we recently moved to a new city for work. When I was packing my library I saw some progression of architectural thought throughout the years. It got me thinking about the books that have influenced me throughout my education.
I ended up taking a bunch of books I haven’t looked at for years and donating them to my schools library.
I made sure to keep these:
1. Pamphlet Architecture 14: mosquitoes
2. Raimund Abraham [un]built
3. Combinatory Urbanism
I spent lots of time flipping through these looking for answers. What books have helped, or continue to do in your education/careers?
Donna Sink
Aug 22, 18 1:56 pm
I constantly go back to For An Architecture of Reality by Michael Benedikt. It's my touchstone.
Thermal Delight in Architecture by Lisa Heschong is similar but more technical and wonderful.
Poetics of Space by Bachelard: I go to it for the occasional quote, but I haven't actually read it since grad school. It's good, and important, but it's like a really heavy dessert; I only want a bite or two at a time.
I LOVE 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick. It helps me calm down when a project is making me nutty.
Erik Evens
Aug 22, 18 3:34 pm
By far the biggest influence on me philosophically, long out of print and forgotten, although used copies can be snatched up on Amazon:
Complicity and Conviction: Steps toward an Architecture of Convention, by William Hubbard. MIT Press, 1986
It's such an insightful argument for how architecture and architects can and must engage the public taste, without pandering to it. Hubbard uses models such as games, typography, and the law as examples of how this can be accomplished.
I go back and re-read it every few years, and I always buy up copies when I can to give them to colleagues and students. I reached out to Mr. Hubbard a few years back, to tell him how highly I regarded his book, and to suggest we might be able to put together a new edition of it. He seemed so pleased that I loved it. He said that he still gets a report from Amazon when anyone buys used copies of it, and he said, "So you're the guy that buys 3-4 copies every year or two!"
citizen
Aug 22, 18 4:00 pm
Awesome story... I love that. Oh, and I'd like to see that book now.
archanonymous
Aug 22, 18 4:50 pm
Reiser and Umemoto's Atlas of Novel Tectonics... I come back to it over and over.
curtkram
Aug 22, 18 8:46 pm
Harry Potter.
seriously, the designers i work with believe in magic more than they believe in engineering, so it helps :)
archanonymous
Aug 23, 18 9:03 am
haha. And then they make you feel like your "just a technician" when you propose feasible solutions.
spacefragments
Aug 23, 18 1:44 am
1.KENGO KUMA Making A Connection
2.PETER EISENMAN Exploring the Possibilities of Form 3.JUHANI PALLASMAA The Eyes of the Skin
Non Sequitur
Aug 23, 18 9:37 am
I stopped reading architecture/design books mid-way through grad school. I switched to hard science, journalism and biographies and never really went back.
with that said... I still hold the following with high regards:
Civilia: The End of Sub Urban Man
Towards a ScientificArchitecture & Prodoma (Yona Friedman)
Invisible Cities
High-Rise (JG Ballard)
Planet of Slums (Davis)
Content (OMA/AMO)
Not sure what my library would like now if I had continued collecting books. I see it more as a timecapsule that formed how I see things in my particular POV.
msparchitect
Aug 23, 18 1:24 pm
I've given up on the monographs i used to buy in college. The only books I really appreciate now that I've been out a while:
On Architecture - Ada Louise Huxtable
Architect + Entrepreneur - Eric Reinholdt
Architect & Developer - James Petty
but most of all:
The Designer's Eye - Brent Brolin
Wilma Buttfit
Aug 23, 18 3:37 pm
theory -> construction -> code -> contracts -> theory -> construction -> code -> contracts -> repeat faster and faster and faster till combined
we recently moved to a new city for work. When I was packing my library I saw some progression of architectural thought throughout the years. It got me thinking about the books that have influenced me throughout my education.
I ended up taking a bunch of books I haven’t looked at for years and donating them to my schools library.
I made sure to keep these:
1. Pamphlet Architecture 14: mosquitoes
2. Raimund Abraham [un]built
3. Combinatory Urbanism
I spent lots of time flipping through these looking for answers. What books have helped, or continue to do in your education/careers?
I constantly go back to For An Architecture of Reality by Michael Benedikt. It's my touchstone.
Thermal Delight in Architecture by Lisa Heschong is similar but more technical and wonderful.
Poetics of Space by Bachelard: I go to it for the occasional quote, but I haven't actually read it since grad school. It's good, and important, but it's like a really heavy dessert; I only want a bite or two at a time.
I LOVE 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick. It helps me calm down when a project is making me nutty.
By far the biggest influence on me philosophically, long out of print and forgotten, although used copies can be snatched up on Amazon:
Complicity and Conviction: Steps toward an Architecture of Convention, by William Hubbard. MIT Press, 1986
It's such an insightful argument for how architecture and architects can and must engage the public taste, without pandering to it. Hubbard uses models such as games, typography, and the law as examples of how this can be accomplished.
I go back and re-read it every few years, and I always buy up copies when I can to give them to colleagues and students. I reached out to Mr. Hubbard a few years back, to tell him how highly I regarded his book, and to suggest we might be able to put together a new edition of it. He seemed so pleased that I loved it. He said that he still gets a report from Amazon when anyone buys used copies of it, and he said, "So you're the guy that buys 3-4 copies every year or two!"
Awesome story... I love that. Oh, and I'd like to see that book now.
Reiser and Umemoto's Atlas of Novel Tectonics... I come back to it over and over.
Harry Potter.
seriously, the designers i work with believe in magic more than they believe in engineering, so it helps :)
haha. And then they make you feel like your "just a technician" when you propose feasible solutions.
1.KENGO KUMA Making A Connection
2.PETER EISENMAN Exploring the Possibilities of Form
3.JUHANI PALLASMAA The Eyes of the Skin
I stopped reading architecture/design books mid-way through grad school. I switched to hard science, journalism and biographies and never really went back.
with that said... I still hold the following with high regards:
Not sure what my library would like now if I had continued collecting books. I see it more as a timecapsule that formed how I see things in my particular POV.
I've given up on the monographs i used to buy in college. The only books I really appreciate now that I've been out a while:
On Architecture - Ada Louise Huxtable
Architect + Entrepreneur - Eric Reinholdt
Architect & Developer - James Petty
but most of all:
The Designer's Eye - Brent Brolin
theory -> construction -> code -> contracts -> theory -> construction -> code -> contracts -> repeat faster and faster and faster till combined
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