Synopses & Reviews
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 ofand#160;twelve of the worldand#8217;s leading architects, alongside conversations about the significance of books to their careers and lives.
Photographs of bookshelvesand#8212;displaying well-loved and rare volumes, eclectic organizational schemes, and the individual touches that make a bookshelf oneand#8217;s ownand#8212;provide an evocative glimpse of their ownerand#8217;s personal life. 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.
An inspiring cross-section of notable libraries, this beautiful book celebrates the arts of reading and collecting.
Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books features the libraries of:
Liz Diller and Ric Scofidio
Todd Williams and Billie Tsien
Peter Eisenmanand#8217;s Recommended Titles:
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities
Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture
Thomas Pynchon, Gravityand#8217;s Rainbow
Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology
Andrea Palladio, The Four Books on Architecture
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
William Faulkner, Light in August
About the Author
Jo Steffens is director of Urban Center Books and editor of Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York City.