Top Architecture books curated by experts

S,M,L,XL presents a selection of the remarkable visionary design work produced by the Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.) and its acclaimed founder, Rem Koolhaas, in its first twenty years, along with a variety of insightful, often poetic writings.

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.

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.

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…

Delirious New York is a polemical investigation of that Manhattan; it documents the symbiotic relationship between its mutant metropolitan culture and the unique architecture to which it gave rise. Though this book argues that it often appears that the architecture generated the culture.

The purpose of Why Architecture Matters is to “come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually”—with its impact on our lives.

Whether it's through her thriving design business, Studio McGee, her popular Netflix series, Dream Home Makeover, or her online community of over five million followers, Shea McGee has shown the world how the principles of high-end design can be applied to any home. As the title of her new book …

First published in 1960, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age has become required reading in numerous courses on the history of modern architecture and is widely regarded as one of the definitive books on the modern movement.

Engineering in Plain Sight extends the field guide genre from natural phenomena to human-made structures, making them approachable and understandable to non-engineers. It transforms readers' perspectives of the built environment, converting the act of looking at infrastructure from a mundane ine…

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.

Section, along with plan and elevation, is one of the most important representational techniques of architectural design. Manual of Section is the first book to provide a framework to describe and evaluate this fundamental design process in architecture.

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…

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.