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What books are a must read for students of Architecture????
What books helped you out the most, and which ones didn’t live up to your expectations?????
What book have you read recently????
Please Post Here……
This is a great post and i would like to hear people’s opinion on this one. So guys, please enlighten us by posting your opinions.
In my opinion,
- Form, Space and Order by D.K Ching is like understanding the ABC of architecture. In this book many concepts used in architecture are presented with use of good examples.
- Design in Mind by Bryan Lawson is another great book. The author has interviewed some famous architects and tried to understand the process of designing in architecture. Mostly, you will find books which deal with the end product of architectural designing (i.e buildings, bridges etc.) but in this book the author has dealt with the PROCESS of designing. It is different in that way from the rest of the books.
- Reading Architectural Magazines is one of the best thing to do to know more about the recent structures.
Hoping to hear others opinion…..
Lets not forget the basics…neufert’s, time saver standards too are sometimes helpful in the functional designing of the spaces..
though i must agree with rohit that the magazines are a definitely a good way to update yourself with the latest trends in architecture
here’s my pick of the magazines i read and liked
1. Icon– an amazing and absolutely crazy magazine about anything and everything of design, be it architecture, product design or furniture and interiors…an eye opener for whats happening in design world. the official website is http://www.iconeye.com
this one also has guest editors like zaha hadid, richard rogers sometimes.
2. Architecture week– this one is an online publisher of 3 amazing magazines, architecture week, green wednesday and residential tuesday..
can be visited at http://www.architectureweek.com, has an amazing archive too…
3. A+D- published by john wiley and sons, a good collection of journals to know whats what of architecture now.
and rest for interior enthusiasts, theirs indian publications like inside outside, design todayn etc. and another UK based magazine called Grand designs uk
as for books, i am a random reader so can hardly point out any specific book on architecture, but i really enjoyed reading books on various architects profile and works, published by Taschen.
thats right…
Architecture is a profession in which very little emphasis is laid on the most important activity… i.e. reading books…
Designing, in my opinion, requires a lot of reffering back and forth on books, not for getting "inspired" by designs, but to know the better of the ways of doing things, placing services, organizing spaces etc.. I am not against getting ‘inspired by designs’ or for that matter, ‘copying’ it completely… if we see sombody’s parker pens or a particular levis t-shirt and likes it, then we all buy it inspite of it being allready bought by others… so why not a good design… is it some different… i think we can ‘copy’ a design as long as the act of copying is justified or our design really needs that element or concept of somebody elses design.. i would personally not prefer it though.. and avoid it as long as possible as copycat architects – an outcome of the postmodernist era – are not so much looked upto thesedays…
Anyways, not diverting from the topic, the books reffered above (esp form space and order, dk ching) are exceptionally helpful books as they are written for the architectural student in focus… after you are through with these… you should take your reading to the next level… read whatever good and informative you find… if not read, just flap through pages… grasping some bits and pieces of information as you go along… even this is very useful… i practice that because i was never in a habbit of reading books completely… so the idea is to read anything useful… searching books by the information they contain… not by the name or the author… i think any book on history of architecture is very useful as it will construct an architectural vocabulary and grammar for us which we will be using our entire life… and books on the various architectural movements like art noveau, art deco, modernism, postmodernism, deconstuctivism etc are also exceptionally useful in getting to know the recent architectural evolution better…
I personally will not recommend any authors as i myself dont read books that way… mostly people when recommended authors to me… i didnt liked their poetic way of explaining things (partly because they were’nt written for students as such)… so i prefer to read any book in which the content is very clear and to the point… as they save time and energy…(the other poetically written books have to be read many times to make your own personal inferences and not the authors inferences, which is good for creating your own stand on any architectural issue and ultimately for our architectural evolution…. but i prefer the other way round…)
As i said its a personal choice… so you have to figure out what you enjoy reading the most and how you enjoy reading the most….
Chao….
Well, I guess one of the good books that i came across during last two years in SPA is……..THE TIMELESS WAY OF BUILDING by CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER. And i think it’s better to go through these few pages from the book(the link ahead) than to hear its appreciation through my keyboard.
http://tal.cs.tu-berlin.de/lv/ss2005/seminar_ig/texte/ChrisAlex_11.5.05.pdf
I guess the post is quite old but still I felt it is better to mention a list of books which I have in my mind… Its a list of nearly 25 books listed here – Architecture Books
History of Architecture by Sir Banister Fletcher, Andrew Saint and Architecture: Form, Space and Order by Francis D.K. Ching being in the top.
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