Top 10 Architecture Books (Part 1)

The books every architect should read... at least once!At Saneux we provide you with the products and advice needed to design unique bathrooms for your projects. Design and innovation is imperative to what we do and so we value the relationships we build with our customers and our collaborations with designers and architects.With that in mind, we decided to present you with a guide to essential architectural reading. You don’t need to be an architect to enjoy them though! All you need is some passion for good design and interest in urban landscapes and the impact they have on our day to day life.So… we've rounded up the best of contemporary literature on architecture in 3 parts, so that you can skip the research and dive straight into the reading!Here is our ultimate guide to the best architecture books around:[caption id="attachment_10460" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The BLDG BLOG Book, Geoff Manaugh, Amazon, from £35.85[/caption]

1. The BLDG BLOG Book by Geoff Manaugh, Chronicle Books, LLC, 2009

Geoff Manaugh’s The BLDG BLOG Book recollects the inspiration and primary idea behind his blog and discusses the future of architecture. In a time when he wasn’t satisfied with his surroundings, Manaugh decided to start a blog that would look at them in a new light, in search for the diverse, the exciting within the mundane. In this illustrated book, Manaugh changes the context through which we examine architecture, allowing us to rethink the world we have constructed. Concerned with the future that will ultimately be created by architecture, he explores futuristic ideas such as architectural infections and the concept of landscapes defining the world in which we live in and the world which is to come. Featuring interviews with the likes of Mary Beard and Jeff Vander Meer, this book challenges our perspective towards the way we approach architecture. He exhausts the ideas of architecture upon, under and even above the earth and takes his influence from everything and everywhere, yet somehow always manages to link them back to his objective; architecture. If you would like to discover the link between sewers and musical instruments and fungus to architecture, then you will have to read this book to find out.[caption id="attachment_10458" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Toward an Architecture (Paperback), Le Corbusier, Waterstones £18.99[/caption]

2. Toward an Architecture by Le Corbusier and translated by John Goodman, Getty Trust Publications

This book was first published in 1923 and was a truly revolutionary book for the architects of the time. With its then groundbreaking ideas, Le Corbusier’s book prepared the ground for a new era of architectural design, that we have come now to know as modernism. Influencing architecture in a very significant way, Toward an Architecture is a good reference to 20th century thinking and constituted a foundation for the open discourse that followed in the modern era around architecture and design. This book also gives us an insight to Le Corbusier’s influences which include the celebrated poet Mallarmé whom he admired and outline of familiar concepts that then only just explore such as the famous 3 reminders: Volume, Surface and Plan. What makes this book even more special is that it is illustrated with Le Corbusier’s own hand drawings that give off a more personal tone.[caption id="attachment_10462" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Design for Climate Change, Bill Gething and Katie Puckett, RIBA Bookshops, £20.00[/caption]

3. Design for Climate Change by Bill Gething with Katie Puckett, RIBA Publishing, 2013

Like many other RIBA Publications, Design for Climate Change is an invaluable tool for the contemporary architect that wants to design buildings that are adapted to climate change. It educates the reader with the relevant research that is being carried out within the field and provides information on the dangers that we will be likely to face in the future of architecture. The book is based on solid scientific research and identifies the main risks that buildings are facing and will be facing in the future and the ways that contemporary architecture can adapt, address and accommodate these significant changes. Tackling the ever-changing challenges of climate change is not an easy task and a full guide would be impossible to write. However, this book which is based on existing projects, successfully manages to set the scene for a new generation of architects that are aware of the environment and sensitive to the issues that come with it. By communicating proven solutions to existing problems and offering useful information and assistance, we can begin to find solutions to the problems of tomorrow as well as increase the chances of a better quality of life in the future.Stay tuned for the next part and more amazing architecture books!