Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

One of the great but often unmentioned causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kinds of walls, chairs, buildings and streets that surround us. And yet a concern for architecture and design is too often described as frivolous, even self-indulgent. The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and it argues that it is... (more)

The Poetics of Space

by Gaston Bachelard, Maria Jolas, M. Jolas

The classic book on how we experience intimate spaces. "A magical book. . . . A prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced—and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard." —from the foreword by John R. Stilgoe ... (more)

The Dynamics of Architectural Form

by Rudolf Arnheim

The power of the visual effects exerted by architecture, in our own time and in the past, has been largely neglected in recent discussion, with its focus on practical utility and other economic and social factors. Such an account of the human needs met by architecture remains sadly incomplete unless the expressive visual qualities of buildings are recognized as among their foremost effects. A fresh approach is... (more)

Arcology: The City in the Image of Man

by Paolo Soleri

This edition contains all the text and illustrations found in the giant Arcology, photographically reduced somewhat to allow a lower price and enhanced handleability. "In the three-dimensional city, man defines a human ecology. In it he is a country dweller and metropolitan man in one. By it the inner and the outer are at 'skin' distance. He has made the city in his own image. Arcology: the city in the... (more)

Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning: With a translation of the 1889 Austrian edition of his City Planning According to Artistic Principles

Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning: With a translation of the 1889 Austrian edition of his City Planning According to Artistic Principles

by George R. Collins

This 1889 text by a noted Austrian architect and urban planner ignited a new age of city planning. Inspired by medieval and baroque designs, Sitte emphasized the creation of spacious plazas, enhanced by monuments and other aesthetic elements. Numerous illustrations, plus extensive commentary, notes, and bibliography.

The Urban Ideal: Conversations with Paolo Soleri

The Urban Ideal: Conversations with Paolo Soleri

by Paolo Soleri

Although Paolo Soleri is one of the world’s most famous and influential architects, little has been written about his life, work, and thought. The Urban Ideal fills that gap. Based on interviews conducted at Arcosanti in spring 2000, these conversations cover Soleri’s youth and education in fascist Italy, his immigration to America, and his radical approach to architecture that culminated in his ideal city based... (more)

Sacred Architecture

by A. T. Mann

Ever since the cave dwellers, we have honored and acknowledged our spiritual roots in stone, wood, and iron, constructing sacred places that reflect our faith and wonder. Provided in this reference are the world's most spectacular examples of sacred architecture, on display in hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs and illustrations. Istanbul's spectacular Blue Mosque, the towering spires of Notre Dame,... (more)

Classical Architecture: The Poetics of Order

Classical Architecture: The Poetics of Order

by Alexander Tzonis

This fascinating introduction to classical art and architecture is the first book to investigate the way classical buildings are put together as formal structures. It researches the generative rules, the poetics of composition that classical architecture shares with classical music, poetry, and drama, and is enriched by a variety of examples and an extensive analysis of compositional rules. The 205 line drawings... (more)

The Art of Light and Space

by Jan Butterfield

This work investigates the phenomenon of light and space art, which originated in California during the late 1960s and which has become a movement of international significance. The artists included in this coverage are Michael Asher, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Bruce Nauman, Maria Nordman, Eric Orr, Hap Tivey, James Turrell, Dewain Valentine, Susan Kaiser Vogel and Doug Wheeler. The book is based upon more than two... (more)

Power of Limits

by Gyorgy Doczi

One of the delights of life is the discovery and rediscovery of patterns of order and beauty in nature—the designs revealed by slicing through a head of cabbage or an orange, the forms of shells and butterfly wings. These images are awesome not just for their beauty alone, but because they suggest an order underlying their growth, a harmony existing in nature. What does it mean that such an order exists; how far... (more)

Theory and Design in the First Machine Age

Theory and Design in the First Machine Age

by Reyner Banham

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. It has influenced a generation of students and critics interested in the formation of attitudes, themes, and forms which were characteristic of artists and architects working... (more)

The Built, the Unbuilt, and the Unbuildable: In Pursuit of Architectural Meaning

The Built, the Unbuilt, and the Unbuildable: In Pursuit of Architectural Meaning

by Robert Harbison

Robert Harbison reads architecture as one would read poetry for meaning. Meaning, he finds, resides especially in those works of architecture that are unnecessary, having outlived their physical functions or never having been intended to have any. Gardens, monuments, historic fortifications, and ruins are among the examples he uses to reveal the secret meanings of this architecture "freed from function." ... (more)

The Space of Appearance

by George Baird

What is architecture's place in the world? Combining history, theory, and polemic, George Baird probes into the conceptual lineage and current expressions of postmodernism and the critique of postmodern architecture over the past four decades, revealing the general failure of these theories to develop an architecture that is politically engaged and affirmative of the public sphere. Hannah Arendt's imperative of... (more)

Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings (Documents of Modern Art.)

Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings (Documents of Modern Art.)

by Louis H. Sullivan

One of America’s most original and influential architects, known for his many commercial buildings, expounds his theories in his most famous book. Reprint of definitive (1918) edition including 8 additional papers. 17 illustrations.

Geschichte der Architekturtheorie. Studienausgabe. Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart.

Geschichte der Architekturtheorie. Studienausgabe. Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart.

by Hanno-Walter Kruft

Text: German

On Adam's House in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History

On Adam's House in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History

by Joseph Rykwert

This new edition of On Adam's House in Paradise (first published by the Museum of Modern Art) incorporates all the original illustrations and several new ones, as well as additional text by the author. On Adam's House in Paradise "takes off backward through history hunting for Adam's house, the original image. En route, with wry wit and charm, Rykwert singes every generation of architectural theoreticians... (more)

Entwurff einer historischen Architectur, in Abbildung unterschiedener beru¨hmten Geba¨ude, des Alterthums, und fremder Vo¨lcker ... Leipzig, 1725Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach

Entwurff einer historischen Architectur, in Abbildung unterschiedener beru¨hmten Geba¨ude, des Alterthums, und fremder Vo¨lcker ... Leipzig, 1725

by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach

Ten Books on Architecture

by Vitruvius

The most important book ever written on architecture. Early Roman aesthetics, technology, classical orders, site selection, all other aspects. Morgan translation.

Architectural Theory: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870

Architectural Theory: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870

This second volume of the landmark Architectural Theory anthology surveys the development of architectural theory from the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 until the end of the twentieth century. The entire two volume anthology follows the full range of architectural literature from classical times to present transformations. An ambitious anthology bringing together over 300 classic and contemporary essays that... (more)

Le Corbusier: Une petite maison

by Le Corbusier

Die Entstehungsgeschichte und Realisierung des kleinen Hauses am Genfersee, das Le Corbusier 1925 in der Nähe von Vevey für seine Eltern projektiert und gebaut hat. Das Buch enthält zahlreiche Darstellungen mit Photos und Skizzen, ergänzt um Zeichnungen Le Corbusiers von 1945 und einen sehr poetischen Text. (Mehrsprachige Ausgabe: Französisch, Deutsch, Englisch)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: architectural theory

by Alain De Botton

by Gaston Bachelard, Maria Jolas, M. Jolas

by Rudolf Arnheim

by Paolo Soleri

by George R. Collins

by Paolo Soleri

by A. T. Mann

by Alexander Tzonis

by Jan Butterfield

by Gyorgy Doczi

by Reyner Banham

by Robert Harbison

by George Baird

by Louis H. Sullivan

by Hanno-Walter Kruft

by Joseph Rykwert

by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach

by Vitruvius

by Le Corbusier