Greg Lynn
Greg Lynn’s Book List
Reflecting on my book list, I realize that I have a penchant for books from the late 19th century and then again from the late 20th century. This includes everything from the natural sciences, to novels, to philosophy. I can only suppose that my interests in typology, geometry, order, and form tied together many of these topics from the 1870s and once again from the 1970s. It’s very curious how much one learns about oneself and the world by selecting a couple of dozen tomes from one’s library.
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As was Public Enemy to the hip hop that followed, so, too, was Derrida’s formulation of the “anexact yet rigorous” to the detached signification of deconstruction that followed. Derrida’s first published work was the first and last time that I have ever enjoyed a text about geometry and philosophy simultaneously. I am as interested in this book today as I was the first day I read it as an undergraduate student.
When the physicists and developmental biologists were all using the same computer software as the architects during the mid-1990s I remember being fueled by books like this that came from the almost mythical Santa Fe Institute. This one might be the latest, greatest, and most popular of that period.
This 1894 classic was a life changer for me. While browsing through the card catalogue at the University of Illinois at Chicago where I was teaching for the first time in my life, I found this book and grabbed it only because of the title. William Bateson coined the term “symmetry breaking” and developed “Bateson’s Rule” of symmetry as a critique of Darwinian random growth. Bateson’s definition of “generic” is a highlight for me. The book was an escape route for me in regard to Colin Rowe and Rudolf Wittkower’s reductive formalism and it was a bridge to Derrida’s work on Edmund Husserl. And the author is Gregory Bateson’s father!
Cybernetic theories roam around all kinds of topics in a short collected essay format.
I would recommend this to the conspicuous consumers, including those looking to get their palaces Platinum LEED Status certified.
The chapter “The Mechanics of Fluids” imbricates philosophy, physics, mathematics, culture, and politics all in one plexus.
This book and Moby Dick are the only two I can read cover to cover over and over.
From the essay “L’informe“ (Formless): “… for academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat.”
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.
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.
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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