Theory of architecture Books

RMIT Architecture is interested in ideas-led venturous design exploration that aspires to contribute to the future of our discipline and an increasingly complex world.This publication contains a selection of RMIT Master of Architecture independent...

PostDomestiCity is an inquiry and speculative exercise into the conditions of obsolescence in the post-industrial city, from a contemporary perspective.Working with three paradigmatic cases that were conceived from industrial logics - the Packard plant...

Sharing Tokyo is a collection of essays and drawings on the theme of sharing the urban space of Tokyo.The book questions how 'artifice' and the 'social world' can be mutually and constructively integrated so that the...

This book 'deconstructs' a single recently constructed house located in Seattle, WA, in an attempt to recover its backstory. The information is presented along four vectors atoms, labors, sources and ingredients.Though remarkably detailed, the A House...

This book invites us to rethink architectural and urban models, prioritizing not so much the technical, formal and abstract knowledge sought by urban planners, as the public and civic dimension of citizens' experience when they try to care for...

Urban Mix explores the devices and attitudes observable in urban crossroads of 8 major world cities. The diversity and complexity of crossings allow variable freedom of movement and define urban life, according to their cultural particularities.Mobility...

Geospaces is an extended visual essay of ideas, images, drawings and projects that follows the work of Alper Derinboaz over the past decade, framing an approach to architecture based on empathy with earth.Architectural history is a fragment of the long...

This book's central argument is that plug-ins, situated design outcomes that aim to enrich the complex system of the city and expand its potentialities, are a solid yet supple conceptual framework for rethinking how design can be a key agent in city...

In a world of change we cling to constants that comfort us while catastrophes lure behind cut corners.We compartmentalize and channel our focus into cones of concentration when confronted with choices. Many might decide to do so with intention while...

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...

AA Files is the Architectural Association's (AA) journal of record. Currently under the editorship of Maria Shhrazade Giudici, AA Files looks to promote original and engaging writing on architecture. It does this by drawing both on the AA's own academic...

This book calls attention to the public space of cities and proposes that the environmental performance of public space is underdeveloped, and is primed to play a more integrated role in combatting the urgency of climate change, while also creating a...

Design Practice Research at RMIT University is a longstanding program of research into what venturous designers actually do when they design. It is the most enduring and sustained body of research of its kind: empirical, evidence-based and surfacing...

Focused on post-labor, psychopathology, and plasticity of human mind and body, this book introduces insight, critiques, and propositions in the area of "self-design," ranging from design and architecture to science, media, history, philosophy, and...

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...

Mute Icons dwells in the paradox between silence and sign and aims to debunk a false dichotomy within critical discourse about the cultural need and socio-political relevance of the architectural image. Mute Icons challenges fixed...

Enric Miralles (1955-2000) remains one of the most prominent architects of his generation. The significance of his architectural design lies in his seamless integration of site and building and his use of space to serve the everyday conditions of life...

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...

Share: Conversations about Contemporary Architecture The Nordic Countriesis the first book in a new global series of investigative interviews about the modern architectural process. Initiated and undertaken by the Norway-based Canadian architect Todd...

AA Files 75 features essays by Freya Wigzell, Kristina Jaspers, Claire Zimmerman, Laila Seewang, Roberta Marcaccio, Rebecca Siefert, Shantel Blakely, Francesco Zuddas, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, Victor Plahte Tschudi, Francisco Gonzalez de Canales, Ross...

AA Files 73 features contributions on Patrick Hodgkinson and essays and conversations by Matthew Mullane, Mariana Siracusa, Eva Branscome, Nicholas Olsberg, Mike Dempsey, Helen Thomas, Thomas Weaver, Jonathan Sergison, Alberto Ponis, Timothy...

This book focuses on the first edition of Kenneth Frampton's Modern Architecture: A Critical History, published in 1980. It searches for clues and positions that will provide the reader with an unprecedented insight into the significance of Frampton's...

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 dissemination of architectural discourse is a fundamental component in the constitution of the discipline as a cultural practice. This dissemination is not, as in other fields, an activity exclusively linked to the effort of making its contents...

Each of the contributors has responded to a set of 20 questions on the multiple conditions under which particular ideas and words enter architectural discourse through publication. The resulting critical positions and observations are as diverse as the...

These essays elaborate on such key modernist tropes as transparency, glass architecture, organicism, life and event, sameness and difference. Previously published in a variety of different venues, from journals to anthologies - including such noted books...

Authorship critically examines emergent themes in contemporary architecture by revisiting the seemingly defunct notion of design authorship. As we revel in the death of the master architect, how do we come to terms with the shifting role of creativity in...

Spatial Infrastructure is a collection of essays crafting a self-consistent project that recasts architectural thinking as a form of knowledge by addressing a number of fundamental questions relevant to the reading of works across styles, time-periods,...

First published in 2008, (as Contro l'architettura), Against Architecture has been translated into French and Greek, with editions forthcoming in Polish and Portuguese. The book is a passionate and erudite charge against the celebrities of the current...

Examines how images of accumulation help open up the climate to political mobilizationThe current epoch is one of accumulation: not only of capital but also of raw, often unruly material, from plastic in the ocean and carbon in the atmosphere to people,...

Thinking through object-oriented ontology-and the work of architects such as Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid-to explore new concepts of the relationship between form and functionObject-oriented ontology has become increasingly popular among architectural...

Leading scholars historicise and theorise technology's role in architectural design.Although the question of technics pervades the contemporary discipline of architecture, there are few critical analyses on the topic. Design Technics fills this gap,...

Superhumanity seeks to explore and challenge our understanding of "design" byengaging with and departing from the concept of the "self." This volume bringstogether more than fifty essays by leading scientists, artists, architects,designers,...

This well-illustrated, accessibly written book examines how eighteenth-century prints and drawings of antique architecture operated as representations of thought. Combining original archival material with cultural theory, the book considers the idea of...

In his wide-ranging study of architecture and cultural evolution, Chris Abel argues that, despite progress in sustainable development and design, resistance to changing personal and social identities shaped by a technology-based and energy-hungry culture...

A novel interpretation of architecture, ugliness, and the social consequences of aesthetic judgmentWhen buildings are deemed ugly, what are the consequences? In Ugliness and Judgment, Timothy Hyde considers the role of aesthetic judgment-and its concern...

A provocative case for historical ambiguity in architecture by one of the field's leading theorists.Conceptions of modernity in architecture are often expressed in the idea of the zeitgeist, or 'spirit of the age,' an attitude toward architectural form...

Evaluates for the first time one of the foundational works in architecture criticism. Immediately on its publication in 1972, Learning from LasVegas, by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, was hailed as a transformative work in the...

Fifty years ago a landmark conference at Harvard University established urban design as a distinct architectural and planning practice. Today, with the world's urban population surpassing three billion people, urban design has become more crucial than...

Since its first publication in 1974, Principles of Structure has established itself at the forefront of introductory texts for students of architecture, building and project management seeking a basic understanding of the behavior and design of building...

In this book the reader will find the full range ofcurrent container architeture projects - one container for a temporary exhibition Hall, or thousand containers for a football stadium. In an ever-changing world with its hybrid forms of living and...

This book presents international projects with a focus on the amazing versatility of this eco-hero in architecture and interior design Architecture involving and consisting of bamboo as a building material has developed into one of the most fascinating...

Nearly exactly ten years after the publication of the Atlas of World Architecture, this new follow-up publication reviews the last architectural decade by means of current exemplary buildings from all continents. Not only have building tasks, techniques...

Take an expansive and provocative tour of architectural theory and practice, exploring everything from basic concepts to speculative design and subversive interventions. Universal Principles of Architecture illustrates in 100 concepts the importance,...

An accessible guide to the most important ideas and developments in the history of architecture, and the people behind them Discover the key architectural concepts behind the world's most incredible buildings and structures. The Architecture Book goes...