Great architecture books
Since architecture, as a topic, has been fairly lacking in this page as of late, I figured I'd give you a second outlet for architectural literature, in my list of the first five books every person should read about architecture. This list is pointed towards people with little specific background in architecture but an intense interest in contemporary culture and building.
1) Francis D.K. Ching, A Visual Dictionary of Architecture. This is a graphic-based book which explains different aspects of architectural styles, the building process, design concepts and tools, etc. It's about 200 pages in a large page format and illustrated throughout in pencil by Ching, one of the greatest architecture professors of our time. It's a beautiful book, and although it's given to EVERY first year undergrad student as mandatory reading, I still constantly flip through it for answers and inspiration.
2) Architecture in the Twentieth Century, Taschen. This is a fairly inexpensive, two-book series on modern architecture throughout the world from the past 100 years. Some great photographs, and it's quite extensive. Very good to have around the house and flip through to educate on a rainy Saturday.
3) Ali Rahim, Catalytic Formations. My book. A friend and I created all of the projects in this monograph for Ali Rahim. It took away 9 months of my life, but it was a labor of love, I'm immensely glad I contributed to this project and am extremely proud of it. In my humble opinion, it contains some of the most beautiful computer generated architectural images you'll ever see in your life. A very contemporary philosophy for creating architecture and culture in the technological age goes along and helps explain and describe all the projects.
4) Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture. A beautifully written book by one of the leading architects from Switzerland, about how everything, but especially little things, details, contribute to how one experiences architecture. It goes through smells, ergonomic properties of doornobs, the power of memory, and much more. It's a very short, small, thin book which looks terrific and will fit in any small travel bag or man purse.
5) Neil Denari, Gyroscopic Horizons. This is a monograph of Neil Denari's work until around 2001. He was a teacher of mine at Sci-Arc, a brilliant thinking and theoritician and a genuine terrific guy. The book is filled with architecture trying to be machines so complicated that they become simple, and as colorful as you can get while still being sterile....discuss.
So I hope some of you will use this list as a jump off point, even to search in amazon to begin an endless architecture browsing session.
1) Francis D.K. Ching, A Visual Dictionary of Architecture. This is a graphic-based book which explains different aspects of architectural styles, the building process, design concepts and tools, etc. It's about 200 pages in a large page format and illustrated throughout in pencil by Ching, one of the greatest architecture professors of our time. It's a beautiful book, and although it's given to EVERY first year undergrad student as mandatory reading, I still constantly flip through it for answers and inspiration.
2) Architecture in the Twentieth Century, Taschen. This is a fairly inexpensive, two-book series on modern architecture throughout the world from the past 100 years. Some great photographs, and it's quite extensive. Very good to have around the house and flip through to educate on a rainy Saturday.
3) Ali Rahim, Catalytic Formations. My book. A friend and I created all of the projects in this monograph for Ali Rahim. It took away 9 months of my life, but it was a labor of love, I'm immensely glad I contributed to this project and am extremely proud of it. In my humble opinion, it contains some of the most beautiful computer generated architectural images you'll ever see in your life. A very contemporary philosophy for creating architecture and culture in the technological age goes along and helps explain and describe all the projects.
4) Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture. A beautifully written book by one of the leading architects from Switzerland, about how everything, but especially little things, details, contribute to how one experiences architecture. It goes through smells, ergonomic properties of doornobs, the power of memory, and much more. It's a very short, small, thin book which looks terrific and will fit in any small travel bag or man purse.
5) Neil Denari, Gyroscopic Horizons. This is a monograph of Neil Denari's work until around 2001. He was a teacher of mine at Sci-Arc, a brilliant thinking and theoritician and a genuine terrific guy. The book is filled with architecture trying to be machines so complicated that they become simple, and as colorful as you can get while still being sterile....discuss.
So I hope some of you will use this list as a jump off point, even to search in amazon to begin an endless architecture browsing session.
Labels: Architecture
posted by darkred at 7:37 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home