Architecture Books for Recent Graduates

Books are gifts for life. What better way to say "congratulations" than to give the graduates on your list a starter library of books on art, architecture, design, photography - or whatever their passion may be? >>Back to the Graduate Gift Guide.

OUR TOP SUGGESTIONS FOR ARCHITECTURE GRADUATES.

As the 1960s became The Sixties, architect Horace Gifford executed a remarkable series of beach houses that transformed the terrain and culture of New York’s Fire Island. Growing up on the beaches of Florida, Gifford forged a deep connection with coastal landscapes. Pairing this sensitivity with jazzy improvisations on modernist themes, he perfected a sustainable modernism in cedar and glass that was as attuned to natural landscapes as to our animal [more]

In A Country of Cities, author Vishaan Chakrabarti argues that well-designed cities are the key to solving America's great national challenges: environmental degradation, unsustainable consumption, economic stagnation, rising public health costs and decreased social mobility. If we develop them wisely in the future, our cities can be the force leading us into a new era of progressive and prosperous stewardship of our nation. In compelling chapters, Chakrabarti brings us a wealth [more]

Henri Labrouste is one of the few nineteenth-century architects consistently lionized as a precursor of modern architecture throughout the twentieth century and into our own time. The two magisterial glass-and-iron reading rooms he built in Paris gave form to the idea of the modern library as a collective civic space. His influence was both immediate and long-lasting, not only on the development of the modern library but also on the exploration [more]

A first-of-its-kind book, equally representing the voices of architects and their clients, The Power of Pro Bono presents 40 pro bono design projects across the country. The clients include grassroots community organizations like the Homeless Prenatal Program of San Francisco, as well as national and international nonprofits, among them Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity, KIPP Schools and Planned Parenthood. These public-interest projects were designed by a range of award-winning practices, from SHoP [more]

The American architect Louis Kahn is one of the great master builders of the twentieth century. With complex spatial compositions, an elemental formal vocabulary and a choreographic mastery of light, Kahn created buildings of powerful archaic beauty. Among his most important works are the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California (1959–65), the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (1966–72) and the National Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh (1962–83). Louis Kahn: [more]

Lafayette Park, an affordable middle-class residential area in downtown Detroit, is home to the largest collection of buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the world. Today, it is one of Detroit’s most racially integrated and economically stable neighborhoods, although it is surrounded by evidence of a city in financial distress. Through interviews with and essays by residents; reproductions of archival material; and new photographs by Karin Jobst, Vasco [more]

Drawing by hand is making a big comeback. Tired of ubiquitous slick computer renderings that look the same the world over, architects are rediscovering the importance of this very basic, immediate medium: seeing the world and recasting it through their imagination and visual and manual skill. The resurgence of drawing is not merely a retrograde trend, but an affirmation of the continued importance of sketching as part of the design process. [more]

Across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States, groundbreaking work is being done by small teams of outstanding professionals who are helping communities to recover from disaster and rebuild, bridging the gap that separates short-term emergency needs from long-term sustainable recovery. Questions about the role and responsibility of architects in disaster recovery have been circulating since the Indian Ocean tsunami killed more than 200,000 people in 2004. In the last [more]

Esther McCoy (1904–1989) is one of the twentieth century’s foremost architecture historians, and one of the greatest chroniclers of the architecture of midcentury southern California. Her 1960 book Five California Architects has long been acknowledged as an indispensable classic, and as Reyner Banham famously observed of her, no one can write about architecture in California without acknowledging her as the mother of us all.” Piecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy [more]

The greatest humanitarian challenge we face today is that of providing shelter. Currently, one in seven people lives in a slum or refugee camp, and more than 3,000,000,000 people--nearly half the world's population--do not have access to clean water or adequate sanitation. The physical design of our homes, neighborhoods and communities shapes every aspect of our lives. Yet too often architects are desperately needed in the places where they can least [more]