I am wondering what you guys think are the most important/vital books that one should read for architecture and theory.. so far i have delerious ny, some volumes on le corbuseier, plan on getting smlxl, and have harvard shoppers guide...
what else should i look into (old classical ancient stuff to the new...dont omit anything)
It depends...
you have the glossy colorful sexy wet-dreams books about architecture and the one you need to pass the ARE exams.
First category, I would say Content by KoolASS is quite amazing, the El Croquis monographies are amazing but cost a lot, the new Phaedon Atlas of Contemporary Architecture is another bomb. Books by Bernard Tschumi are quite insightful.
For the ARE or a <<real>> architectural practice...check out Ching's book, Edward Allen's books and those by Mario Salvadori where structure will take a new sense (he used to teach structure at Harvard without formulas)
i like koolhaas's words and etc, but hes rather cynical dont you think? although hes smart as hell, (takes what is around the world and other theories and able to actualy SEE it/put it all together). i think hes sometimes a super-perversion of what is happening these days: commercialism! globalism! networks!
is there someone who is not like this but is contemporary? all i see everywhere is koolhaas...
what about that gigantic atlas of architecture?
i have no idea what it is like; i saw it at the book store but was sealed by a plastic see thru carrying case. .
if i buy it, i may build a recyclable/sustanible house with the book pages (half of canada has just been deforested)
and use the case as my work briefcase.
i recommend reading some Alain Robbe-Grillet's novels,
such as,
The Erasers, The Voyeur, Jealousy, In the Labyrinth, Project for a Revolution in New York.
just about every period of architecture has some sort of difinitive text.
so i would think that there would be lots of "bibles"
i keep chuckling over kostof, but i kind of think it is true. i loaned that book to my roommate who is studying classical music and trying to figure out how art, music, and architecture relate in that those time periods, and she's way into it.
Basic texts: the book of 20th Century manifestos edited by Ulrich Conrads was a great primer. 'Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture' by Peter Collins. Frampton's 'Modern Architecture' is always a winner. Joan Ockman's anthology of seminal texts 'Architecture Culture 1943-1968' is a must; and I think there's a followup that bring us more up to date. Christian Norberg-Schultz's 'Meaning in Western Architecture'. Diane Ghirardo's 'Architecture After Modernism'. The Cooper Union's 'Education of an Architect'. Renyner Banham's 'Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'. Tafuri's 'The Sphere and the Labyrinth'. Alan Colquhoun's 'Essays in Architectural Criticism'. Adolph Loos' 'Spoken Into the Void'. Heidegger's 'Basic Writings'.
After these overviews and collections you gotta go to individual original texts, probably in the form of individual articles. Rowe's 'Mathematics of the Ideal Villa'; Slutzky and ? on 'Transparency'; Anything by Rossi; Anything by Holl; Anything by Rem. Anything by Rudolph Wittkower. Speaking of Any - Anything in any issue of 'ANY' - or the compilations of articles that were published later. Anything from 'Assemblage'. Anything from the 'Harvard Design Magazine'. 'Praxis'. Yale's annual 'Perspecta'. The collection of articles compiled by Kaliski, Chase, and Crawford in 'Everyday Urbanism'.
It's pointless to read most West Coasters 'cause they usually won't really tell you what they're up to. The writings of the East Coast academics and the Europeans, though, can be helpful: Stan Allen, Tschumi, Stirling, Eisenman, Alvaro Siza-Vieira, Anthony Vidler, Betsky, Wigley. So much to read!
All of my graduate thesis reference texts were actually from outside the field of architecture. What non-architects are thinking about is ofter more enlightening, but only after we're grounded in the legacy of architectural theory so that we have a foundation from which to respond.
Oh, and the most important newer books: 'Cradle to Cradle' by McDonough/Braungart. 'Refabricating Architecture' by Kieran Timberlake. Not so much theoretical, but I think these are going to turn out to have been critical texts from this decade just like 'Geography of Nowhere', all the New Urbanism stuff, and 'Edge City' in the '90s.
Its quite funny...I was very critical of the "recommended" reading given out at school(s). I bought every last one, but felt severely clueless (or doubted) about architecture that wasn't it, post, neo, or high. So I started my own list, but having no clue I started shopping - reading writers views of writers, and critics views of subjects. I grew a preference of writers Tschumi, Vidler, Holl - as well preference for monographs and "position papers," however along the way my path shifted. As I increased my personal library, as well as my reading I found that my bible was still non-existent, because I was always curious about the one I hadn't bought yet.
Nonetheless the books i don't move or travel without
GA no6 Steven Holl
Tadao Ando: Complete Works (tad heavy)
Ching's Building Construction Illustrated (basis of all construction in the US?)
Mask of Medusa - Hejduk
Complexity and Contradiction - Venturi
Learning from Las Vegas - Venturi
The Complete Writings of Robert Smithson - Smithson
Mental Maps - Can't Remember
Anything Koolhaas - Especially like the discussion with students at Rice.
Anything Tufte
Form, Space, & Order - Ching
House - Kidder
Eisenman's House VI: A Client's Response - Frank
Architecture Theory since 1968 - Hays, ed.
I have found most of these helpful, and consider them valuable. I guess everyone has their own boat to float.
Education of An Architect: student work of Cooper Union
A Thousand Plateaus: Gilles Deleuze
Architectures of Time: Sanford Kwinter
Anything by Andrew Benjamin
Points + Lines: Stan Allen
To understand some of the contemporary work, and to also get the history behind contemporary architecture, you may want to read some of the greats. Usually, these texts are good to get your feet wet with, because they do not get hung up with trying to "wow" you with the latest fad in theory, and you will get a grasp on the history of architecture theory, which many people forget the importance of.
Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio
On the Art of Building in Ten Books by Leon Battista Alberti
(The above two are hard to move through.)
The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin
The Architecture of the City by Aldo Rossi
Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier
Space, Time, and Architecture by Siegfried Giedion
Modern Architecture by Kenneth Frampton
The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa by Colin Rowe
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture by Robert Venturi
The Machine in the Garden by Leo Marx
Ponts + Lines by Stan Allen
Architecture Theory Since 1968 by K. Michael Hays (reference)
This will give you a good general background. You may want to throw in other books depending on your interests (Immaterial/Ultramaterial, Cradle to Cradle, Diagram Diaries, etc). You should also have some sexy architecture books, historical to contemporary.
If you are a student, there are reference books for design that you might want to buy.
Bulding Construction Illustrated by Francis Ching
Graphic Standards (Student Edition) ed. Charles Ramsey
You might also want a book on architectural drawing. There are many out there. I would choose one that you like and teaches you how to construct perspectives, etc. Here are some examples.
Design Drawing by Francis Ching
Architectural Drawing Rendom Yee
One of the text I read this year, which I found very original and
architectural was Karl Barth's "Epistle to Romans".
Karl Barth is not an architect, he is a deceased theologian.
Karl Barth is equivalent of Corb to neo-orthodox fundamentalists
in Christian community.
If you are interested in issues of sublimity, issues of monumentality,
and issues of verticality, I think colloquial text will serve the purpose.
It's been interpreted by us self-centered architects to mean novelist/book destroying architecture, but in context it has a much more layered meaning. 'This' - the book - was waved at the Notre Dame Cathedral, implying not simply the burgeoning power of the written (and published/broadcast/mass produced) word somehow destroying the ancient stones of the building but, more importantly, their effect on the power of the mighty Catholic church they represented. Dissemination of knowledge through publishing allowed people to question what had been unquestionable and critique what had been unassailable.
"bibles" of architecture
I am wondering what you guys think are the most important/vital books that one should read for architecture and theory.. so far i have delerious ny, some volumes on le corbuseier, plan on getting smlxl, and have harvard shoppers guide...
what else should i look into (old classical ancient stuff to the new...dont omit anything)
thanks!
It depends...
you have the glossy colorful sexy wet-dreams books about architecture and the one you need to pass the ARE exams.
First category, I would say Content by KoolASS is quite amazing, the El Croquis monographies are amazing but cost a lot, the new Phaedon Atlas of Contemporary Architecture is another bomb. Books by Bernard Tschumi are quite insightful.
For the ARE or a <<real>> architectural practice...check out Ching's book, Edward Allen's books and those by Mario Salvadori where structure will take a new sense (he used to teach structure at Harvard without formulas)
enjoy
Kafka, any book on quantum physics, British poetry of last 150 years.
Make your own theory.
just get ones with lots of pretty pictures and you are all set
i like koolhaas's words and etc, but hes rather cynical dont you think? although hes smart as hell, (takes what is around the world and other theories and able to actualy SEE it/put it all together). i think hes sometimes a super-perversion of what is happening these days: commercialism! globalism! networks!
is there someone who is not like this but is contemporary? all i see everywhere is koolhaas...
"For an Architecture of Reality" - Michael Benedikt
"Poetics if Space" - Gaston Bachelard (but only in small doses, over time)
what about that gigantic atlas of architecture?
i have no idea what it is like; i saw it at the book store but was sealed by a plastic see thru carrying case. .
if i buy it, i may build a recyclable/sustanible house with the book pages (half of canada has just been deforested)
and use the case as my work briefcase.
it may be worth the hundred bucks.
i recommend reading some Alain Robbe-Grillet's novels,
such as,
The Erasers, The Voyeur, Jealousy, In the Labyrinth, Project for a Revolution in New York.
Kostof - A History of Architecture
just about every period of architecture has some sort of difinitive text.
so i would think that there would be lots of "bibles"
i keep chuckling over kostof, but i kind of think it is true. i loaned that book to my roommate who is studying classical music and trying to figure out how art, music, and architecture relate in that those time periods, and she's way into it.
'Amen' to the Benedikt.
Basic texts: the book of 20th Century manifestos edited by Ulrich Conrads was a great primer. 'Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture' by Peter Collins. Frampton's 'Modern Architecture' is always a winner. Joan Ockman's anthology of seminal texts 'Architecture Culture 1943-1968' is a must; and I think there's a followup that bring us more up to date. Christian Norberg-Schultz's 'Meaning in Western Architecture'. Diane Ghirardo's 'Architecture After Modernism'. The Cooper Union's 'Education of an Architect'. Renyner Banham's 'Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'. Tafuri's 'The Sphere and the Labyrinth'. Alan Colquhoun's 'Essays in Architectural Criticism'. Adolph Loos' 'Spoken Into the Void'. Heidegger's 'Basic Writings'.
After these overviews and collections you gotta go to individual original texts, probably in the form of individual articles. Rowe's 'Mathematics of the Ideal Villa'; Slutzky and ? on 'Transparency'; Anything by Rossi; Anything by Holl; Anything by Rem. Anything by Rudolph Wittkower. Speaking of Any - Anything in any issue of 'ANY' - or the compilations of articles that were published later. Anything from 'Assemblage'. Anything from the 'Harvard Design Magazine'. 'Praxis'. Yale's annual 'Perspecta'. The collection of articles compiled by Kaliski, Chase, and Crawford in 'Everyday Urbanism'.
It's pointless to read most West Coasters 'cause they usually won't really tell you what they're up to. The writings of the East Coast academics and the Europeans, though, can be helpful: Stan Allen, Tschumi, Stirling, Eisenman, Alvaro Siza-Vieira, Anthony Vidler, Betsky, Wigley. So much to read!
All of my graduate thesis reference texts were actually from outside the field of architecture. What non-architects are thinking about is ofter more enlightening, but only after we're grounded in the legacy of architectural theory so that we have a foundation from which to respond.
Oh, and the most important newer books: 'Cradle to Cradle' by McDonough/Braungart. 'Refabricating Architecture' by Kieran Timberlake. Not so much theoretical, but I think these are going to turn out to have been critical texts from this decade just like 'Geography of Nowhere', all the New Urbanism stuff, and 'Edge City' in the '90s.
maybe not a "bible," but Kevin Lynch's "what time is this place" is one of my favorites of all time.
Its quite funny...I was very critical of the "recommended" reading given out at school(s). I bought every last one, but felt severely clueless (or doubted) about architecture that wasn't it, post, neo, or high. So I started my own list, but having no clue I started shopping - reading writers views of writers, and critics views of subjects. I grew a preference of writers Tschumi, Vidler, Holl - as well preference for monographs and "position papers," however along the way my path shifted. As I increased my personal library, as well as my reading I found that my bible was still non-existent, because I was always curious about the one I hadn't bought yet.
Nonetheless the books i don't move or travel without
GA no6 Steven Holl
Tadao Ando: Complete Works (tad heavy)
Ching's Building Construction Illustrated (basis of all construction in the US?)
a few others but its monday morning forgive me
Mask of Medusa - Hejduk
Complexity and Contradiction - Venturi
Learning from Las Vegas - Venturi
The Complete Writings of Robert Smithson - Smithson
Mental Maps - Can't Remember
Anything Koolhaas - Especially like the discussion with students at Rice.
Anything Tufte
Form, Space, & Order - Ching
House - Kidder
Eisenman's House VI: A Client's Response - Frank
Architecture Theory since 1968 - Hays, ed.
I have found most of these helpful, and consider them valuable. I guess everyone has their own boat to float.
Education of An Architect: student work of Cooper Union
A Thousand Plateaus: Gilles Deleuze
Architectures of Time: Sanford Kwinter
Anything by Andrew Benjamin
Points + Lines: Stan Allen
To understand some of the contemporary work, and to also get the history behind contemporary architecture, you may want to read some of the greats. Usually, these texts are good to get your feet wet with, because they do not get hung up with trying to "wow" you with the latest fad in theory, and you will get a grasp on the history of architecture theory, which many people forget the importance of.
Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio
On the Art of Building in Ten Books by Leon Battista Alberti
(The above two are hard to move through.)
The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin
The Architecture of the City by Aldo Rossi
Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier
Space, Time, and Architecture by Siegfried Giedion
Modern Architecture by Kenneth Frampton
The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa by Colin Rowe
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture by Robert Venturi
The Machine in the Garden by Leo Marx
Ponts + Lines by Stan Allen
Architecture Theory Since 1968 by K. Michael Hays (reference)
This will give you a good general background. You may want to throw in other books depending on your interests (Immaterial/Ultramaterial, Cradle to Cradle, Diagram Diaries, etc). You should also have some sexy architecture books, historical to contemporary.
If you are a student, there are reference books for design that you might want to buy.
Bulding Construction Illustrated by Francis Ching
Graphic Standards (Student Edition) ed. Charles Ramsey
You might also want a book on architectural drawing. There are many out there. I would choose one that you like and teaches you how to construct perspectives, etc. Here are some examples.
Design Drawing by Francis Ching
Architectural Drawing Rendom Yee
Anything by Beatriz Colomina. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned her yet in this discussion.
ahhh read the Any's - worth a pyschadelic trip anyday...lol no pun
Philippe Duboy, LEQUEU: AN ARCHITECTURAL ENIGMA (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).
Actually read it.
Be smarter than your teachers, even.
One of the text I read this year, which I found very original and
architectural was Karl Barth's "Epistle to Romans".
Karl Barth is not an architect, he is a deceased theologian.
Karl Barth is equivalent of Corb to neo-orthodox fundamentalists
in Christian community.
If you are interested in issues of sublimity, issues of monumentality,
and issues of verticality, I think colloquial text will serve the purpose.
beatriz colomina- god yes!
also victor hugo's thing about how the novelist will destroy architecture...or soemthing like that.
'This will kill that.' from the Hunchback.
It's been interpreted by us self-centered architects to mean novelist/book destroying architecture, but in context it has a much more layered meaning. 'This' - the book - was waved at the Notre Dame Cathedral, implying not simply the burgeoning power of the written (and published/broadcast/mass produced) word somehow destroying the ancient stones of the building but, more importantly, their effect on the power of the mighty Catholic church they represented. Dissemination of knowledge through publishing allowed people to question what had been unquestionable and critique what had been unassailable.
Dissemination of what knowledge?
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