![]() Stan Allen betrays himself as a systems thinker, Michael Sorkin as a political activist. The overlaps fascinate, but so do the differences. Only one - Celan's Last Poems - show up, in Steven Holl's final selection. There is, on the other hand, quite a bit of fiction on those shelves - a lot of which reminds us of the fractured, the layered, the tectonic: Finnegan's Wake, Gravity's Rainbow, Moby Dick, The Man Without Qualities all figure in top 10 lists. And surprisingly little in terms of monographs on contemporary European colleagues (I don't think I saw anything referring to work by Rodgers, Piano, Herzog & De Meuron. There is not an awful lot that refers back to older, pre-modern architectural practices (Michael Graves' library is an exception). Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction is another fixture of the postmodern architectural scene. Rem Koolhaas' S M L XL is probably one of the few books to show up in all libraries, although it never makes it to the top 10 (his Delirious New York does, once). A strong showing, also, of key (proto-)postmodernist thinkers (as opposed to builders): Benjamin, Foucault, Derrida, Bataille, Deleuze. No surprise that we often bump into the likes of Corbu, Mies, Loos and Kahn. The experience is predictably labyrinthine. Jo Steffens had the opportunity to peek into ten famous, largely New York-based architects' libraries - ranging from 750 to over 6000 volumes - and filled a book with snapshots from some of their shelves, short conversations about the meaning of books in their practice, and a top ten list of each. If you are one of those people who stears clear from the small talk at dinner parties and instead heads straight for your hosts' library to nose your way up and down the shelves, then this book is for you. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in ArchitectureĪndrea Palladio, The Four Books on Architecture Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books features the libraries of: Each architect also presents a reading list of top ten influential titles, from architectural history to theory to fiction and nonfiction, that serves as a personal philosophy of literature and history, and advice on what every young architect, scholar, and lover of architecture should read.Īn inspiring cross-section of notable libraries, this beautiful book celebrates the arts of reading and collecting. ![]() Photographs of bookshelves-displaying well-loved and rare volumes, eclectic organizational schemes, and the individual touches that make a bookshelf one's own-provide an evocative glimpse of their owner's personal life. What does a library say about the mind of its owner? How do books map the intellectual interests, curiosities, tastes, and personalities of their readers? What does the collecting of books have in common with the practice of architecture? Unpacking My Library provides an intimate look at the personal libraries of twelve of the world’s leading architects, alongside conversations about the significance of books to their careers and lives.
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