History of architecture Books

The story of the Stuart dynasty is a breathless soap opera played out in just a hundred years in an array of buildings that span Europe from Scotland, via Denmark, Holland and Spain to England. Life in the court of the House of Stuart has been shrouded...

The modernist RSL club, the Art Deco cinema, the stilted Queenslander or the elaborate Edwardian. The iconography of Australia's regional towns is familiar to many of us, whether we live, work and play in these places, or just journey through. A...

Based on ten years of surveys and excavations in Nyiyaparli country in the eastern Chichester Ranges, north-west Australia, Crafting Country provides a unique synthesis of Holocene archaeology in the Pilbara region. The analysis of about 1000 sites,...

A 2022 ALA Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic TitleA visual and global chronicle of the triumphs, challenges, and impact of over 100 women in architecture, from early practitioners to contemporary leaders.Marion Mahony Griffin passed the architectural...

The first book, accompanying a traveling exhibition, dedicated to Cuban mid-century design anchored by an under-acknowledged collection of graphic design, prototypes, and furniture, much of which has never been exhibited outside the island or...

A cutting-edge blend of contemporary design and art informs the work of architecture’s enfant terrible. This first book on his firm presents an array of immersive spaces for living and working that walk the edge of practicality and imagination.Best known...

In Architecture Unbound, noted architecture critic Joseph Giovannini proposes that our current architectural landscape ultimately emerged from transgressive and progressive art movements that had roiled Europe before and after World War I. By the...

In 1742, when the legendary dome atop St. Peter’s Basilica—designed by Michelangelo—cracks and threatens to collapse, Pope Benedict XIV summons three mathematicians whose groundbreaking ideas spark a revolution in the world of architecture.1742: the...

Celebrate Star Trek: The Original Series and the show’s distinctive Midcentury modern design that would change design– and television–forever. Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969) was the first installment of one of the most successful and...

Presented in its entirety for the very first time, this text captures the very last words of architect Ludwig Miles van Der Rohe. The German-American architect Dirk Lohan began to record his conversations with his grandfather Ludwig Mies van der...

With essays by Erik Stenberg, Christine Varga-Harris, and more, the book tells the story of concrete panels at the centre of debates in the modernising and industrialising processes of architecture. Can concrete panels fly? Though at first it...

Winner of the American Book AwardSan Francisco Chinatown is the first book of its kind-an "insider's guide" to one of America's most celebrated ethnic enclaves by an author born and raised there. Written by architect and Chinese American studies pioneer...

Vincent Scully has shaped not only how we view the evolution of architecture in the twentieth century but also the course of that evolution itself. Combining the modes of historian and critic in unique and compelling ways--with an audience that reaches...

Inner Empire explores the impact of imperial cultures on the landscapes and urban environments of the British Isles from the sixteenth century through to the twentieth century. It asserts that Britain's four-hundred year entanglement with global empire...

From one of today's most inspired architects and urban advocates, a manifesto for architecture as a force for addressing our biggest social challengesThe world is facing unprecedented challenges, from climate change and population growth, to political...

Wales boasts a stunning array of castles, the most per square mile of any country in Europe, from the earliest stone fortifications at Chepstow to the 19th-century folly of Castell Coch and from the splendor of Caernarfon, Beaumaris, Conwy and Harlech,...

Written In Stone and Space takes an in depth look at the role of measure in the art and architecture of the ancient world. The authors propose that ancient builders actualized a high degree of intuition in their work, accompanied by a surprising level of...

Villa Wolf in Guben (now Gubin), built between 1925 and 1927, was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's first decidedly modern building.The residential building was destroyed at the end of the Second World War and in the immediate post-war period. The building...

A comprehensive look into how Macau's recent decades of gambling-related growth produced one of the wealthiest territories on the planetBetting on Macau delves into the radical transformation of what was formerly the last remaining European territory in...

With over 8,000 years of history, Izmir is among the world's oldest cities. Founded as Smyrna on the shores of the Aegean Sea, the city has been home to all manner of cultures over the centuries. Each one left behind its architectural traces, turning the...

The German Architectural Annual, edited by the German Architecture Museum (DAM), has been documenting contemporary architectural projects in Germany for the past 40 years. This years edition of the annual presents the shortlist of 26 buildings selected...

The Atlas of Space Rocket Launch Sites is the first book to present all 25 major global launch sites from Wallops Island in the United States to Tanegashima in Japan and Woomera in Australia. It explains their architecture and geography and is...

Organised chronologically, this volume analyses the dynamics, convergences, and ideological clashes that have given life to the most significant movements of the twentieth century and today to the season of recent phantasmagoric buildings of the...

The ancient city of Asmara is the capital of Eritrea and its largest settlement. Its beautiful architecture was rediscovered by outsiders in the early 1990s. In this book, the authors offer an original analysis of the colonial city, providing a history...

Venice is undoubtedly one of the most written upon cities and certainly the most photographed one. And yet another guide on Venice? Five walking tours take you to discover the modern Venice, the less known side of the city, hidden and far away from the...

Felix Novikov tells the dramatic story of Soviet architecture, portraying the conditions he worked in and how he collaborated with the government and other participants during the creative process. He explains how Soviet design and planning institutes...

Berlin was shaped by the events of the twentieth century in a process of "automatic urbanism." More than any other metropolis, the city absorbed the forces of that epoch-modernity, fascism, two world wars, Stalinism, socialism, the Cold War, revolt,...

One of China's great metropolises - a boomtown without a past and hungry for the futureFounded only in 1978 as one of the first Special Economic Zones under Deng Xiaoping's reforms, Shenzhen with its 12.5 million inhabitants is a young city. It's also a...

Monumental mosaics were created throughout the USSR, but they played a special role in its capital.While in other Soviet cities and republics monumental mosaics became common in the 1960s, in Moscow mosaic was used for art-deco works and social realist...

The book promotes a landscape approach as a method for understanding and addressing the complex interdependent issues of environmental and climatic change, ecological degradation, and socio-cultural inequalities. The twenty-three book essays are...

The book provides a reflection on the conceptual framework of Milanese architect and industrial designer Vico Magistretti, his work and relevance to issues facing designers today.Following and extending from the Vico Magistretti-Travelling Archive...

A homage to the 1973 publication of Architecture and Utopia by Manfredo Tafuri, this book is devoted to the radical experiences of the 1960s and to their consequences for the most recent developments in contemporary architecture.As a response to the...

This book is a tribute to the first modern urban planner and his product: the Eixample, which is today the thriving and undisputed center of the Barcelona metropolitan area. The city of Barcelona as constructed over the last 150 years on the strength of...

Demonstrates the existence of public space catalysts, as well as the need for their presence for an expectant or indifferent place to be activated. This work - which understands that the city, now and always, has had and must have public spaces of...

At its root, modernism is that fundamental. It is a question of having something to represent that is of the moment. In the most radical interpretation, modernism always comes too late. The modern is that which is always new, which is to say, always...

At the height of the Gilded Age, America s wealthiest families began to build luxurious summer cottages away from the grit and grime of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia in idyllic locales such as, Newport, Southampton, Tuxedo Park, and Lenox. Another...

The book is a thorough reflection on the accomplishments achieved since the establishment of the Department of Architecture at Tsinghua University. It provides valuable insights into China's hottest topics for future developments - namely, urbanisation...

About a millennium ago, in Cairo, someone completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, our unknown author guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands,...

One of the most brilliant and original authors and architects of the entire Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti's output encompassed engineering, surveying, cryptography, poetry, humour, political commentary and more. He employed irony, satire...

Invented History, Fabricated Powerbegins with an examination of prehistoric beliefs (in spirits, souls,mana,orenda) that provided personal explanation and power through ritual and shamanism among tribal peoples. On this foundation, spiritual power...

Jonathan Meades has an obsessive preoccupation with places. He has spent thirty years constructing sixty films, two novels and hundreds of pieces of journalism that explore an extraordinary range of them, from natural landscapes to man-made buildings and...

The Art of Japanese Architecture provides a unique overview of Japanese architecture in its historical and cultural context. The book begins with a discussion of early prehistoric dwellings and concludes with a description of works by important modern...

The first publication to catalog the complete works of architect and arts advocate Alfred Preis, a Viennese modernist who fled Nazi-occupied Austria and transformed regional Hawaiian architecture, with his best-known project being the USS ArizonaMemorial...

Since the mid-1990s, when China allowed its architects to practice independently from government-run design institutes, a new kind of architecture, distinguished by unique regional characteristics, has emerged. China Dialogues is a rigorously selected...

Written by Thomas Daniell, with a foreword by Thomas Weaver and an afterword by Peter Cook, An Anatomy of Influence contains a wealth of texts and images that together elucidate the theory and practice of 12 leading Japanese architects. Rather than the...

October 2017 marks the centenary of the admission of the first female students to the Architectural Association. Published to coincide with a symposium, exhibition and series of talks all celebrating this event, AA Women in Architecture puts forward the...

Colquhounery is a commemorative volume celebrating the life and work of the architect and architectural historian Alan Colquhoun, who died in December 2012. Testimonials from friends, colleagues and students are gathered together alongside original...

Cedric Price Works 1952-2003: A Forward-Minded Retrospective by Samantha Hardingham is a two-volume anthology, co-published by the Architectural Association (AA) and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), and is supported by the Graham Foundation...