Architecture

"Traveling easily through a thousand years of history, The Bright Ages reminds us society never collapsed when the Roman Empire fell, nor did the modern world did wake civilization from a thousand year hibernation. Thoroughly enjoyable, thoughtful and accessible; a fresh look on an age full of...

Christopher Alexander presents in it a new theory of architecture, building, and planning which has at its core that age-old process by which the people of a society have always pulled the order of their world from their own being.

The Man in the Glass House lifts the veil on Johnson's controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. This book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful and tells the story of the built environment....

No city stirs the imagination more than Venice. From the richly ornamented palaces emerging from the waters of the Grand Canal to the dazzling sites of Piazza San Marco, visitors and residents alike sense they are entering, as fourteenth-century poet Petrarch remarked, “another world.”....

From the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast, comes a guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities. Narrated by Roman Mars, with a bonus Q&A and a Full Episode of 99% Invisible. Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk...

Frederick Law Olmsted is arguably the most important historical figure that the average American knows the least about....

The Citicorp Center, a fifty-nine-story skyscraper built in 1977, immediately became one of the most recognizable features on the New York City skyline with its distinctive inclined roof and oddly placed support columns. Designed by one of the top structural engineers in the field, William...

No journalist has ever been allowed into the ultrasecretive, highly pressured process of originating a perfume. But Chandler Burr, the New York Times perfume critic, spent a year behind the scenes observing the creation of two major fragrances. Now, writing with wit and elegance, he juxtaposes...

Keith Lowe, an award-winning author of books on World War II, saw monuments around the world taken down in political protest and began to wonder what monuments built to commemorate WWII say about us today....

In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken....