The Anatomy of the Architectural Book dissects the material, visual, and intellectual life of architectural publishing — tracing how the book itself has functioned as a medium through which architectural knowledge is produced, circulated, and transformed.
About This Book
Architecture and the book have always been in dialogue: buildings inform publications, and publications shape how buildings are conceived. André Tavares maps this reciprocal relationship through five conceptual lenses — texture, surface, rhythm, structure, and scale — applying them to a wide sweep of architectural books as material objects with their own design intelligence. The result is a history of architectural publishing that is also a history of architectural thought. Drawing on the library of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the book moves from Vitruvius through William Morris, Gottfried Semper, El Lissitzky, and Le Corbusier, while the detailed case studies of Sigfried Giedion's Befreites Wohnen and the Crystal Palace's two incarnations anchor the argument in specific, retrievable history. Essential reading for anyone interested in architectural media, book design, and the transmission of ideas.
Key Features
- 384 pages of illustrated analytical text drawn from the Canadian Centre for Architecture library collection
- Author: André Tavares
- Case studies include Sigfried Giedion's Befreites Wohnen and the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park and Sydenham
- Discusses Vitruvius, William Morris, Gottfried Semper, El Lissitzky, and Le Corbusier
- Published by Lars Müller Publishers, ISBN 9783037787694
What You'll Discover
- How five material properties — texture, surface, rhythm, structure, and scale — can be applied to books as analytic tools in the same way they are applied to buildings
- The way the industrialised book transformed architectural knowledge-making, traced through specific historical examples rather than broad generalisations
- How canonical figures from Vitruvius to Le Corbusier used the page and print medium to advance distinct architectural arguments
- The crossover between book culture and building culture, and why the architectural book is itself a design artefact worthy of critical attention
About the Author
André Tavares is an architectural historian whose work sits at the intersection of architectural history and the history of publishing. In The Anatomy of the Architectural Book, he draws on extensive archival research, including the holdings of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, to construct a methodology for reading books as architectural objects in their own right.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 384
- Dimensions: 16.5 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783037787694
- Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architectural historians, design researchers, book designers, and practitioners with an interest in how architectural ideas are mediated, published, and read across history.