#thetriumphofpostmodernism | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mcmansionhell · 8 years ago

Text

The McMansion Hell Big List of Books, Websites, and Films about Architecture

SURPRISE!!!!

Edit: I had to take out the “Read More” tab because it killed all of my links, so Sorry for the long post!

Hello Friends! I feel as if I haven’t really been giving back to the community as much I should be in these last few weeks, and that while my latest Sunday posts have been mildly amusing, nobody is really learning anything from them.

I shared some recommended reading on my Facebook page a week or so ago, and want to expand on that list here. Architecture is a wonderfully rich field with a plethora of resources. This post is a master-list of the architecture books, blogs, websites and films I have accumulated since my early teens.

While extensive, this is in no way a definitive list, and I’m sure many others will have quite a bit to add on in the comments. I hope you enjoy!

Books

Links are to Amazon. A ** next to the title indicates the link is to an open-source copy of the book, or that it is easily available online.

General Architecture (non-academic, general interest)

Paul Goldberger, Why Architecture Matters

Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

Witold Rybczynski:

Looking Around

How Architecture Works

Home

Matthys Levy/Mario Salvadori, Why Buildings Fall Down**

Mario Salvadori, Why Buildings Stand Up**

Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn

Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House**

Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language**

Bill Bryson, At Home

Matthew Frederick - 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School

Architectural Style (Field Guides)

Virginia McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses

If you want to buy one book on this list, I highly recommend this one. It’s the best book out there about American residential architecture. If you’re curious about houses, it’ll sate your curiosity.

Carol Davidson Cragoe, How to Read Buildings: A Crash Course in Architectural Styles (this one is neat for traveling about because it’s small)

John J. G. Blumenson, Identifying American Architecture: A Pictorial Guide to Styles and Terms, 1600-1945 (an old but good small guide)

Nikolaus Pevsner, An Outline of European Architecture**

Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions [Houses • Churches]

Richard Apperly, A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms from 1788 to the Present

Cities, Suburbs, and Housing (of course not a complete list)

Jane Jacobs:

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

The Economy of Cities

Cities and the Wealth of Nations

Vital Little Plans: The Short Writings of Jane Jacobs

Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City **

Lewis Mumford: The City in History

Aldo Rossi: The Architecture of the City**

Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of Tomorrow

Witold Rybczynski:

Mysteries of the Mall

City Life

Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities

Kenneth T Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States

Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

James Howard Kunstler:

The Geography of Nowhere

Home from Nowhere

Dolores Hayden, PhD:

Redesigning the American Dream: The Future of Housing, Work and Family Life

A Field Guide to Sprawl

Building Suburbia

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck: Suburban Nation

It’s only fair to put the New Urbanists in here.

John Archer, Architecture and Suburbia (a favorite reference of mine)

Tracy Kidder, House

Sarah Susanka, The Not So Big House

Peter Marcuse & David Madden, In Defense of Housing

Matthew Desmond, Evicted

Alex F. Schwartz: Housing Policy in the United States

Architectural History:

Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (personal favorite)

Francis Ching, et. al. A Global History of Architecture (a standard college textbook)

Carol Strickland, The Annotated Arch: A Crash Course in Architectural History (a lot of fun!)

Daniel Borden, et al. Architecture: A World History

Leland M. Roth & Amanda C. Clark, American Architecture: A History

William J. R. Curtis: Modern Architecture Since 1900 (a classic)

Edward R. Ford, The Details of Modern Architecture

Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History**

Heinrich Klotz, The History of Postmodern Architecture

Charles Jencks, The Story of Postmodernism

Architectural Theory & Criticism Essentials

General Architectural Theory:

Leland Roth, et al. Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning

Francis Ching, Architecture: Form, Space, and Order** (AKA freshman year of architecture school)

Siegfried Gideon, Space, Time, & Architecture

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space **

Roger H Clark & Michael Pause, Precedents in Architecture**

Mark Foster Gage, Aesthetic Theory: Essential Texts for Architecture & Design

Geoffrey Scott: The Architecture of Humanism: A Study in the History of Taste **

M. Fil Hearn, Ideas that Shaped Buildings** (a great handbook of architectural theory through history - always by my side.)

Lewis Tsurmaki Lewis, Manual of Section (not quite architectural theory, but a super cool book)

Alexandra Lange, Writing About Architecture - not quite theory but a v good and useful book.

Kate’s Top 4 Very Old Dead Guys (all public domain)

Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture

Andrea Palladio, The Four Books of Architecture

Leon Battista Alberti, The Ten Books of Architecture

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture

Modern Architecture

Adolf Loos, Ornament & Crime **(fake summary below):

Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture**

Henry Russell Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, The International Style **

Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age**

Ulrich Conrads, Programs and Manifestos on 20th Century Architecture**

Kenneth Frampton, A Genealogy of Modern Architecture

Ada Louise Huxtable, On Architecture: Reflections on a Century of Change

Current Architectural Theory / Contemporary Classics

Vincent Scully

Architecture: The Natural and the Manmade

American Architecture and Urbanism

Modern Architecture

The Shingle Style Today (this book completely blew my mind in high school, and remains one of my favorite books about architecture to this day.)

Robert Venturi + Denise Scott Brown

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture**

Learning from Las Vegas**

Rem Koolhaas:

S,M,L,XL

Delirious New York**

Peter Zumthor:

Atmospheres

Thinking Architecture

Bernard Tschumi, Architecture & Disjunction**

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows **

Films

Most of these films have the full version online for free. I won’t link directly to them because I don’t want to get yelled at.

Films About Architects:

My Architect [film about Louis Kahn]

Regular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe

Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect

Sketches of Frank Gehry

Frank Lloyd Wright (Ken Burns)

First Person Singular: I.M. Pei

Eames: The Architect & The Painter

Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture

Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner

How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?

Loos Ornamental

Films about Architecture:

Kochuu [film about contemporary Japanese architecture]

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth [about the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St. Louis]

Unfinished Spaces [About Cuba’s National Art Schools Project]

Urbanized [about the design of cities]

Visual Acoustics [about the photographer Julius Shulman]

Great Expectations [general architecture]

I’d like to make a shoutout to my colleague Thomas Bena, whose film about McMansions, One Big Home, is making the film circuit now. I’ve seen the movie and will be writing a review on this blog in the coming weeks. In short: go see it if you can!!!

Websites

Architecture News / Popular Websites:

Curbed

Dwell

Dezeen

ArchDaily

Architizer

Wallpaper*

FastCo Design

CityLab

Architonic

Domus

Archinect

Inhabitat

Blogs:

Life of an Architect

Life of an Architecture Student

Build Blog

Soapbox Architect

My Favorite Websites:

99 Percent Invisible (disclaimer: I write for them)

Archinform - an online encyclopedia of architecture

Monoskop - a huge database of amazing archival resources for architecture and design.

Arts & Architecture database

US Modernist Magazine Library - incredible collection of primary sources from modernism

Docomomo (preservation of modernist architecture)

Failed Architecture (analyzing failure in architecture)

Places Journal (my favorite online journal)

Emporis (it has every tall building!)

On Tumblr

Tumblr seems to have killed my links. This is devastating.

Like McMansion Hell:

@uglybelgianhouses - the best, really the best. @terriblerealestateagentphotos

General Architecture: @architecture-drawings @archidrawings @archatlas @archidose @archimaps @archiclassic @architecturalmodels @an-architectural-statement @conceptarchitect @rationalistarchitecture @wherearchitectureisfun @archivemodernarchitecture @luciotuzza @drawingarchitecture @dailybungalow @victorianhouses @ofhouses @architorturedsouls

Modern Architecture: @20cmodern @fuckyeahbrutalism @architectureofdoom @modernism-in-metroland @theimportanceofbeingmodernist @modernistestates @germanpostwarmodern @decoarchitecture @englishmodernism @midcenturymodernhomes @bauhaus-movement @artfuckingdeco @iheartnouveau @sosbrutalism @americanmodern

Postmodernism: @aqqindex @palmandlaser (these two blogs were why I got a tumblr) @memphis-milano @80sdeco @blockygraphics @thetriumphofpostmodernism

Vintage Stuff: @midcenturymoderndesign - mid century modernism @scanzen - an assortment of cool stuff @midcenturyblog - mid century stuff @superseventies - 70s @cardboardamerica -vintage postcards @theswinginsixties - 60s @70sscifiart - 70s Sci Fi Art @driveintheaterofthemind - great vintage blog @80stechnology - 80s tech @imperialgoogie - the 50s @ephemera-phile - old print stuff from various eras @heck-yeah-old-tech - old technology @quadrafonica - vintage hifi @homophoni - also vintage hifi @holespoles - all kinds of stuff @system32dreams - 80s/90s tech @monochrome-monitor - 80s/90s tech @beautifulcentury - 1890s-1910s @oldadvertising - vintage ads @back-then - amazing photographs from history @fifties-sixties-everyday-life - 50s/60s @y2kaestheticinstitute - turn of the 21st century @lpcoverlover - record covers @classical-vinyl - my first tumblr (I comment as classical-vinyl, fyi)

Favorite Architecture Photographers:

@phdonohue @archivemodernarchitecture @archivemoderninteriors @veronicadelica @new-brutalism @wmud

Design/Art/People Who Consistently Post Awesome Things: @archiveofaffinities @zeroing @design-is-fine (one of my favs ever) @c86 @norequeststaken @scavengedluxury (another fav) @99percentinvisible @magictransistor @transistoradio @klappersacks @designstroy @ffactory @instereo007 @contac @publicdomainreview @detailsofpaintings @modernizor @nemfrog @bluecote @graphicgraphic

Visual Artists I Like: @sunday-thought @jimharrisart @jacobvanloon @michaelwardartist

Also shoutout to @maverick-ornithography who is not only hilarious, but who was also my first ever follower, so now I’m returning the favor.

I hope you all enjoyed this post! Next up is Florida on Wednesday, so stay tuned! I’ll finish up Great Britain after that; I’m currently reading books on British vernacular architecture and its history so I’m more informed. I barely dodged some bullets in that last post and had to go back and correct a lot…

Have a great week!

If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon! Tonight, I’m doing a live Discord chat with my $5+ Patrons at 8:30PM EST!

Not into recurring donations? Check out the McMansion Hell Store - 30% goes to charity.

#architecture #design #films #websites #books #further reading #tumblr blogs #art #list

2K notes · View notes