Ian Ritchie

Architect; Interior Designer; Urban Designer; Product/Industrial Designer / United Kingdom / Ian Ritchie Architects

Ian Ritchie’s Book List

I love words. They are at the root of our communication and culture. Books are central to our existence. To write without reason is difficult, to write without imagination is impossible, and memories are essential to knowing and grounding oneself at any given time. Good books have these characteristics.

The following list is a sampling from libraries at my office and home.

3 books
Gaston Bachelard

This book had become very quickly a “must read” among architectural students because it was founded upon “imagination” and “experience” of space—not its architectural physicality, but phenomenology. It gave students permission to dream new architectures based upon narratives. A seminal work.

Michel Pastoureau

The first book I read about a single color—my favorite (with 480nm wavelength being the blue I enjoy the most). It presents not the physics of blue but the origins, its history seen through the social, economic, cultural, and religious perspectives woven into a fascinating story. (Translation of Bleu, Histoire d’une Couleur.)

Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

As light had always been the material of architecture for me, and about which I was increasingly passionate, this book appealed because it presented the subtlety of light’s absence.

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