US: May 22, 2017
Photographs taken by designer Jasper Morrison of objects in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal. “The objects photographed and described may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest. The Hard Life is a continuation of Morrison’s celebration of the ordinary and offers a new perspective on his design philosophy.”
Paula Scher: Works - Order from Unit Editions
Paula Scher: Works
Editors: Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy
Design: Spin
Publisher: Unit Editions
Published April 2017
New book covering the career of of master designer Paula Scher, called “the most influential woman graphic designer on the planet.” (Ellen Lupton), This definitive, chronological visual record spans Paula’s early days in the music industry as an art director with CBS and Atlantic records; the launch of her first studio, Koppel & Scher; and her 25-year engagement with Pentagram.
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Type Tells Tales: New from Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Type Tells Tales
by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published May 30, 2017
Reveals how type can become both content and illustration, as letters take the form of people, animals, cars, or planes. With numerous illustrations by F. T. Marinetti, Bruno Munari, and Francis Picabia, among others, as well as by contemporary designers such as Richard Eckersley, John Hendrix, Maira Kalman, and Corita Kent.
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