List of Important books for student of architecture
#1

Architectural Graphics

“One book that has become a trusted source for teaching architects how to do it right is Francis D.K. Ching’s Architectural Graphics. Now in its fifth edition, it offers the essential drawing tools, principles, and techniques that architects use to communicate their ideas. It expands upon the wealth of illustrations and instructions that have made this book a classic, and guides readers through the subtleties of translating architectural ideas into vivid visual representations. Readers will learn Ching’s renowned methods through: coverage of multiview drawings, paraline drawings, and perspective drawings; techniques for drawing section views of building interiors; strategies for rendering tonal value, enhancing pictorial depth, and conveying the illumination of spatial environments; approaches for developing the layout of architectural presentations; freehand sketching and diagramming; and so much more. This beautiful fifth edition of Architectural Graphics from Francis D.K. Ching clearly represents the complexity of architectural concepts in an intuitive graphic manner that benefits anyone interested in maintaining the highest standard of the profession of architecture.” (San Francisco Book Review/Sacramento Book Review, March 27, 2010)





Building Construction Illustrated

For nearly three decades, Building Construction Illustrated has offered an outstanding introduction to the principles of building construction. This new edition of the revered classic remains as relevant as ever-providing the latest information in Francis D.K. Ching’s signature style. Its rich and comprehensive approach clearly presents all of the basic concepts underlying building construction and equips readers with useful guidelines for approaching virtually any new materials or techniques they may encounter.



A Visual Dictionary of Architecture

A Visual Dictionary of Architecture is a remarkable, on-of-a-kind compendium which uses a combination of textual definitions and hundreds of superb line drawings to illuminate a comprehensive body of essential terms in architecture, including important interrelationships between building components. Grouped by themes, such as history, systems, structures, forms, construction, environmental issues, and behavior, all terms have their visual complement and can be readily accessed in a number of different ways. A Visual Dictionary of Architecture is an authoritative source of information for anyone tracking down an elusive word, and a delight for simple armchair browsing! — Midwest Book Review –This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.



The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead has become an enduring piece of literature, more popular now than when published in 1943. On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand’s writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence. –This text refers to the Paperback edition.



101 Things I Learned In Architecture School

This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and abstruse in the classroom. These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation–from the basics of “How to Draw a Line” to the complexities of color theory–provide a much-needed primer in architectural literacy, making concrete what too often is left nebulous or open-ended in the architecture curriculum. Each lesson utilizes a two-page format, with a brief explanation and an illustration that can range from diagrammatic to whimsical. The lesson on “How to Draw a Line” is illustrated by examples of good and bad lines; a lesson on the dangers of awkward floor level changes shows the television actor Dick Van Dyke in the midst of a pratfall; a discussion of the proportional differences between traditional and modern buildings features a drawing of a building split neatly in half between the two. Written by an architect and instructor who remembers well the fog of his own student days, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School provides valuable guideposts for navigating the design studio and other classes in the architecture curriculum. Architecture graduates–from young designers to experienced practitioners–will turn to the book as well, for inspiration and a guide back to basics when solving a complex design problem.



Architectural Graphic Standards

11 th edition. Andy Pressman, By American Institute of Architects


Experiencing Architecture

Profusely illustrated with fine instances of architectural experimentation through the centuries, Experiencing Architecture manages to convey the intellectual excitement of superb design. From teacups, riding boots, golf balls, and underwater sculpture to the villas of Palladio and the fish-feeding pavilion of the Peking Winter Palace, the author ranges over the less-familiar byways of designing excellence.At one time, writes Rasmussen, “the entire community tool part in forming the dwellings and implements they used. The individual was in fruitful contact with these things; the anonymous houses were built with a natural feeling for place, materials and use and the result was a remarkably suitable comeliness. Today, in our highly civilized society, the houses which ordinary people are doomed to live in and gaze upon are on the whole without quality. We cannot, however, go back to the old method of personally supervised handicrafts. We must strive to advance by arousing interest in and understanding of the work the architect does. The basis of competent professionalism is a sympathetic and knowledgeable group of amateurs, of non-professional art lovers.”


A Field Guide To American Houses
Virginia Savage McAlester, Lee McAlester
For the house lover and the curious tourist, for the house buyer and the weekend stroller, for neighborhood preservation groups and for all who want to know more about their community — here, at last, is a book that makes it both easy and pleasurable to identify the various styles and periods of American domestic architecture. Concentrating not on rare landmarks but on typical dwellings in ordinary neighborhoods all across the United States — houses built over the past three hundred years and lived in by Americans of every social and economic background — the book provides you with the facts (and frame of reference) that will enable you to look in a fresh way at the houses you constantly see around you. It tells you — and shows you in more than 1,200 illustrations — what you need to know in order to be able to recognize the several distinct architectural styles and to understand their historical significance. What does that cornice mean? Or that porch? That door? When was this house built? What does its style say about the people who built it? You’ll find the answers to such questions here.



The Elements Of Style
by Stephen Calloway (Editor), Elizabeth Cromley (Editor), Alan Powers (Editor)
Owners and potential buyers of period houses, restorers, architects, interior designers and historical preservationists will find this reference invaluable. The Elements of Style is the most comprehensive visual survey, period-by-period, feature-by-feature, of the styles that have had the greatest impact on interiors of American and British domestic architecture. Compiled by a team of experts, this is the first book on architectural styles that is comprehensive, incredibly thorough, and accessible in its presentation of individual details. This magnificent volume covers more than 500 years of architectural styles from Tudor to Post-Modern and includes American and British vernacular styles. First published in 1991 (with 150,000 copies sold), this new edition is expanded to include the most contemporary styles. Detailed illustrations include 3,000 analytical drawings and historic engravings, 400 photographs in color and 1,000 in black and white.


Julius Shulman, Palm Springs

“The texts are brief and informative; the pictures conjure a world of mystery and beauty.” ~The Architect’s Newspaper

“For students of desert architecture, this book is a great addition to any collection….Shulman’s work, his instinct for composition, use of natural light and passion for line and structure, is more enlightening than being in a classroom for several semesters.”~The Desert Sun ”



The Master Builders

Le Corbusier gave to modern design a sure and brilliant sense of form; Mies brought an almost Gothic discipline of structure; and Wright heralded a new and dramatic concept of space and freedom. Through this triple focus, Peter Blake provides a perspective on the entire range of twentieth-century architecture. 129 photographs and 22 drawings





Delirious New York

In this fanciful volume, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.), both analyzes and celebrates New York City. By suggesting the city as the site for an infinite variety of human activities and events–both real and imagined–the essence of the metropolitan lifestyle, its “culture of congestion” and its architecture are revealed in a brilliant new light. “Manhattan,” Koolhaas writes, “is the 20th century’s Rosetta stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations (Central Park, the Skyscraper), utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center, the U.N. Building), and irrational phenomena (Radio City Music Hall).” Filled with fascinating facts, as well as photographs, postcards, maps, watercolors, and drawings, the vibrancy of Koolhaas’s poignant exploration of Gotham equals the heady, frenetic energy of the city itself. Anyone who loves New York will want to own this book.



S,M,L,XL

Koolhaas, Dutch architect, author (Delirious New York) and cult figure, wants architecture to be “a chaotic adventure,” and this massive tome certainly is. Created with Toronto-based designer Mau, it’s a huge collage splicing freewheeling essays, diary excerpts, photographs, architectural plans, sketches, cartoons and surreal montages of images. There’s also a running glossary of Zen-like definitions, plus fables and parables intended to shake modern architects out of conventional thinking and to dispel urban despair. In one essay, Koolhaas admires Japan’s metabolist movement, which fuses organic, scientific, mechanistic and romantic vocabularies. That approach seems compatible with his own innovative, eclectic vision as head of the Dutch firm Office of Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.), whose houses, villas, office towers, libraries, colleges, cultural complexes and other projects are showcased here. While some readers may be mystified by a nonlinear hodgepodge, architects, planners and designers will find this frequently outrageous assemblage a provocative repository of ideas. Author tour.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.



Complexity And Contradiction In Architecture

First published in 1966, and since translated into 16 languages, this remarkable book has become an essential document in architectural literature. As Venturi’s “”gentle manifesto for a nonstraightforward architecture,”” Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture expresses in the most compelling and original terms the postmodern rebellion against the purism of modernism. Three hundred and fifty architectural photographs serve as historical comparisons and illuminate the author’s ideas on creating and experiencing architecture. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was the winner of the Classic Book Award at the AIA’s Seventh Annual International Architecture Book Awards. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.



Learning From Las Vegas

Learning from Las Vegas created a healthy controversy on its appearance in 1972, calling for architects to be more receptive to the tastes and values of “common” people and less immodest in their erections of “heroic,” self-aggrandizing monuments.This revision includes the full texts of Part I of the original, on the Las Vegas strip, and Part II, “Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed,” a generalization from the findings of the first part on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. (The final part of the first edition, on the architectural work of the firm Venturi and Rauch, is not included in the revision.) The new paperback edition has a smaller format, fewer pictures, and a considerably lower price than the original. There are an added preface by Scott Brown and a bibliography of writings by the members of Venturi and Rauch and about the firm’s work.



The Ecstasy Of Communication

This book marks an important evolution in Jean Baudrillard’s thought as he leaves behind his older and better-known concept of the “simulacrum” and tackles the new problem of digital technology acquiring organicity. The resulting world of cold communication and its indifferent alterity, seduction, metamorphoses, metastases, and transparency requires a new form of response. Writing in the shadow of Marshall McLuhan, Baudrillard insists that the content of communication is completely without meaning: the only thing that is communicated is communication itself. He sees the masses writhing in an orgiastic ecstasy of communications. Baudrillard navigates the Object’s maelstrom with the euphoria of the astronaut reentering Earth’s atmosphere with no possibility of assistance from Mission Control.



Master Builders

“The Architect Builds Visible History.” Vincent Scully Which architect designed the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty? Who put a Chippendale pediment atop a skyscraper and quickly created a landmark of contemporary architecture? Who was the only American architect to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery during the Civil War? Which architect designed a castle in California for William Randolph Hearst? Master Builders answers these and scores of other questions about more than 100 architects and builders who have left indelible marks on American architecture. This unique guide puts faces with America’s most well-known and loved buildings–from the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument through the first skyscrapers and landmarks of the Post-Modern movement. “Why should you want to know more about these architects?” asks Roger K. Lewis in his introduction. “The reason is simple. You are undeniably connected to the built environment that you inhabit, use, see and respond to. You affect building design, and building design affects you.” Can you pair these master builders with their works? Frank Lloyd Wright U.S. Capitol Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Central Park Adler and Sullivan University of Virginia Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Glass House William Thornton Home Insurance Building Orson Squire Fowler Fallingwater H. H. Richardson CBS Building Frederick Law Olmsted San Simeon James Renwick Seagram Building Robert Mills Trinity Church, Boston I. M. Pei Salk Institute Julia Morgan Sears Tower Eero Saarinen Smithsonian “Castle” Cass Gilbert John E. Kennedy Library McKim, Mead and White U.S. Supreme Court Louis I. Kahn Chicago Stock Exchange Thomas Jefferson Octagonal Houses Philip Johnson Pennsylvania Station William Le Baron Jenney Washington Monument
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