Top 10 architecture books of 2016

Defining the top 10 architecture books of 2016 is always hard and unfair. There are so many good options that we have to forget some of them. Today, Design Limited Edition reveals a top 10 based on DAM Architectural Book Award winners – the world’s only architecture-specific book prize. Take a look!

African Modernism – Architecture of Independence

The book highlights 80 examples of modernist structures built in Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Zambia in the 1960s and 1970s. Written by Basel architect Manuel Herz and with photography by Iwan Baan, it shows the architecture produced in the countries’ first years of independence from Britain and France.

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Dieter Kienast – Stadt und Landschaft lesbar machen by Anette Freytag

This monograph by art historian and ETH Zurich researcher Anette Freytag picks apart the design thinking behind the work of Swiss landscape architect Dieter Kienast.

Habitat Marocain Documents – Dynamics Between Formal and Informal Housing

Described by the jury as “evolutionary building monograph”, this book provides a study on a trio of small settlements built by Swiss architects Jean Hentsch and André Studer towards the end of the French colonial era in Casablanca.

Housing Cairo: The Informal Response

Housing Cairo charts the informal urbanization in Cairo, using photographs and plans to traces the city’s development to present day, with a particular focus on the west bank of the Nile.

Manual of Section

Cross-sections offer a peek inside the walls and floors of 62 buildings from the twentieth century, including Le Corbusier’s chapel in Ronchamp.

Das leichte Haus. Utopie und Realität der Membranarchitektur

Based on the 1926 book Space as Membrane by Siegfried Ebeling, this publication looks into the history of lightweight construction – from Bruno Taut’s glass architecture to Frei Otto’s tensile structures.

Nadogradnje – Urban Self-Regulation in Post-Yugoslav Cities

Photographs by Gregor Theume document DIY extensions to the socialist-era homes found in the countries that once made up Yugoslavia. This inexpert building style is discussed in six essays by architects and urban researchers.

The Other Architect by Giovanna Borasi

The Other Architect is an exhibition catalog for The Other Architect show at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. It considers 20 examples of architectural thinking from the 1960s to present day.

Völlig losgelöst

The title of this book refers to a pop song from the 1980s, but its pages focus on the architecture specific to northwest Switzerland. Photography by Christian Flierl shows little-known buildings accompanied by short interviews with architecture historians.

This is Frank Lloyd Wright by Ian Volner

This monograph of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright is penned by architectural journalist Ian Volner. Broken down into digestible chunks and illustrated by Michael Kirkman, it traces the architect’s life from childhood through to the design of some of his most famous buildings, including Fallingwater and the New York Guggenheim Museum.