Mohammad al-Asad

Founding Director
Center for the Study of the Built Environment
Amman, Jordan

James Ackerman, Distance Points: Studies in Theory and Renaissance Art and Architecture, 1994

I consider James Ackerman, who is 94 years old, to be one of the greatest architectural historians of our day. This book presents an example of superb writing on architectural history, theory, and criticism. Ackerman's writing is clear, concise, incisive, and illuminating. One only wishes that most of today's architectural historians and critics are able to write half as well as and half as clearly as he does.

Christopher Alexander et al, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, 1977

I do not recall who it was, but someone once wrote that if he is stranded on a deserted island and could only have one book, it would be this one. The book provides a most useful guide for designing architectural elements, spaces, and environments, ranging from a window to a kitchen to a town. It provides very thoughtful information based on how people interact with and relate to the built world around them.

Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built, 1994

This remarkable book explores the lives of buildings after they are completed. For many architects, the greatest moment in the life of a work of architecture that they may design is that pristine instant after it is completed and before it begins to be used. It is at that moment that architects prefer to have their buildings photographed, and it is memories of what the building looked like then that they cherish. Reality of course presents a different story. The moment a work of architecture is occupied, it begins to undergo a process of gradual transformation as it adapts to the continuously changing needs of its users; as it deals with the wear-and-tear brought about by use, by climatic conditions, and by aging; and as it is required to accommodate technological developments - ranging from HVAC to telecommunications systems - that strongly impact how a building is configured. This book beautifully and effectively educates us about this process of continuous change that buildings undergo as part of the ever-evolving relationship between us and our built environment, and about how architects and users have addressed such change, both successfully and unsuccessfully.

John Cook and Heinrich Klotz, Conversations with Architects, 1973

This book features in-depth and honest conversations about architecture with a number of the great architects of their time including Louis Kahn, Philip Johnson, Charles Moore, Paul Rudolph, Robert Venturi, and Denis Scott Brown. I read it as a third-year student of architecture; it transformed my understanding of architecture.

Jan Gehl and Larz Gemzoe, New City Spaces: Strategies and Projects, 2001

Jan Gehl is one of the great urbanists of our time, as is evident in his design / planning work and his writings. Our understanding today of how cities may interact with people in a humane manner that values the pedestrian and celebrates public spaces where all can come together is very much influenced by Gehl's work and by his writings, including New City Spaces.

William J. Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn, 1996; and E-Topia: “Urban life, Jim – but not as we know it”, 2000

William Mitchell died prematurely in 2010. He was a true visionary. He wrote beautifully and insightfully about how the ongoing revolutionary changes affecting information technologies are transforming our built environments and how we interact with them. Much of what he predicted in his writings is taking place today.

Witold Rybczynski, Home: A Short History of an Idea, 1987; and City Life, 1996

Witold Rybczynski has an ability to communicate the complexities of architecture and urbanism in a crisp and clear manner to both specialists and to the general audience, but without descending into oversimplification and overgeneralization. In the first of these two books, he addresses the evolution of the house; in the second, he addresses the evolution of the city.

Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House, 1981

This book has been reprinted a number of times, most lately in 2009. It provides a sharp and witty attack on both Modern and Post-modern architecture. It also serves as a strong reminder to architects that they should not take themselves too seriously, for their influence on society and on the built environment is far more limited than they wish to believe.

June 16, 2014