Chosen Books

Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.

title a–z

Nonfiction, Architecture

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318 books

Achille Castiglioni Sergio Polano On Alice Rawsthorn’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Against Architecture Denis Hollier On Tom Coward’s Book List On Daisy Froud’s Book List On Vincent Lacovara’s Book List On Geoff Shearcroft’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006–2009 Ai Weiwei On Amanda Dameron’s Book List Add to My Reading List	AIA Guide to New York City (5th ed.) Norval White et al. On Paul Goldberger’s Book List On Deborah Berke’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Aircraft Le Corbusier On Norman Foster’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Albert Kahn: Architect of Ford Federico Bucci On Paul Marantz’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Alexander Girard Todd Oldham et al. On Jonathan Adler’s Book List On Wendy Goodman’s Notable Books of 2011 list On list of Books by Todd Oldham Add to My Reading List	American Architecture Fiske Kimball On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List Add to My Reading List
American Architecture and Urbanism Vincent Scully On Norman Foster’s Book List On Andrés Duany’s Book List On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	American Buildings and Their Architects, vol. 5: The Impact of European Modernism in the Mid-twentieth Century William H. Jordy On David Piscuskas’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Ancient Greek Architects at Work: Problems of Structure and Design J. J. Coulton On Cino Zucchi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Animal Architecture Karl von Frisch On Jeanne Gang’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Ant Farm Felicity Scott On Galia Solomonoff’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Apartments for the Affluent Alpern Andrew On Alexa Hampton’s Book List On Peter Pennoyer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Arcades Project Walter Benjamin On Akiko Fukai’s Book List On David Piscuskas’s Book List On Farshid Moussavi’s Book List On Ian Ritchie’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architectonic Space Dom Hans van der Laan On Craig Dykers’s Book List Add to My Reading List
An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles David Gebhard et al. On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architectural Ornament Brent C. Brolin On Chris Bangle’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation Dalibor Vesely On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture and Politics in Germany: 1918-1945 Barbara Miller Lane On Abbott Miller’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture: Choice or Fate Léon Krier On Witold Rybczynski’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of the City Aldo Rossi On Michael Graves’s Book List On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List On David Adjaye’s Book List On Jorge Silvetti’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture: From Prehistory to Postmodernity Marvin Trachtenberg et al. On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture in Britain 1530–1830 John Summerson On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List Add to My Reading List
The Architecture of Michelangelo James S. Ackerman On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of Community Léon Krier On Andrés Duany’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of H. H. Richardson and His Times Henry-Russell Hitchcock On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of Happiness Alain de Botton On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of Humanism: A Study in the History of Taste Geoffrey Scott On Witold Rybczynski’s Book List On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens A.S.G. Butler On Peter Pennoyer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture of Truth François Cali On Michael Maharam’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture on the Edge of Postmodernism Robert A. M. Stern et al. On Peter Pennoyer’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Architecture: The Natural and the Manmade Vincent Scully On Norman Foster’s Book List On Witold Rybczynski’s Book List On Gijs Bakker’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture and Utopia Manfredo Tafuri On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment Reyner Banham On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture Without Architects Bernard Rudofsky On Niels Diffrient’s Book List On Norman Foster’s Book List On Zack McKown’s Book List On Mikko Heikkinen’s Book List On Aric Chen’s Book List On Cino Zucchi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture: Form, Space, and Order Francis D. K. Ching On Philip Freelon’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Architecture of Ludwig Wittgenstein Bernhard Leitner On James Biber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architettura addio Alessandro Mendini On Alberto Alessi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architetture nel Segno dei Maestri Claudio Buttafava et al. On Daniel Libeskind’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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.

Order the book.

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.

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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.

Pre-order the book.

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.”

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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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