Juhani Pallasmaa

Architect / Finland / Juhani Pallasmaa Architects

Juhani Pallasmaa’s Book List

In my view, literature and the arts provide deep lessons on the essences of the world and life. Because architecture is fundamentally about life, I find the literary classics, or any fine novels and poems, to be essential books on architecture.

I recommend literature to my students rather than books on and by architects and designers. In my role as Dean of the School of Architecture at Helsinki University of Technology in the early 1990s, I used to send a list of 40 books of novels and poetry to the newly accepted students to read at the very beginning of their studies. I find that the rejection of the book as well as the lack of interest in the deep narratives of culture have catastrophic consequences for education today.

10 books
Paul Valéry

Includes Valéry’s superb dialogue on the essences of architecture, “Eupalinos, or the Architect.”

Anton Ehrenzweig

For me, the most important psychoanalytic study of artistic phenomena.

Italo Calvino

Calvino and the entire Oulipo Group are engaged in fundamental issues of architecture. Invisible Cities opens up poetic views to an imaginary urbanity.

Jorge Luis Borges

Borges is fundamentally an architectural poet and writer.

Joseph Brodsky

The first of two volumes of the Nobel Laureate poet’s subtle, learned, and inspiring essays; these are valid books on architectural theory.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated and with a foreword by Stephen Mitchell

A beautiful book that every student should read; it humbles and inspires the reader.

Joseph Brodsky

The second of two volumes of the Nobel Laureate poet’s subtle, learned, and inspiring essays; these are valid books on architectural theory.

Gaston Bachelard

A basic book on the poetics of the artistic image and architecture. Along with this book, I recommend the other studies by this author on the elements: water, earth, fire, and air.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

It is impossible to understand artistic phenomena without this philosopher’s seminal writings.

Joseph Brodsky

A book on Venice, but essentially on beauty and metaphysics.

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