From a team of bibliophiles such as ourselves, it is a given that we’d seek and indulge in titles of design inspiration, architectural discourses, intersectional creative voices, words of education and provocation by established authors and rising ones. From eco-brutalism to traversing labyrinthine spaces and understanding tenderness in digital spaces, several books from the global design and architecture circuit published this year proffered a magnitude of relevant topics to ponder. Some of these volumes found their way into our curated physical and (mostly) digital reading lists and were subsequently featured in-depth on the platform for our global readers.
As part of STIR’s annual year review, we round up (in no particular order) the best books on architecture and design published this year for their valuable insights on a plethora of subjects, including architectures of transition, cultures of assembly, the intricacies of spatial design in the public realm and more.
1. Photographing the multivalence of ‘Sacred Modernity’ with Jamie McGregor Smith
Publisher: Hatje Cantz
Sacred Modernity: The Holy Embrace of Modernist Architecture by photographer Jamie McGregor Smith is intended as a photographic exegesis of the dramatic shift in ecclesiastical architecture across post-war Europe. Accompanied by Smith’s introduction (In Search of the Ineffable) and two essays by architect and academic Ivica Brnić and writer and journalist Jonathan Meades, respectively, the monograph, also edited by Smith, documents the boldly designed, concrete-led industrial aesthetic that churches adopted. This change, so far removed from the conventional disposition of cathedrals and domed basilicas, received praise and welcome as much as attributions to sacrilege—an extant debate between modernists and traditionalists.
“These buildings are a portal between two worlds: enlightenment and dogmatism, historicism and futurism, the rational and the supernatural.”
– Jamie McGregor Smith, architectural photographer
2. Reflecting on ‘sumud’ as spatial resistance for Palestine in ‘Their Borders, Our World’
Publisher: Organisers of The Palestine Festival of Literature
This “anthology of essays connects Palestinian resistance with global freedom struggles against settler colonialism and calls on us to think more concretely about the practice of solidarity,” the blurb for Their Borders, Our World: Building New Solidarities with Palestine states. Arranged and edited by PalFest co-curator Mahdi Sabbagh, an architect and writer from Jerusalem, the book’s contributors include Yasmin El-Rifae, Mabel O Wilson, Jehan Bseiso, Keller Easterling, Dina Omar and more.
“Good solidarity work is continuous: it doesn’t cease to move and expand; it builds, it amasses people and knowledge.”
– Mahdi Sabbagh, writer, architect, urbanist
3. ‘Brutalist Plants’ visually chronicles eco-brutalist aesthetics on a global scale
Publisher: Hoxton Mini Press
Created by Olivia Broome, this photo book is centred on the sombre yet distinct aesthetic sensibilities of eco-brutalism, as told through over 150 images captured by a multitude of photographers. It is replete with shots of housing, institutional buildings, hotels, urban infrastructure, sculptures and abandoned structures, forming an engaging visual archive depicting how nature and brutalist architecture complement one another in varied contexts and scales. One of the most salient features of the book is the relative absence of humans in its entire length, allowing foliage to dominate—for once—which can be viewed as a poignant reversal of the self-importance our species assigns to its place in the biosphere at large.
“From angular terraces overgrown with vines to cracks that have become arteries for moss, these images tell a story of resilience – and unexpected beauty.”
– Olivia Broome, author
4. ‘Agonistic Assemblies’ asks if it is possible to design a politics of, by and for the people
Publisher: Sternberg Press
Agonistic Assemblies: On the Spatial Politics of Horizontality, edited by Markus Miessen, examines how architecture influences participation in democratic systems. It is an anthology that presents work on cultures of assembly. The publisher states the volume’s overarching enquiry—“how can spaces—both physical and virtual—be envisaged to create publics? How are collectivity and society being generated spatially and in terms of policy? […] What kind of spatial design can we imagine as platforms for change?”
“Conflict in pluralist democratic societies cannot and should not be eradicated, since their specificity is precisely the recognition and the legitimation of conflict. What pluralist, liberal democratic politics requires is that others are not seen as enemies to be destroyed, but as adversaries whose ideas would be fought, even fiercely, but whose right to defend those ideas will never be put into question.”
– Chantal Mouffe (contributor), ‘Democracy as Agonistic Pluralism’, Agonistic Assemblies: On the Spatial Politics of Horizontality
5. Translating society’s fears and worries into graphic designs in ‘Propagandopolis’
Publisher: FUEL
Propagandopolis by Bradley Davies presents the anxieties of contemporary society in the form of propaganda posters created for government or anarchist campaigns—”A century of propaganda from around the world: persuasion, manipulation and fear – visualised,” as the book’s blurb on FUEL’s website reads. It is a compilation of what could be categorised as ‘propaganda art’: posters, manuals, murals and comics that issue health warnings or advice for the common public during the war and, more commonly, political ideology. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the graphic art from the volume comprises war propaganda, as well as dictates from authoritarian states: fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, communist China and North Korea.
“Juxtaposing material from conflicting ideologies, Propagandopolis presents the broadest range of shocking, unusual and visually arresting images, encompassing all regions and eras of the modern age to demonstrate how propaganda has been wielded to evoke emotions, rally support or instil fear – to leave an indelible mark on the collective consciousness.”
– FUEL
6. ‘Tender Digitality’ as a concept for humane and empathetic digital spaces
Publisher: Slanted Publishers
With contributions from 18 different authors, Tender Digitality is a collection of texts and visuals compiled cohesively in a book and edited by Charlotte Axelsson, head of e-learning in the Learning & Teaching dossier at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). An understanding of the perplexing term ‘Tender Digitality’ greets the reader in the introductory chapter by Axelsson, where tenderness is defined as “a deeply serious and aesthetic moment that shows us the contours of the in-between, of that which is hardly tangible”. Further, she describes all kinds of navigation motions in a non-digital, analogue space as ones that proceed in a more or less linear fashion. The following chapters delve through varying perspectives on human interaction with digital mediums, often conflating common human experiences with their complementary manifestations in the digital space.
“This tenderness in the digital domain is important, as we tend to focus so much on technology that we forget to act like a human being.”
– Charlotte Axelsson, author
7. The inimitable compositions and details of ‘Carlo Scarpa: The Complete Buildings’
Publisher: Prestel
STIR’s feature on the book is a photo essay accompanied by two excerpts from the book, which “responds to the need to evaluate Scarpa’s work within the history of architecture”. The tome, containing photography by Cemal Emden, revisits the Venetian architect’s most profound works, both famous and relatively non-public.
Jale N. Erzen’s section, ‘The Architect Poet’ from Carlo Scarpa’s World: Beauty and Meaning states: “If one views the world with love and passion and does things with excitement and joy, then this is poetry made not of words but expressed or created in other ways. [Carlo] Scarpa, according to the accounts of his family and friends, was filled with an uncontainable joy when he strolled around the Piazza San Marco or when he talked about architecture in interviews or lectures. This poetic sensibility was not something casual or easy; he arrived at it through serious thought, hard work and scrutiny, as his drawings, all of which are poetic expressions as well as records, reveal. Scarpa not only created poetry with his architecture or his glass works, which radiated with life and feeling, but he read a great deal of poetry and collected poetry books.”
“For Scarpa, designing was like writing poetry: he had to be sure of every detail of every element used, as one chooses words for a poem.”
– Jale N. Erzen, painter and art historian
8. Understanding ‘Architectures of Transition, Emergent Practices in South Asia’
Publisher: Altrim Publishers
This publication, curated and edited by Indian architects Rahul Mehrotra, Devashree Shah and urban designer Pranav Thole, emanates from the Emergent Practices in South Asia lecture series conducted virtually between 2022 and 2023 under the banner of the ‘State of Architecture in South Asia project’. Cataloguing 41 emergent architectural practices from South Asia, the list includes those that display a rigorous engagement with architecture, landscape and infrastructure in the public realm. Additionally, it further ruminates on practice beyond the built with reflections from recognised practitioners in the region, presented along with a framing essay to contextualise these emergent forms of practice.
“The question then is: What does it take to set up a practice and how do younger practitioners secure public projects, or, for that matter, engage with the public realm?”
– Rahul Mehrotra, Devashree Shah, Pranav Thole, authors
9. The act of reading and self-discovery as a journey through the ‘Labyrinth of Rooms’
Publisher: Oro Editions
Architect and assistant professor of architecture at Kuwait University, Ali AlYousefi’s book Labyrinth of Rooms: An Architectural Allegory presents a unique perspective on architecture, perception and representation. In its afterword, he writes how the volume contains “a story about how the shape of architecture can change the way we think, and how the shape of our thoughts can change the way we see architecture…Human, the story’s protagonist, can be any one of us, and their journey from the first room to the last room is the journey of a lifetime: it has its ups and downs, moments of clarity and moments of confusion, but overall it bends towards greater knowledge and wisdom”.
“Must knowledge necessarily be gained from personal experience, or can it be gleaned from disembodied representations? Or, for that matter, is representation simply considered a form of mediated experience?”
– Ali AlYousefi, author
10. ‘American Modern’: Coalescing community and a laboratory for modernism in Columbus
Publisher: Monacelli Press, in collaboration with the Landmark Columbus Foundation
With photographs by Iwan Baan and written by Matt Shaw, an architect and native of Columbus, Indiana, our book review details the many-layered histories of the town’s conception and development. As Shaw argues, Columbus represents a microcosm of American post-war ideals reflected in its built environment and urban design and planning discourse. By connecting the history of the town to its present, the hope is to present “Columbus [as] not just a museum of individual buildings, but rather an ongoing project that encapsulates the entire city”, Shaw writes in the introduction.
“Columbus’ architecture was never really about style at all. It was about ideas and bringing the best minds to Columbus to help build a better place. Stylistic concerns over Modernism and postmodernism are very blurry in Columbus… All ‘styles’ and types of architecture were modulated here to fit the midwestern context—much like a ‘wholesome Mad Men’.”
– Matt Shaw, author and architect
STIRred 2024 wraps up the year with curated compilations of our expansive art, architecture and design coverage at STIR this year. Did your favourites make the list? Tell us in the comments!
This post was originally published on here
