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You Are What You Read: A New Book Series from Designers & Books — Special Preview from Denise Scott Brown

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Denise Scott Brown and “The Architecture of Architecture Books”

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Designers & Books is planning to launch a book series called You Are What You Read: Design World Luminaries Recommend the Books That Most Inspire Them.

In each volume of the series, a different group of prominent architects and designers will profile — in words and images — one book that has been particularly significant to them, and share why it has been meaningful. Designers will be encouraged to use their pages in any way they like to present their book. To date, 39 independent bookstores nationwide are committed to making the books selected for You Are What You Read available to customers.

By embarking on this project, we hope to build a lasting testament to the mission that has guided our publication of designers’ book lists and related articles since 2010 — to connect readers to books as important sources of design inspiration and creativity.

Denise Scott Brown studying plate LXXXVII from Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett’s Plan of Chicago, 1909, “Chicago, View Looking West Over the City, Showing the Proposed Civic Center, the Grand Axis, Grant Park, and the Harbor,” painted by Jules Guerin. Photo by Jeremy Tenenbaum, who also provided production and design consultation for this article.

The following special preview features the book chosen by architect and 2016 AIA Gold Medalist Denise Scott Brown, who, with architect Robert Venturi, contributed the very first book list to Designers & Books. The book she selected is Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett’s Plan of Chicago, 1909; her essay also explores the architect and planner’s relationship to the design of the books that serve her profession. — SK

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