
Julie Iovine
An Architecture Critic Commits
I look to books for everything imaginable, and unimaginable. They shape my outlook, but also throw open spaces I could never have found on my own. The chance to consider an essential list is wonderfully engrossing, but also a bit of a nasty parlor trick. Must I commit?
I am currently very aware of my books—about 200 linear feet of them— as I prepare to move and at last honor them with real built-in bookcases rather than stack them two deep in no particular order on saggy self-builts from IKEA. Currently I can locate desired books only through vague divining as they are assorted into broadly personal interests, such as Monographs Sent by Publicists (bottom shelf); College-Era Masterpiece paperbacks (top and out-of-reach shelf); Intriguing Theory that I should read (eye-level shelf); Urban History (bulk of middle shelves), from Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890 to 1940 past Robert Moses and the Modern City to the Endless City; Fabulous Women, as in Sarah Churchill, Madame de Stael, Stendhal… (far right, by light); Wars (a hobby), and so forth.
I am surprised at the uniform consensus regarding what books every architect should shelve. And I have tried here to suggest books from farther afield. These are books that I go back to for reference when writing or for delight when seeking inspiration; these are a few of the books that have made me think twice about space and place or that have created worlds palpable enough to tilt or even realign my axis of assumptions.
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Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture by Robert A.M. Stern
Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture
By Robert A.M. Stern
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2022
Architect, historian, and educator Robert A. M. Stern presents a personal and candid assessment of contemporary architecture and his fifty years of practice.
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.”
Buildings in Print: 100 Influential and Inspiring Illustrated Architecture Books by John Hill
Buildings in Print: 100 Influential and Inspiring Illustrated Architecture Books
By John Hill
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
Published: June 2021
This unique volume by the founder of the hugely influential architecture blog A Daily Dose of Architecture showcases the best illustrated architecture books ever published with an informed, personal, and engaging take on what makes the title unique and indispensable.
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