Architecture: Form, Space, & Order


Francis D.K. Ching - 1979
    K. Ching. Each page has been meticulously revised to incorporate contemporary examples of the principles of form, space, and order - the fundamental vocabulary of every designer. The result is a beautifully illustrated volume that embraces today's forms and looks at conventional models with a fresh perspective. Here, Ching examines every principal of architecture, juxtaposing images that span centuries and cross cultural boundaries to create a design vocabulary that is both elemental and timeless. Among the topics covered are point, line, plane, volume, proportion, scale, circulation, and the interdependence of form and space. While this revision continues to be a comprehensive primer on the ways form and space are interrelated and organized in the shaping of our environment, it has been refined to amplify and clarify concepts. In addition, the Second Edition contains numerous new hand-rendered drawings; expanded section on openings and scale; examples of contemporary architectural design elements; expanded chapter on design principles; new glossary and index categorized by the author; and new 8 1/2 x 11 upright trim. In the Second Edition of Architecture: Form, Space, and Order, the author has opted for a larger format and crisper images. Mr. Ching has retained the style of his hand-lettered text, a hallmark of each of his books. This rich source of architectural prototypes, each rendered in Mr. Ching's signature style, also serves as a guide to architectural drawing. Doubtless, many will want this handsomevolume for the sheer beauty of it. Architects and students alike will treasure this book for its wealth of practical information and its precise illustrations. Mr. Ching has once again created a visual reference that illuminates the world of architectural form.

Philosophies of Art and Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger


Albert Hofstadter - 1976
    Because this collection makes clear the ways in which the philosophy of art relates to and is part of general philosophical positions, it will be an essential sourcebook to students of philosophy, art history, and literary criticism.

Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture


Bernard Rudofsky - 1965
    He introduces the reader to communal architecture--architecture produced not by specialists but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting within a community experience. A prehistoric theater district for a hundred thousand spectators on the American continent and underground towns and villages (complete with schools, offices, and factories) inhabited by millions of people are among the unexpected phenomena he brings to light.The beauty of primitive architecture has often been dismissed as accidental, but today we recognize in it an art form that has resulted from human intelligence applied to uniquely human modes of life. Indeed, Rudofsky sees the philosophy and practical knowledge of the untutored builders as untapped sources of inspiration for industrial man trapped in his chaotic cities.

Modern Architecture: A Critical History


Kenneth Frampton - 1980
    Now revised, enlarged and expanded, Kenneth Frampton brings the story up to date and adds an entirely new concluding chapter that focuses on four countries where individual talent and enlightened patronage have combined to produce a comprehensive and convincing architectural culture: Finland, France, Spain and Japan. The bibliography has also been reviewed and extended, making this volume more indispensable than ever.

Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan


Rem Koolhaas - 1978
    Back in print in a newly designed edition, this influential cultural, architectural, and social history of New York is even more popular, selling out its first printing on publication. Rem Koolhaas's celebration and analysis of New York depicts the city as a metaphor for the incredible variety of human behavior. At the end of the nineteenth century, population, information, and technology explosions made Manhattan a laboratory for the invention and testing of a metropolitan lifestyle -- "the culture of congestion" -- and its architecture. "Manhattan," he writes, "is the 20th century's Rosetta Stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations (Central Park, the Skyscraper), utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center, the U.N. Building), and irrational phenomena (Radio City Music Hall)." Koolhaas interprets and reinterprets the dynamic relationship between architecture and culture in a number of telling episodes of New York's history, including the imposition of the Manhattan grid, the creation of Coney Island, and the development of the skyscraper. Delirious New York is also packed with intriguing and fun facts and illustrated with witty watercolors and quirky archival drawings, photographs, postcards, and maps. The spirit of this visionary investigation of Manhattan equals the energy of the city itself.

The Lego Architect


Tom Alphin - 2015
    You'll learn about styles like Art Deco, Modernism, and High-Tech, and find inspiration in galleries of LEGO models. Then take your turn building 12 models in a variety of styles. Snap together some bricks and learn architecture the fun way!

Thinking Architecture


Peter Zumthor - 1998
    In these essays Peter Zumthor expresses his motivation in designing buildings, which speak to our emotions and understanding in so many ways, and possess a powerful and unmistakable presence and personality. This book, whose first edition has been out of print for years, has been expanded to include three new essays: "Does Beauty Have a Form?," "The Magic of the Real," and "Light in the Landscape." It has been freshly illustrated throughout with new color photographs of Zumthor's new home and studio in Haldenstein, taken specially for this edition by Laura Padgett, and received a new typography by Hannele Gronlund.

The Poetics of Space


Gaston Bachelard - 1957
    Bachelard takes us on a journey, from cellar to attic, to show how our perceptions of houses and other shelters shape our thoughts, memories, and dreams."A magical book. . . . The Poetics of Space is a prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced-and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard." -from the new foreword by John R. Stilgoe

Concise Townscape


Gordon Cullen - 1961
    'Townscape' is the art of giving visual coherence and organization to the jumble of buildings, streets and space that make up the urban environment. It has been a major influence on architects, planners and others concerned with what cities should look like.

Architecture: World's Greatest Buildings, Styles and History, Architects (Eyewitness Companions)


Jonathan Glancey - 2006
    Get the opportunity to look beyond the facade. Examine materials and technology that shape buildings, and identify the key elements and decorative features of each architectural style. This is the best definitive visual guide on architecture; it covers 5,000 years of architectural design, style, and construction from airports to ziggurats.

Questions Of Perception: Phenomenology Of Architecture


Steven Holl - 1994
    Their three individual essays presented in the book, are thematically linked; each one tries to explain the role man's perception plays in architecture and also explores phenomenal accounts. In their original introduction, the authors write: "The endless cultural limitations and contradictions inherent in artistic work, revealed with impeccable clarity and logic by the critics' deconstructive theory, are ultimately of limited use for the generation of architecture. The architect must take a position, one that necessarily has ethical consequences, and for which words, a theoretical discourse is nevertheless indispensable.Bilingually presented in English and Japanese.

Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises


Architecture For Humanity - 2006
    The physical design of our homes, neighborhoods and communities shapes every aspect of our live, yet where architects are most desperately needed, they can least be afforded. Design Like You Give a Damn is a compendium of innovative projects from around the world that demonstrate the power of design to improve lives. It offers a history of the movement toward socially conscious design, and showcases more than 80 contemporary solutions to such urgent needs as basic shelter, healthcare, education and access to clean water, energy and sanitation.

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction


Christopher W. Alexander - 1977
    It will enable making a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. ‘Patterns,’ the units of this language, are answers to design problems: how high should a window sill be?; how many stories should a building have?; how much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?More than 250 of the patterns in this language are outlined, each consisting of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seems likely that they will be a part of human nature and human action as much in five hundred years as they are today.A Pattern Language is related to Alexander’s other works in the Center for Environmental Structure series: The Timeless Way of Building (introductory volume) and The Oregon Experiment.

The Architecture of Happiness


Alain de Botton - 2006
    The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and it argues that it is architecture's task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.Whereas many architects are wary of openly discussing the word beauty, this book has at its center the large and naïve question: What is a beautiful building? It is a tour through the philosophy and psychology of architecture that aims to change the way we think about our homes, our streets and ourselves.

The Treehouse Book


Judy Nelson - 2000
    Smiles of recognition turn into grins of enthusiasm as more people discover them and dream about making their own private retreats or family play spaces. And it's nice to remind ourselves that treehouses are built into the oldest and most forgiving, living things on earth. Also, history records treehouses as being built as deliberate follies, as challenges for arboreal designers, for merrymaking, and for keeping the spirit of fairy tales alive. But treehouses can also be social places. We will visit many that were built to entertain, to hang out with friends, or as guest houses. Trees welcome all types. Master treehouse builders Peter and Judy Nelson, with David Larkin, have embarked on yet another treehouse-discovery expedition across America, this time adding the investigation of backyard playhouses to their agenda. Now, in The Treehouse Book, they reveal their findings, illustrated and described in the most complete volume yet. From casual treeshacks made from discarded lumber to multitiered feats of fancy, they found shelters representing myriad builders-interesting characters ranging from childhood fanatics grown up, to weekend carpenters, to those who want their grandkids to have the best clubhouse on the block. Detailed how-to information, including plans and drawings, is woven with behind-the-scenes tales of each structure's occupants and stunning interior and exterior photographic explorations.