go out and taste a building


link

damn damn damn fuck BOTS THANK YOU !!!!!!!! I HAD NO IDEA THIS WAS BEING REPRINTED!

some dickhead STOLE my SIGNED copy of the original POLEMICS publication of this and I've been on the lookout for him ever since (with baseball bat in hand -- not to mention he's a prick otherwise)

Juhani is a great great person (from personal experience) and this will certainly make it on my list now that it's available again.

for the rest of your out there reading this: BUY THIS BOOK!

i had a tutor at school who kept going on and on about licking 'sensual walls'n'floors', cheered for pallasmaa, had a thing for aalto and a sidekick who would swear by h.'s building dwelling thinking

so i did the forgein rumpelstiskin thing for a bit (your first born, pleade?) but was placed nicely in-line in due course

Eyes of the Skin should definitely be at the top of this list.

THinking Architecture by Peter Zumthor, if still in print.

Considering the program (arch-studies w/in art program) I would also suggest:

Delirious NY (hopefully this and above 2 has you at about $100)
Learning from Las Vegas
A couple of good monographs (for arch book type as much as anything else, to introduce a typology of arch reference) - maybe Aalto, someone newer and someone older.
Towards a New Architecture, Corbusier

Theorizing a New Agenda for Architectural Theory (nesbit, good theory text book, if you're not familiar, Colquin has one also).

Ya can't forget our homeboy Frampton, A Critical History of Modern Architecture) another affordable yet substantial text-book.

some Tschumi, some Eisenmen, some more Koolhaas...

magazines. to get the ball rolling. Hopefully the department/program would be able to update them periodically?

db cheers.Yeh. A classic and essential reading. Juhani is top ten.

(just ordered my copy)

The usual suspects should include this.

...and finally from my bookshelf this.

yeah yeah, got it --

excerpts and reccomended for my architecture class;
required reading for my freshman seminar on Travel;

essential for everyone here at least, no?

got it meaning BOTS' Invisible Cities since this posted a couple entries down....

quilian - you sounds like a freakin' hippie! j/k homey

your self-promotion is amusing:
"Edward Mazria's book on Passive solar energy"

sorry I forgot Invisible Cities, top 10 along with Eyes.

and q, I heavily second Jersey Devil

Start with simple books like The Place of Houses by Charles Moore or Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. These are soild books that anybody can read. So many current architecture books are poorly written and filled with complicated vacabulary, and in desperate need of an editor who has knowledge of architecture. Neither of these books fall into that category. Venturi or Corbusier are probably appropriate but I would not purchase anything that is more theoretical then either of those 2.

'planned assaults': lars lerup.

'theoretical anxiety and design strategies in the work of eight contemporary architects': rafael moneo: pretentious title (whew!) but a good look at these architects' work.

'poetics of space': gaston bachelard

'the education of an architect': hejduk, et al.

'changing ideals in modern architecture': peter collins

'massive change': bruce mau, but also his book 'life style'. ('life style' is about graphic design so maybe you don't have to include this in your architecture budget.? ...but it's better than 'massive change' in laying out a way of developing a design process.)

yeah, the usual historians' picks: frampton, benevolo, trachtenberg, scully, banham. diane ghirardo's 'architecture after modernism' is pretty good, too.

maybe a couple by norberg-schulz ('meaning in western architecture', 'architecture: meaning and place').

i'd say 'architecture: form, space, order' by ching, but they should all be required to get a copy of that for themselves.

funny, i never found 'invisible cities' as useful as everyone else seems to. it's supposed to be about cities, it's enigmatic. so? i think of it as just sort of a curiosity.

Steven - I agree with the curiosity view. A bit like Zen... mortorcyle philosophy thing.


Some old school would be good.

and you may as well get thel set

OlDIrty...I disagree with the theory comment. Considering the nature of the program, limiting theory would make it more of an arch history course of study. Theory is absolutely essential IMO.

and I second Norburg-Schulz, phenomenology of place...and the Cooper Union/Hejduk book.

BOTS, you're (good) taste has a specificity to it. just noticing.

Q - you revealed yourself man...how's the weather in SF this time of year?

Don't know about that Aaron. It's fine to supply the fundamentals of theoretical design. But we're talking about readers that are non-architects. You have to cover the basics first. All of the books I listed are theoretical, just not particular. It is important to supply a collection of books that easily illustrate how modern architecture came about but I think you should choose books that don't require you to purchase 10 other books for cross referencing.

aaronUF - it's unfortunate that my bookshelf is weighted in favour of Western culture and philosophy. I further recomend some self analysis text.

when biblophilia becomes biblophagia , bulemically

(ingesting the belly bitter Word- the ph balance of godliness)

bookkeeping turned bookeating

I have always really enjoyed books by spiro kostof, he is a very gifted writer... his points are valid for any level of architecture, and i believe they are also very useful to new students of architecture as he writes very clearly... his book "a history of architecture" was required reading for our first year studios, and i am thankful it was

The Architecture of Humanism, Geoffrey Scott, 1914

Intentions in Architecture, Norberg-Schulz, 1968

In Praise of Shadows - Tanazaki Its only $7 new, make it happen

The Image of the City - Kevin Lynch.

Only $10 out of your budget.

.mm

I think if you are starting from scratch, Steven Ward's list holds a good foundation. Throw in a Pattern language and Seven Lamps, stuff like that and I think you'll start to really have a good beginning to an architecture collection.

And throw in the Ethical Function of Architecture...after a while.

An Eames Primer really captivated me lately. It makes clear by example the importance of thorough experimentation, model making and a studio atmosphere - many lessons to be learnt.

Ten Books on Architecture / Vitruvius
A History of Architectural Theory / Hanno-Walter Kruft
a decent translation of of De Re Aedificatoria / Alberti
Complexity and Contradiction / Venturi

everything else I'd say has been covered.

Check the magazines thread and get some subscriptions started...

I have a copy of Eleven Authors in Search of a Building. There was only a run of 4000, and I bought if for AUD$16 second hand 2 years ago. I thought it might be worth something, but I see on Amazon you can buy a used edition for $10.00. Bugger. It has an average review of 1 star also.

I actually quite like it, and I like Eisenman. But anybody else got a dud book?

Architect?: A Candid Guide to the Profession (Paperback)
by Roger K. Lewis

You can find a good used copy for $0.98

-------------------------------------------------------

The Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice (Hardcover)
by The American Institute of Architects, Joseph A. Demkin

Though this would take up 2/5 of your budget.

robert venturi "learning from las vegas"
trachtenberg "a history of architecture"
programs and manifestos on 20th century architecture
palladio "ten books of architecture"
mcdonough"cradle to cradle"
something on the work of diller and scofidio
rem koolhaas "delirious new york"
rem koolhaas "conversations with students"
something on the work of frank lloyd wright
something on the work of louis sullivan
christopher day "places of the soul"
italo calvino "invisible cities"
francis dk ching "elements of architecture"

and, absolutely

:biomimicry: by benyus

I would Suggest:

The Architecture of Bruce Goff 1904-1982
Design for the Continuous Present Edited by Pauline Saliga and
Mary Woolever, Co published by The Art Institute of Chicago and Prestel-Verlag, Munich and New York, 1995

CLASSIC ARCHITECTURE BOOKS AUTHOR YEAR
Ten Books on Architecture, Vitruvius Pollio 1st century BC

Four Books of Architecture Andrea Palladio 1570

The Seven Lamps of Architecture John Ruskin 1849

Towards a New Architecture Le Corbusier 1923

Space, Time and Architecture Sigfried Giedion, 1941

The Image of the City Kevin Lynch 1960

Townscape, Reinhold Cullen, Gordon 1961

The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs 1961

Townscape. Gordon Cullen 1961

The City in History Lewis Mumford 1961

Architecture Without Architects Bernard Rudofsky 1964

The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the U.S. Reps, John 1965

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture Robert Venturi, Vincent Scully 1966

Design of Cities Edmund N. Bacon 1967

American Architecture and Urbanism. Scully, Vincent. 1969

Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal Colin Rowe Robert Slutzky 1971

Learning From Las Vegas Venturi, Robert, et al 1972

Defensible Space Newman, Oscar 1972

Shelter Lloyd Kahn 1973

Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays Colin Rowe 1976

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction Christopher Alexander 1977

Collage City. Cambridge: The MIT Press Collin Rowe, Fred Koetter. 1978

The Timeless Way of Building Christopher Alexander 1979

Urban Space Krier, Rob 1979

A Theory of Good City Form. Kevin Lynch 1981

The Architecture of the City Aldo Rossi 1982

Good City Form Lynch, Kevin 1984

A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals Spiro Kostof 1985

American Architecture and Urbanism Vincent Scully 1988

Architecture, The Natural and the Man Made Vincent Scully 1991

The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History Spiro Kostof 1991

The Architecture of Good Intentions Collin Rowe 1994

Because it includes excerpts from so many of the lovely books listed above, and some rather wonderful and hard to find essays:

Theories and Manifestos (ed. C. Jencks)

damn buck did you just raid your school summer reading list?

All of the above with the except of Architecture for Dummies are just fine and should still have you within the 5K limit. I would however mix it up, the failure of many a school of architecture is limited by the sight that right beyond there noses. I would recommend a few titles from across the pond, anything within the top 10 list at RIBA books. That said the GA monographs are excellent, and to add some uber-technical the DETAIL books - yes the books worth about $300 but that's a steal. Hopes this helps.

I went to a school that wasa doing pretty much the same thing - we went through about 10 years of teething pains from being techie to tethie (as in theoritical) and its only now that I think the beauty of that polemic. And add a few conversations with students - its light reading but gives architecture students a glimpse at what others are doing.

On the topic of invisible cities... (it's been my toilet reading for the past few weeks, I forgot how much I enjoyed it)

What about fiction and architecture? or maybe architecturally relevant fiction...

off the top of my head:

Invisible cities

borges - virtually everything

the atlas by william vollman

the safety of objects and Music for torching by A.M. holmes

the crying of lot 49 by thomas pynchon

I'd mention gravity's rainbow and infinite jest, (which are both amazing and relevant) but they're both such masterbatory lit-orgies as to be relevant to everything and pretty much nothing at the same time.

more?

Life Between Buildings
by Jan Gehl