13 Architecture and Design Books to Add to Your Reading List

Now that we’re in the middle of the year, what’s the best time to prioritize your reading list? Whether you’re interested in the history of interior design, the relationship between architecture and health, or learning more about forgotten architects of the 20th century, Metropolis editors have handpicked a variety of current and upcoming titles that are sure to get you through 2021.

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Bohemia Brewer: The Architect, His Circle, and Mid-Century Homes in New England

Written by James Crump, Monacelli Press, 248 pages, Available Sep 14, 2021

Illustrated with a collection of contemporary and historical photographs as well as rarely seen documents, Bohemia Brewer It reviews an often overlooked corner of the work of the modernists. In addition to designing brutal public and commercial buildings during the 1950s through the 1970s, Breuer designed a group of homes for friends in Connecticut and Massachusetts, many of whom were artists and intellectuals themselves. Although there is no shortage of materials available in Breuer’s furniture design, architecture and influence, Crump uses the architect’s residential projects to weave the story of an artistic environment that includes such notables as Alexander Calder, Arthur Miller, Francine du Plessix Gray, Philip Roth, and William Styron.

The turning point in architectural design: a historical scenario for the future

Written by Helmut C. Schulitz, Hermer Publishing, 240 p

This illustrated volume explores the history of construction and its relationship to technology. With innovations like CAD and other technologies, architects can create shapes that were previously unimaginable. But does focusing on form detract from function, context, and structure? The turning point in architectural design He argues that technology alone is not the tipping point; Technology alone cannot tackle global challenges such as resources and energy. The change in the architectural design must come first.

Made by a Woman: Great Designers

Written by Jane Hall, Phaedon, 264 p

Featuring more than 200 designers from over 50 countries, Made by a Woman: Great Designers is a comprehensive look at product designers from Aino Aalto to Sandrine Eben de Zorzi. Writer Jane Hall, Lena Bo Bardi Fellow of the British Council and founding member of Assemble, organized the book into four design categories: product, furniture, textiles and lighting. You write in the preface, “made a woman It tells the story of design as an account of suffrage, education, and employment, but also speaks of the importance of technological innovation, global migration, and economic struggle.”

Epidemiological urbanization: infectious diseases in global cities

Edited by Muhammed Greibur and Caitlin DeKlerk, Intelligent Books, 408 p

The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the vulnerabilities, as well as the resilience of modern cities. But questions remain about the long-term impact of COVID as reopening continues. To better understand what lies ahead, we must look at how past epidemics and epidemics have shaped urban life and landscapes. This is the idea behind Greibur and Declerc’s book. It presents dozens of case studies of cities that have survived similar crises around the world and throughout history, revealing the links between cities and disease.

Sandfuture

Written by Justin Bell, MIT Press, 256 p

Who was Minoru Yamasaki? The architect’s most influential, but often forgotten, buildings were the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pruitt-Igoe Apartments in St. Louis, both of which were spectacularly destroyed on live television for 30 years. Rather than a straightforward autobiography, Bell takes Yamasaki’s life as a springboard to a narrative exploration of the changing image of architects in literature and film, and the social reality of how and for whom cities and buildings are designed.

Mid-Century Master: The William F Cody Building

By Catherine Cody, Joe Luria and Don Choi, Forward by Wim De Witt, Monacelli Press, 312 pp

From Frank Sinatra’s 1953 Rancho Mirage condo to the exclusive designs of many California country clubs, William F. Cody has pioneered American “desert modern” architecture. Mid-Century Master It is the first comprehensive survey of the modernist architect’s life and work, including an index of all his known projects from 1943-1975. Written by the team that organized the exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum of Architecture and Design Fast Forward: The Engineering of William F. Cody.

the Health engineering: hospital design and building dignity

Written by Michael B. Murphy, Jr. with Jeffrey Mansfield and Mass Design Group, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 272 pages

Who better to write the history of hospitals than MASS Design Group? The company was named A Metropolis Game Changer in 2011 for her work at the Butaro District Hospital in Rwanda and has been one of the strongest architectural voices in healthcare since then. In this book, the company searches for the biggest historical figures who have addressed the engineering of health, from Florence Nightingale to Louis Kahn. What stands out is not just a modular study but a deeper look at how buildings and the human condition shape each other.

Interior Design Atlas

By Dominic Bradbury, Phaedon, 432 p

Author Dominic Bradbury wrote in the preface Atlas of interior design. Phaidon’s latest volume is a global, geographically organized survey of more than 400 residential interiors from the 1940s to today. Organizing projects through state and regional maps, the book allows readers to track and compare design influences around the world through projects by professionals including Peter Marino, Kelly Behon, Faye Tugood, Andre Fo, and more.

Echo chambers: Architecture and the idea of ​​acoustic space

Written by Joseph L. Clark, University of Pittsburgh Press, 320 p

Echo rooms It is a history of acoustics illustrating how architects since the Enlightenment have sought to represent and control how interior spaces sound, informed by developments in music, performance, and acoustic culture. Clarke, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto, explores these connections in the architecture of Pierre Bate, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Carl Ferdinand Langans, and Le Corbusier, as well as the acoustic theories of Athanasius Kircher, Richard Wagner, and others. Along the way, it makes the issue of acoustics a mystical and scholarly architectural component.

No Compromise: The Works of Florence Knoll

Written by Ana Araujo, Princeton Architectural Press, 208 p

Ana Araujo is an architect, educator and researcher who currently leads a design studio at the Architectural Association in London. Her latest book No Compromise: The Works of Florence Knoll Take a closer look at Knoll’s career from student to professional as her motto was “No compromise at all.” Araujo writes, “Most of Florence Knoll’s novels tend to take her works and statements at face value, ignoring her contradictions and prejudices.” Instead, this small volume looks at her work “through an understanding of the compromises made by Florence Knoll” in order to evaluate her work from a different angle.

The Graphic Life: Celebrating Places, Telling Stories, and Making Icons

By Michael Gerrick, With Foreword By Moshe Safdie, And Foreword By Paul Goldberger, Photo Publication, 520 Pages

All too often, the graphic designers who create the signs, branding, and visual language that help us make our way in the world are allowed to remain anonymous. Not so with Jerick. A graphic designer whose work has included everything from the AirTrain Identity, which takes passengers to and from the subway and buses in New York to JFK, to signage for the new Guggenheim site in Abu Dhabi. With 284 lush color illustrations, this volume shows the work of a contemporary graphic designer actively recreating the visual identity of the world in which we live.

With Open Eyes: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932

Edited by Andrew Blofelt, Cranbrook Museum of Art, 2021, 624 p

Few schools of art, design, and architecture left their mark on mid-century modernism as the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield, Michigan. This 624-page masterpiece traces some of its national and international influence through the stories of 200 alumni, with special attention to women and people of color. The profiles are peppered with articles and timelines that trace the school’s 79-year history. Thanks to the painstaking research of the 40 curators who contributed to this book, we have the opportunity to discover underappreciated geniuses and see famous legends with fresh eyes.

non-extractive Architecture, Vol. 1, when design without burnout

Edited by Space Caviar, Sternberg Press, 296 p

Most buildings start in the ground: metals mined for structural elements, mud turned into bricks, trees felled for wood, oil turned into plastic, with all the attendant negative impacts on the environment and society that occur as far as possible from the construction site. With this new book, Italian design research studio Space Caviar stresses that this does not always have to be the case. This book brings together perspectives from around the world on a new form of architecture that doesn’t mince without concern for results. It goes beyond the idea of ​​reducing carbon emissions to delve deeper into the social and economic systems that depend on extraction, and asks how we can turn them around.

This article was originally published in Metropolis.