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Architecture: Big Ideas in Small Volumes
By an Amazon.com customer
For an Architecture of RealityFor an Architecture of Reality by Michael Benedikt
Buy new: $11.70 / Used from: $7.00
A short, clear-eyed response to Postmodernism, this book still has much to say about what makes architecture resonant.
Ideas That Shaped BuildingsIdeas That Shaped Buildings by Fil Hearn
Buy new: $14.96 / Used from: $10.41
Gives a good overview of dominant historical theories in architecture and how they relate to the buildings of their respective eras.
Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of ArchitectureQuestions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture by Steven Holl
Buy used from: $98.57
Beautifully designed, this contains several good essays about meaning and experience in architecture. Sole weakness: the authors' argument against the primacy of vision is confirmed by the painfully tiny print.
InformalInformal by Cecil Balmond
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $24.12
Check out the big brain on Cecil!
ParallaxParallax by Steven Holl
Buy new: $29.70 / Used from: $29.69
This little book is crammed with interesting projects and ideas, along with many of Holl's trademark watercolors.
Thinking ArchitectureThinking Architecture by Peter Zumthor
Buy new: $26.40 / Used from: $30.97
Zumthor is a quiet titan of architecture.
Strange Details (Writing Architecture)Strange Details (Writing Architecture) by Michael Cadwell
Buy new: $14.25 / Used from: $12.98
Engaging essays that uncover something real and important in the tectonics of four historic projects.
Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and AestheticsBuilt upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics by Alberto Pérez-Gómez
Buy new: $12.44 / Used from: $9.39
Dense, chewy and ambitious, this book is radical in the original sense; it explores a return to origins in architecture that lead to new understandings of the discipline.
Adjusting FoundationsAdjusting Foundations by John Hejduk
Buy used from: $35.00
Poetically subversive work from a great thinker.
Pamphlet Architecture 21: Situation NormalPamphlet Architecture 21: Situation Normal by Paul Lewis
Buy new: $12.78 / Used from: $8.45
Early LTL work, but still pertinent, and with those terrific renderings they used to do.
Folding Architecture: Spatial, Structural And Organization DiagramsFolding Architecture: Spatial, Structural And Organization Diagrams by Sophia Vyzoviti
Buy used from: $81.10
Smart little book of design strategies.
Architecture Studio: Cranbrook 1986-93Architecture Studio: Cranbrook 1986-93 by Rizzoli
Buy used from: $20.99
Cranbrook student projects that demonstrate the generative possibilities of philosophical inquiry in architecture.
The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the SensesThe Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses by Juhani Pallasmaa
Buy new: $24.84 / Used from: $19.95
Eighty brilliant pages stressing a de-emphasis of visual dominance in architecture. Surprisingly, unavailable in a Braille version.
A Scientific AutobiographyA Scientific Autobiography by Aldo Rossi
Buy used from: $88.58
An exuberant and passionate recounting of a life in architecture.