Top Architecture books curated by experts

When a building is finished being built, that isn’t the end of its story. More than any other human artifacts, buildings improve with time—if they’re allowed to. Buildings adapt by being constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and in that way, architects can become artists of time ra…

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.

Architectural Digest’s editors have delved into the archives and culled years of rich material covering a variety of subjects. Ranging freely between present and past, the book features the personal spaces of dozens of private celebrities like Barack and Michelle Obama, David Bowie, Truman Capot…

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

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.

Yes is Moreis the easily accessible but unremittingly radical manifesto of Copenhagen-based architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG. Unlike a typical architectural monograph, this book uses the comic book format to express its groundbreaking agenda for contemporary architecture.

Thinking architecture is an elegiac allegory on the simplest of feelings of touch, sound, smell and sight and its resonance with architecture. A keen observer, Zumthor is in perpetual search of truth, beauty and meaning.

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 Architecture of the City (Italian: L'architettura della città) is a seminal book of urban design theory by the Italian architect Aldo Rossi published in Padova in 1966. The book marks the shift from the urban doctrines of modernism to a rediscovery of the traditional European city.

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.

Overall, "Learning from Las Vegas" is a groundbreaking work that challenges the dominant paradigm of modern architecture and proposes a new approach that is more democratic and responsive to the needs of ordinary people. It is a must-read for anyone interested in architecture, urbanism, and cult…

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…

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.