One Book and Why: Architect Thom Mayne Recommends . . .
By Thom Mayne April 6, 2023This month on “One Book and Why,” architect Thom Mayne recommends Italo Calvino’s reflection on what makes great writing, Six Memos for the Next Millennium.
At the time of his death in 1985, the celebrated Italian author Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities) was at work on six lectures on the qualities in writing he most valued, and which he believed would define the century to come. In Six Memos, Calvino devotes one “memo” each to the concepts of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity (the author died before completing the last memo — on consistency). — Designers & Books
The book’s enduring relevance in the “next millennium” Calvino anticipated comes across in these thoughts from Mayne:
“It’s a book I’ve returned to for 30 years. Calvino begins with beginning itself: a human desire for establishing immeasurable goals and obsession with infinite possibilities; a visual intelligence built by our perceptions of the world and further teased by our imagination; the digressions inherent in the creative journey (festina lente, ‘hurry slowly’) and abstraction as a method requiring exactitude, precision and discipline; a fastidiousness for measuring the chaos around us and excitement in connecting the complexity of quotidian life; an envelopment of social, cultural, and ecological networks that are encyclopedic yet unfinished—fragmented yet whole—that we can follow to multiple ends. Together, enmeshed, they propose ‘lightness’ as a form of openness and engagement.”
SIX MEMOS FOR THE NEXT MILLENNIUM
By Italo Calvino
Translated by Patrick Creagh
Paperback, 176 pages, 2016
Mariner Press/HarperCollins (first published in English by Harvard University Press, 1988)
See other designers who recommend this book.
Find previous installments of “One Book and Why” on Designers & Books. In this occasional series, we ask designers to recommend one book that has inspired them recently — and why it did.
Announcements
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture by Moshe Safdie
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture
By Moshe Safdie
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Published: September 2022
One of the world’s greatest and most thoughtful architects recounts his extraordinary career and the iconic structures he has built—from Habitat in Montreal to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—and offers a manifesto for the role architecture should play in society.
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.
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.
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.”
Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman
Women Holding Things
By Maira Kalman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: October 2022
In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex Kalman created a small, limited-edition booklet, “Women Holding Things,” which featured select recent paintings by Maira, accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. The booklet quickly sold out. Now, the Kalmans have expanded that original publication into an extraordinary visual compendium. We see a woman hold a book, hold shears, hold children, hold a grudge, hold up, hold her own. In visually telling their stories, Kalman lays bare the essence of women’s lives—their tenacity, courage, vulnerability, hope, and pain.
Popular NowWeekMonth
- One Book and Why: Graphic Designer Stefan Sagmeister Recommends . . .
- Quote of the Day: Deborah Berke & Begin Again
- One Book and Why: Architect Thom Mayne Recommends . . .
- One Book and Why: Graphic Designer Louise Fili Recommends . . .
- One Book and Why: Architect Steven Holl Recommends . . .
Recent Articles


