How to Architect


Doug Patt - 2012
    Changing the function of a word, or a room, can produce surprise and meaning. In How to Architect, Patt--an architect and the creator of a series of wildly popular online videos about architecture--presents the basics of architecture in A-Z form, starting with A is for Asymmetry (as seen in Chartres Cathedral and Frank Gehry), detouring through N is for Narrative, and ending with Z is for Zeal (a quality that successful architects tend to have, even in fiction--see The Fountainhead's architect-hero Howard Roark.)How to Architect is a book to guide you on the road to architecture. If you are just starting on that journey or thinking about becoming an architect, it is a place to begin. If you are already an architect and want to remind yourself of what drew you to the profession, it is a book of affirmation. And if you are just curious about what goes into the design and construction of buildings, this book tells you how architects think. Patt introduces each entry with a hand-drawn letter, and accompanies the text with illustrations that illuminate the concept discussed: a fallen Humpty Dumpty illustrates the perils of fragile egos; photographs of an X-Acto knife and other hand tools remind us of architecture's nondigital origins.How to Architect offers encouragement to aspiring architects but also mounts a defense of architecture as a profession--by calling out a defiant verb: architect!

The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design


Roman Mars - 2020
    The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs.Now, in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design, host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.

The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture: Comprehensive Edition


Phaidon Press - 2000
    Every building type is covered - from the largest publicly-funded art museums and airports to private houses - and each project is illustrated with colour photographs, line drawings and an analytical text.Eminent architectural critics, curators, journalists and practitioners from all parts of the globe nominate what they consider to be the most outstanding works of contemporary architecture in their regions and beyond. The resulting 1,050 buildings confirm the far-reaching influence of well-known and respected international practitioners such as Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, Sir Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & De Meuron, as well as introducing a host of lesser-known architects whose work provides an illuminating point of comparison with their famous counterparts.This magnificent book provides a unique opportunity to examine contemporary architecture as an evolving global phenomenon with all the cross-cultural influences this suggests, while illustrating the powerful diversity that is generated by climate (from the Arctic circle to the African deserts), culture (from the technologically advanced secularism of western Europe to traditional rural communities) and economics (from the wealthy post-industrial mega-economies to some of the most economically challenged countries of the developing world).The colossal volume is divided into six geographical regions with meticulous maps in each section, providing geographical orientation and an understanding of where contemporary architecture is being commissioned, designed and built. Its composition, scale, range and depth are truly unprecedented. The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture is essential reading for all those interested in gaining a true understanding of where the best contemporary architecture is located in the world.

Why Buildings Fall Down: Why Structures Fail


Matthys Levy - 1992
    The stories that make up Why Buildings Fall Down are in the end very human ones, tales of the interaction of people and nature, of architects, engineers, builders, materials, and natural forces all coming together in sometimes dramatic (and always instructive) ways.

Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design


Beatriz Colomina - 2017
    Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley offer a multilayered exploration of the intimate relationship between human and design and rethink the philosophy of design in a multi-dimensional exploration from the very first tools and ornaments to the constant buzz of social media. The average day involves the experience of thousands of layers of design that reach to outside space but also reach deep into our bodies and brains. Even the planet itself has been completely encrusted by design as a geological layer. There is no longer an outside to the world of design. Colomina's and Wigley's field notes offer an archaeology of the way design has gone viral and is now bigger than the world. They range across the last few hundred thousand years and the last few seconds to scrutinize the uniquely plastic relation between brain and artifact. A vivid portrait emerges. Design is what makes the human. It becomes the way humans ask questions and thereby continuously redesign themselves.

Louis Kahn: Essential Texts


Louis I. Kahn - 2003
    Professor Twombly's introduction and headnotes offer incisive commentary on the texts.

The Hidden Dimension


Edward T. Hall - 1966
    Introducing the science of "proxemics," Hall demonstrates how man's use of space can affect personal business relations, cross-cultural exchanges, architecture, city planning, and urban renewal.

Public Places-Urban Spaces: The Dimensions of Urban Design


Matthew Carmona - 2003
    The discussion moves systematically through ideas, theories, research and practice of urban design from a wide range of sources. It gradually builds the concepts one upon the other towards a total view of the subject.

The New Architecture and the Bauhaus


Walter Gropius - 1965
    Gropius traces the rise of the New Architecture and the work of the now famous Bauhaus and, with splendid clarity, calls for a new artist and architect educated to new materials and techniques and directly confronting the requirements of the age.

European Architecture 1750-1890


Barry Bergdoll - 2000
    Never before had the functional requirements and expressive capacities of architecture been tested so thoroughly and with such diversity of invention. Bergdoll traces this experimentation in a broad range of contexts, focusing in particular on the relation of architectural design to new theories of history, new categories of scientific inquiry, and the broadening audience for architecture in this period of transformation. Unlike traditional surveys with long lists of buildings and architects, the themes are elucidated by in-depth coverage of key buildings which in turn are situated in both their local and European context.

Art Through the Ages


Helen Gardner - 1926
    With this book in hand, thousands of students have watched the story of art unfold in its full historical, social, religious, economic, and cultural context, and thus deepened their understanding of art, architecture, painting, and sculpture. By virtue of its comprehensive coverage, strong emphasis on context, and rich, accurate art reproductions, GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES has earned and sustained a reputation of excellence and authority. So much so, that in 2001, the Text and Academic Authors Association awarded both the McGuffey and the "Texty" Book Prizes to the Eleventh Edition of the text. It is the first art history book to win either award and the only title ever to win both prizes in one year. The Twelfth Edition maintains and exceeds the richness of the Gardner legacy with updated research and scholarship and an even more beautiful art program featuring more color images than any other art history book available. The Twelfth Edition features such enhancements as more color photographs, a stunning new design, and the most current research and scholarship. What's more, the expanded ancillary package that accompanies GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES, features a wealth of tools to enhance your students' experience in the course. With each new copy of the book, students receive a copy of the ArtStudy 2.0 CD-ROM--an interactive electronic study aid that fully integrates with the Twelfth Edition and includes hundreds of high-quality digital images, plus maps, quizzes, and more.

World Mythology


Roy Willis - 1993
    A New York Public Library Outstanding Reference BookFilled with more than 500 color photographs, charts, maps, and line drawings, this is an incomparable guide to the world's most important mythological traditions.

The Americans


Robert Frank - 1958
    There is no question that Robert Frank's The Americans is the most famous and influential photography book ever published. It was 1959 when the book first came out: a series of deceptively simple photographs that Frank took on a trip through America in '55 and '56, pictures of normal people, everyday scenes: lunch counters, bus depots, cars, and the stangely familiar faces of people we don't quite know but have seen somewhere. They are pictures that saw the "American way of life" as we hadn't yet quite been able to see it ourselves, photographs that condensed the entire life of a nation in classic images that still speak to us today, forty years and several generations later.

The Art-Architecture Complex


Hal Foster - 2011
    He identifies a “global style” of architecture—as practiced by Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano—analogous to the international style of Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies. More than any art, today’s global style conveys both the dreams and delusions of modernity. Foster demonstrates that a study of the “art-architecture complex” provides invaluable insight into broader social and economic trajectories in urgent need of analysis.From the Trade Paperback edition.

History of Art


H.W. Janson - 1962
    In the 1st edition, published in 1962, he spoke to that perennial reader he gently called "the troubled layman." His opening paragraph revealed his sympathy: "Why is this supposed to be art?" he quoted rhetorically. "How often have we heard this question asked--or asked it ourselves, perhaps--in front of one of the strange, disquieting works that we are likely to find nowadays in the museum or art exhibition?" Keeping that curious, questioning perspective in mind, he wrote a history of art from cave painting to Picasso that was singularly welcoming, illuminating & exciting. Sojourning thru this book, a reader is offered every amenity for a comfortable trip. Because he never assumes knowledge on the part of the reader, a recent immigrant from Mars could comprehend Western art from this text. The only assumption the Jansons have made is that with a little guidance everyone can come to understand the artifacts that centuries of architecture, sculpture, design & painting have deposited in our paths. Countless readers have proven the Jansons right & found their lives enriched in the process.