The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design

Delft University of Technology

2014 SUGGESTED GENERAL READING LIST

Selected by Salomon Frausto

Since the education of architecture and urban design history and theory varies widely
throughout the world, the following reading list has been compiled to help familiarize
you with the major arguments, positions, and approaches of European and Western
architectural and urban design thought. Starting from antiquity to modernism and the
present day, the following books are suggestions to help you fill in gaps you may have
missed in your previous education or to help refresh your memory as you prepare to
enter postgraduate study.

In addition, a selection of books related to the general history of Europe—as well as the
history and culture of the Netherlands—has been suggested to help you to better
familiarize yourself with the local surroundings and context.

You are not expected to read all the books on this list but instead familiarize yourself
with the ideas and topics found in these books that will serve as the foundation for your
future education.

Primary documents
Leon Battista Alberti, Ten Books of Architecture
Reyer Banham, The Architecture of Four Ecologies
Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age
Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture
Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan
Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S,M,L,XL
Adolf Loos, Spoken Into the Void: Collected Essays 1897–1900
Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City
John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown, Learning From Las Vegas
Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture

Architecture and urban design history surveys

Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age
Leonardo Benevolo, History of Modern Architecture
Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture 1750–1890
Jean-Louis Cohen, The Future of Architecture Since 1889
Alan Colquhoun, Modern Architecture
Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History
Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: 19th and 20th Century
Spiro Kostof and Greg Castillo, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals
Lewis Mumford, The City in History

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Peter Murry, Architecture of the Italian Renaissance
Nikolaus Pevsner, An Outline of European Architecture
Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius
Max Risselada and Dirk van den Heuvel, eds., Team 10, 1953–1981: In Search of a
Utopia of the Present
Brett Steele and Francisco Gonzales de Canales, First Works: Emerging Architectural
Experimentation of the 1960s and 1970s
Joseph Rykwert, The First Moderns: The Architects of the Eighteenth Century
Rudolf Wittkower, Gothic and Classical
Rudlof Wittkower, Architectural Principles and the Age of Humanism

Architecture- and urban design-related theory

Stan Allen, Points and Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City
Stan Allen, Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
Reyner Banham, A Critic Writes. Selected Essays by Reyner Banham
Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society
Ulrich Conrads, Programs and Manifestoes on 20th Century Architecture
Peter Eisenman, Ten Canonical Buildings, 1950–2000
Robin Evans, The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries
Hal Foster, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture
Hilde Heynen, Architecture and Modernity
Hans Ibelings, Supermodernism: Architecture in the Age of Globalization
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Jeffrey Kipnis, Perfect Acts of Architecture
Rosalind Krauss, Originality and the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths
Sanford Kwinter, Far from Equilibrium: Essays on Technology and Design Culture
Sylvia Lavin and Helene Furjan, eds., Cribs Sheets: Notes on the Contemporary
Architectural Conversation
Lars Lerup, After the City
Bruce Mau, Massive Change
David Grahame Shane, Recombinant Urbanism: Conceptual Modeling in Architecture,
Urban Design and City Theory
Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development
Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction
Colin Rowe, Mathematics of the Ideal Villa
Witold Rybczynski, The Look of Architecture
Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Differences: Topographies of Contemporary Architecture

Architecture- and urban design-related history/theory anthologies

Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, eds., Living in the Endless City: The Urban Age Project
by the London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society
Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, eds., The Endless City: The Urban Age Project by the
London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society
K. Michael Hays, ed. Architecture Theory Since 1968
Charles Jencks and Karl Kropf, Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture

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Michael Larice and Elizabeth MacDonald, eds., The Urban Design Reader
Mohsen Mostafavi and Gareth Doherty, eds., Ecological Urbanism
Joan Ockman, ed. Architecture Culture 1943–1968
A. Krista Sykes, ed. Constructing a New Agenda for Architecture: Architectural Theory
1993–2009

General graphic background and definitions

Francis D.K. Ching, Architecture, Form Space and Order
Francis D.K. Ching, Architectural Graphics
Kevin Forseth, Graphics for Architecture
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture
Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information
Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

General European history

Norman Davies, Europe: A History
Eric Hobsbawn, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1941–1991
Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
Mark Leonard, Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century
Geert Mak, In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century

General design culture of the Netherlands

Sveltlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century
S. Umberto Barbieri and Leen van Duin, eds., Hundred Years of Dutch Architecture
1901–2000: Trends, Highlights
Adam Betsky, ed., False Flat: Why Dutch Design is So Good
Bart Lootsma, SuperDutch: New Architecture in the Netherlands
Mienke Simon Thomas, Dutch Design: A History

General history of the Netherlands

Julie Berger Hochstrasser, Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age
Mark T. Hooker, The History of Holland
Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806
Frits van Oostrom, The Netherlands in a Nutshell: Highlights from Dutch History and
Culture
Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the
Golden Age

General culture in the Netherlands

Martijn de Rooi, The Dutch, I Presume? Icons of the Netherlands
Martijn de Rooi, How to Survive in Holland: Dealing with the Dutch Before They Deal
with You
Colin White, The Undutchables: An Observation of the Netherlands, Its Culture, and Its
Inhabitants

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In addition, it is strongly suggested that you familiarize yourself with the work of the
following architects:

Alvar Aalto, Leon Battista Alberti, Tadao Ando, Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Diller and
Scofidio, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, Peter Eisenman, Aldo van Eyck,
Antonio Gaudi, Frank Gehry, Eileen Gray, Walter Gropius, Zaha Hadid, John Hejduk,
Herman Hertzberger, Philip Johnson, Louis I. Kahn, Rem Koolhaas, Claude-Nicolas
Ledoux, Daniel Libeskind, Adolf Loos, Richard Meier, Richard Neutra, J.J.P. Oud,
Andrea Palladio, Renzo Piano, H.H. Richardson, Mies van der Rohe, Aldo Rossi, Carlo
Scarpa, Rudolph Schindler, Louis Sullivan, Bernard Tschumi, Robert Venturi and Denise
Scott-Brown, and Frank Lloyd Wright.