Notable Design Books of 2013
Also see Notable Books: Reviews, Notable Design Books of 2012 and Notable Design Books of 2011.
Italian Liberty Style
Irene De Guttry et al.
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Mapping Manhattan
Becky Cooper
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The Most Beautiful Opera Houses in the World
Guillaume de Laubier et al.
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Experiments with Life Itself
Francisco González de Canales
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Design Forward
Hartmut Esslinger
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Moroccan Carpets and Modern Art
Jürgen Adam et al.
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Threads of Silk and Gold
Hiroko T. McDermott et al.
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Synesthetic Design
Michael Haverkamp
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The Invention of Craft
Glenn Adamson
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The Metropolitan Revolution
Bruce Katz et al.
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Eva Zeisel: Life, Design, and Beauty
Pat Kirkham
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Creative Confidence
Tom Kelley et al.
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Architectural Guide Japan
Botond Bognar
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Creative Engineering, Architecture, and Technology
Ralph Hammann
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Eileen Gray: Objects and Furniture Design
Carmen Espegel, introduction; et al.
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How Architecture Works
Witold Rybczynski
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Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990
Wim de Wit et al.
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Hall of Femmes: Lella Vignelli
Samira Boubana et al.
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Hall of Femmes: Tomoko Miho
Samira Boubana et al.
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Hello World
Alice Rawsthorn
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The Afterlife of Emerson Tang
Paula Champa
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James Turrell: A Retrospective
Michael Govan et al.
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The Light Pavilion
Christoph a. Kumpusch, ed.
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The Design Book: 1000 New Designs for the Home and Where to Find Them
Jennifer Hudson
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100 Years of Architectural Drawing
Neil Bingham
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Irma Boom: The Architecture of the Book
Irma Boom
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Everything Loose Will Land
Sylvia Lavin et al.
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A Country of Cities
Vishaan Chakrabarti
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Never Built Los Angeles
Sam Lubell
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Formica Forever
Text by Alexandra Lange, Phil Patton, and Peter York
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MVRDV Buildings
MVRDV et al.
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Architecture of Santiniketan
Samit Das
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The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon
Stephanie Dalley
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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.
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York by Steven Heller
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: October 2022
An entertaining coming-of-age memoir from Steven Heller, award-winning designer, writer, and former senior art director at the New York Times, that takes readers on a visually inspired look back at being at the center of New York’s youth culture in the 1960s and ’70s.
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.
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