Top Architecture books curated by experts

The details can make a room. The bullnose edge of a marble countertop. The wood grain and color of the flooring. The particular pleat of the drape. Amber Lewis, the esteemed designer known for her signature California-inspired style, obsesses over the tiniest of features to create her eclectic, …

The Poetics of Space (1958) explores how imagination fills a space with spirit and meaning, and reciprocally, how the space evokes feeling, memory, and fantasy in its occupant's imagination.

A "gentle manifesto for a nonstraightforward architecture," Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture expresses in the most compelling and original terms the postmodern rebellion against the purism of modernism.

the parts of a machine, especially those that move: If you take the back off this clock, you can see its/the works.

Marion Mahony Griffin passed the architectural licensure exam in 1898 and created exquisite drawings that buoyed the reputation of Frank Lloyd Wright. Her story is one of the many told in The Women Who Changed Architecture, which sets the record straight on the transformative impact women have m…

Toward an Architecture tries to open up the field to its outside in order to open up the walls of traditional buildings. Indeed, opening the eyes of the architect and opening the eyes of the building constitute a single gesture that liberates an architecture, polemically dissolving the line betw…

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton explores how architecture influences our emotions and well-being. It advocates for the importance of beautiful design in our built environment to enhance our quality of life.

It is the only dictionary that provides concise, accurate definitions illustrated with finely detailed, hand-rendered drawings. From Arch to Wood, every concept, technology, material and detail important to architects and designers are presented in Ching's unique style.

For this extensively revised and updated fifth edition of Modern Architecture, Frampton added new chapters exploring the ongoing modernist tradition in architecture while also examining the varied responses to the urgent need to build more sustainably and create structures that will withstand ch…

The Eyes of the Skin has become a classic of architectural theory and consists of two extended essays. The first surveys the historical development of the ocular-centric paradigm in western culture since the Greeks, and its impact on the experience of the world and the nature of architecture.

Described by James Ackerman of Harvard University as "immeasurably the finest work covering this field in existence", this book presents a penetrating analysis of the modern tradition and its origins, tracing the creative interaction between old and new that has generated such an astonishing ric…

A classic examination of superb design through the centuries. Widely regarded as a classic in the field, Experiencing Architecture explores the history and promise of good design.

More than 350 color photographs celebrate the finest buildings from over two thousand years of civilization: Hagia Sophia, the Gothic cathedrals of Europe, Islamic masterworks at Isfahan, the Taj Mahal, the Palace of Westminster, Gehry's iconic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and much more.