I recommend the "Architecture of Happiness" by Alain De Botton, it will give you a totally different perspective from what they teach you in school.

Some of my favs from undergrad were:

Eyes of the Skin by Juhani Pallasmaa
Thinking Architecture by Peter Zumthor
Seeing Like a Sate by James Scott
Emergence: the connected lives of Ants brains and cities by Steven Johnson
Theoretical Anxiety by Rafael Moneo
Journal like Perspecta (Yale) Thresholds (MIT) or footprint (TU Delf)
The Endless City by Ricky Burdett
The Landscape Urbanism Reader By Charles Waldheim
The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

and of course Archinect.

Architecture splinters into hundreds of disciplines, because of this you'll find that most great books on architecture are not architectural books.

For a psychological/emotional perspective, Architecture of Happiness is a great one, along with Edward T. Hall's 'Hidden Dimension', John T. Eberhard's Architecture and Neuroscience, Steven Pinker's Blank Slate, lots of work from environment-behavior scientists.

Many of my favorites are narrated collections of an architects work :

Bernard Tschumi's Event Cities
Diller and Scofidio's Flesh
Herman Hertzberger's Lessons for Students in Architecture
Lebbeus Woods Anarchitecture (also has a great blog @ [url=www.lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com[/url])

Great Magazines : Harvard Design Review, El Croquis, Perspecta, Detail...

There are also several threads that have discussed this in the past.

Just re-read For An Architecture Of Reality by Michael Benedikt on Christmas Day.

It's like a long cool glass of water on a peaceful beach, every time I read it.

are you taking any non-arch courses? some of the best books/articles I've read where in my anthro, education, government, computer science, philosophy, and psychology courses... just as, if not more, influential on my thinking than anything we were presented with in our arch theory courses...

also - gives you a better critical perspective when reading architect-written work as they sometimes tend to present concepts as overly simplified or muddled.

it depends on what you are into - if you want to expand your thinking, then I'd recommend working through a few years of back issues of the university design mags (as far back as you can stand) - since you are at NEU - and I know that they have an extremely limited arch library - i'd make a few trips to the GSD or MIT arch libraries (or even the BAC - which has a decent selection of journals in their library) - they'll all let you in with a student ID - but won't let you check anything out.

if you want to hone in on a few particular topics, then archinect is a great place to ask. There is a ton of stuff out there and it's really difficult to discern what is worth reading or even know where to start.

For journals/magazines, these are two of my favorites:
http://www.praxisjournal.net/
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-301511.html
Each issue explores a particular theme or idea and will offer a solid introduction to the topic, while introducing concepts and authors that you can then look into further if you're interested.

Detail magazine of course is also nice for the, um detail drawings, while El Croquis generally compiles the best collections on your favorite starchitects. If you're a fan of OMA, H+dM, Zaha, Saana, etc. then these issues/books are very nice resources.

I also enjoy some of the magazines like Mark, A10, A+U. They aren't so much filled with theory or text, but are a good way to keep an eye on contemporaary architecture world-wide.

1. The Dynamics of Architectural Form
2. The Mathematics of the ideal Villa and Other Essays
3. Modern Architecture - A Critical History
4. Towards a New Architecture
5. Space, Time and Architecture
6. S,M,L,XL

"SIFTINGS" JENS JENSEN

"DEPTH OF FIELD" JENS JENSON

"DESIGN WITH NATURE" IAN MCARG (SP)

Playboy

Millard Meiss
Panofsky
Empathy Space and Form
Art Bulletin circa 1930
Roberto Bolano
Yves Alain Bois (even though he doesn't know his ass from a paintbrush)

It's interesting that our parametric brothers and sisters don't know much about art history

If you're going to design like you give a damn you should at least learn how to design.


Good Night Moon.

William Carlos Williams
(beautiful thing!)

Any of the ULI development books. All these theory books are 'fun', but won't help you much after school (I have never once looked at the pile of outrageously expensive books I have, thankfully, conveniently 'forgot' at my parents home!).

Read some business books, too. Nothing gets built, anywhere, without the business.


I've loved the fluffy inspiration as much as the next guy and read more than my share, but I was also never fully made aware of how it is purely a self indulgence, not a practical endeavor.

I agree.

The only practical use of a history book is to throw it at a poet.

What about "On Adam's House in Paradise"?

The Screwtape Letters?

The Grapes of Wrath?

The Bible? King James version and not NIV

awesome responses thanks guys

Morris: "History of Urban Form: Before the Industrial Revolutions"

From a beginner wanting to understand the multi-faceted evolution of cities in human history, it's a salient primer. To the urban scholar, it's certainly a reference book worth citing when writing, thinking and also exploring cities first-hand. Though it's not a guide book, I take it with me and found it inspiring to get a mix between specific city-histories and the results: of which propel the reader to engage the text to synthesize and think objectively the nature of comparative urban geneologies. Excellent footnotes abound and well-cited bibliography help illuminate secondary points and serve as parenthetical addendums. Overall, a solid work of objective, analytical scholarship that will not disappoint.

From the concrete way of categorizing cities, we move on to the more ephemeral means by which we experience cities through the 4th dimension of time. These phenomenons exist, if only temporary, to engross us into the activity and impact that individuals and groups have on the activation of"place." I risk error in interpreting the work, but Grady Clay's books help gives an eye-opening, nay, mind-expanding method into the categorical nature and power of the more-unique diagrams that arise out of usage patterns in the city and town. It's less akin to the static objective realities, such as figure ground relationships, and more relevant to how activity occurs around those built environs. I admire his lexicon-defining categories: like Riot Zones, Parade Routes…you know…

for journals I like Radical Philosophy-

Check out 'Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books'