10 architecture and design books to read during COVID-19 quarantine

STIR lists down 10 books that are thought-provoking, easy to read, and fuel to the creative mind of an architect, artist or designer while under social isolation.

1. The Architecture of Happiness (2006)

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton explores the fascinating hidden links between the buildings we live in and our long-term wellbeing. This book can be an introspective read during home quarantine, to analyse human surroundings and how human needs and desires manifest their ideals in architecture.

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2. Ways of Seeing (1972)

Ways of Seeing by John Berger has been a very influential book in the world of art, design and architecture. First published in 1972, it was inspired from a TV series broadcast on BBC Two. The book includes essays on feminist ideologies of popular culture, focusing particularly on how women were portrayed in advertisements and oil paintings.

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3. Invisible Cities (1997)

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino has been a reference book for many academicians, artists, designers and philosophers alike. Due to the ambiguous, poetic, architectural and artistic nature of the book, this can be a great read to make one contemplate while under quarantine.

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4. Postmodern Architecture: Less is a Bore (2018)

Postmodern Architecture: Less is a Bore is a curated collection of Postmodern architecture, showcasing examples of the movement in all its forms from around the globe. The book takes its subtitle from Postmodernist icon Robert Venturi's spirited response to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's dictum that ‘less is more'.

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5. The Fountainhead (1943)

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is a novel that garnered much attention towards the field of architecture during its times and for years thereon. It has been a book that every architect has read at some point in their lives but now would be a good time while staying at home, to go back to this book to re-perceive and re-analyse an understanding towards the famous and complex character of Howard Roark, the architect who demolishes his own building!

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6. Between Silence and Light (2008)

Between Silence and Light by Louis I. Kahn and John Lobell is an easy and light read. Taking forward the poetic expression of Kahn - the visionary architect and thinker of the modern era - Lobell has categorised each of his writings into short write-ups with a lucid title. The book evokes imagination that can be a great way to refresh and spark the thinking process to bring new ideas to the forefront. One can open any page of the book, read, ponder and return whenever one feels like, an insightful book to refer while under isolation.

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7. Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women (2019)

Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women by Jane Hall features 180 buildings by female architects. The book is visual manifesto of more than 200 incredible buildings designed by women all over the world, including Julia Morgan, Eileen Gray and Lina Bo Bardi, and the best contemporary talent, from Kazuyo Sejima to Elizabeth Diller and Grafton Architects. This book is, above all else, a ground-breaking celebration of extraordinary architecture. This can be an inspiring read for the way women in architecture have impacted our environment and are here to continue to do so.

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8. Architecture: Conceptual to the Manifest (2012)

Architecture: Conceptual to the Manifest by Kulbhushan Jain is an in-depth analyses of the concepts, categorically manifested through various parameters, applied by various architects across the globe. Taking cues and examples from eminent projects and acclaimed architects, this book presents a thorough analyses of how a conceptual premise can impact the way architecture comes to be. For practicing architects, this read can turn them back to school and how one can develop concepts and bring them to life.

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9. A Pattern Language (1977)

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein with Max Jacobsen, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, Shlomo Angel, has given not only professionals but to other individuals as well cues to work with their neighbours to improve a town or a neighbourhood, design a house for themselves or work with colleagues to design an office, workshop or public building such as a school. This can be an interesting book to read referencing to the time we are living in today, redefining norms of living in a society and practicing social distancing. An interesting anecdote can be referred to with the recent ruling by the Supreme Court of India that said individuals without an architecture degree can practice architecture

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10. The Thinking Hand (2009)

The Thinking Hand by Juhani Pallasma is a manifestation of the primal connection between the hand, body, mind, self and the artist. For an artist, designer, craftsman, architect and all others whose connect with their product is through the hand, this book brings about interesting philosophical, statistical and theoretical stories. It expresses how this connect between the artists’, of any genre, and his mind is the core to bringing imagination to life.

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These 10 books to read can bring much solace to the idle mind while one is practising social distancing, isolation or work from home scenarios as a response to the current global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section below.