Some titles appear over and over again in design schools and architecture studios. A few sit untouched in everyone’s library—often with a bookmark stuck before page 30—while others have been dog-eared, highlighted, annotated, and reread. Whether fully read or merely mythologized, these books have shaped the way we think about architecture and design.
Here are seven books every architect has recommended at some point—and ones worth (re)discovering.
1. Towards a New Architecture – Le Corbusier
Published in 1923, this book introduced ideas that still spark debate today: the house as a “machine for living in,” the use of pure forms, and the relationship between functionality and aesthetics. It became a manifesto for the Modern Movement.
2. mplexity and Contradiction in Architecture – Robert Venturi
Published in 1966, this book marked a turning point in architectural thinking. Venturi called for a more complex approach, rich in ambiguity and historical references, as a critique of modernist rigidity. He embraced the decorative, the contradictory, the impure. His most famous quote? “Less is a bore”—a direct jab at the modernist maxim “less is more.”
3. Delirious New York – Rem Koolhaas
Koolhaas approached Manhattan as an architectural experiment. Skyscrapers, advertising, urban chaos, and pop culture converge in a kind of manifesto of excess. It’s not a guide—it’s a brilliant and hallucinatory exploration of what happens when anything is possible in a city. Not an easy read, but a wildly stimulating one.
4. Learning from Las Vegas – Venturi, Scott Brown & Izenour
This book transformed the way many viewed popular architecture. It takes a critical look at the so-called “ugly landscape” and defends ornamentation as a visual language. Las Vegas is analyzed as a symbolic and visual system, set against the purity of modernism.
5. The Eyes of the Skin – Juhani Pallasmaa
A poetic invitation to rethink architecture through the body. Pallasmaa explores touch, smell, sound, and weight, criticizing the visual domination of contemporary architecture. Short, powerful, and deeply sensorial.
6. Architecture Without Architects – Bernard Rudofsky
A celebration of vernacular architecture from around the world. Rudofsky spotlights anonymous structures, built without theory but full of wisdom. A gentle reminder that great architecture doesn’t always come from prestigious firms.
7. S, M, L, XL – Rem Koolhaas & Bruce Mau
More object than book. Huge, visually striking, packed with projects, essays, quotes, lists, and reflections. Published in 1995, it became a kind of bible for architects interested in thinking about space across all scales: Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large. Chaotic, but addictive.
To Read or Just to Own?
It’s okay if you haven’t read them all. Sometimes just having them nearby, open to the right page at the right time, is enough. These books don’t just teach us about architecture or design—they teach us how to think, how to look, how to question. And in the end, that’s part of building too.
