The most recommended books about architects

This book will have you up all night. It is a humorous, steamy contemporary romance between a boss and his apprentice. Both are architects in a family business. You will fall in love with the witty dialogue and the irresistible chemistry between the hero and heroine in this multicultural romance. 

How can you not love a novel about an agoraphobic mother who somehow promises her 15-year-old daughter that she’ll take her to Antarctica?

The mom, Bernadette, knows she can’t handle that kind of trip, but in her desperate attempts to make it work, things get out of hand, and Bernadette disappears. It’s up to 15-year-old Bee to play detective and find her. Set in Seattle, Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is a delightful mix of comedy and satire with a wonderful message about the need to face up to the disappointments in one’s past.

Frank Lloyd Wright is undoubtedly America’s most famous architect. Everyone knows his name, and those who study the field know how his distinctive styles changed the face of architecture in the early 1900s. But few realize the impact that a brutal mass murder had upon Wright’s life and work. It happened at his Taliesin estate in rural Wisconsin in 1914. One of Wright’s house servants, Julian Carlton, went on a rampage with an axe, hacking to death Wright’s lover Mamah Borthwick Cheney and her two children. Four others also were killed when Carlton set the house on fire. Of course the tragedy was personally devastating for Wright, and it also changed the creative course of his life. After Taliesin was destroyed, he moved away from the Prairie House style of organic architecture, for which he had originally become famous.

Kelly Starling Lyons is a brilliant author of several books for children and young adults.

A personal favorite is her book about my father, Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon. This tells my Dad's story, from struggling to read letters and numbers as a child, to becoming a world renowned architect of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.

West has authored three books that I’d consider parenting fiction, but this one is my favorite. The main storyline follows a mom as she struggles to parent her teenager through his impulsive decisions and public failures. It also explores how a child’s behaviors or actions can often feel like a reflection on their parents. West is an expert in writing multiple POV novels, so readers get to understand these issues from every angle. 

Set in Nazi-occupied Paris, The Paris Architect tells the most unusual story about an up-and-coming architect named Lucian who is offered a financially lucrative deal... but it’s a dangerous deal and one he doesn’t fully believe in. Forced to choose between safety or money, an envelope stuffed with his first payment emboldens his decision and creates a no-turning-back scenario.  

Set in the 1930s and 1940s, Charles Belfoure’s captivating writing will make you think about the past and wonder about other unsung heroes of that time.

"I am by nature hardworking but I always needed a special impulse,” observed Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, in his memoir about his early life and his days as one of Hitler’s ministers. The impulse led him to write his memories in which he provides portraits of Hitler, Goering, and Gobbles. His accounts are far from flattering and his behind scenes activities in Berlin make for great reading. The book comes with several pictures of Speer with Hitler and other prominent Nazis and his account of Hitler during his last days stay with you for a long time. I was always intrigued about the other side and this book provides an insider’s look at the people involved.

If the other books on my list are about disillusionment, Asterios Polyp provides a good counterpoint as its message runs in the opposite direction. Sometimes people are better than you think. Asterios is an obnoxious architect whose worldview starts with the assumption that everyone else is wrong. After a series of crises (thrown out by wife, apartment fire) he has to flee the city and rent a room in the home of a rightwing redneck married to a hippie, just the sort of people he would never associate with by choice. He learns humility and goes about fixing his life. It’s all pretty predictable but the mix of elegantly cartoonish art and funny storytelling kept me engaged (even when I wanted to smack the hero.)

Imagine sitting in a room with 50 of the top software architects in the world and have each of them tell you some brief words of advice about being a software architect.

Welcome to “97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know”. Each 2-page spread features a top software architect offering their advice on some aspect of software architecture. From technical skills to soft skills, this book has it all.

This book is a must-read if you are a software architect, or even thinking about becoming one.

It is my belief that half of being an effective software architect is mastering people skills.

However soft they are, these skills are the hardest to master. This book focuses on the communication and soft skills necessary to become an effective architect, and it does it superbly. The author’s elevator metaphor is perfect in that it emphasizes the fact that communication must exist on all levels within the organization, and the skills needed at each level differ.

I personally found this book very useful in honing my communication skills as a software architect.

The Bell in the Lake is a fascinating historical novel that takes place in a Norwegian mountain village.

Central to the tale is an ancient stave church and the role it plays in village life over the years. This is a fascinating glimpse into Norway’s past, and contains an unexpected mystical twist that delightfully brings the past to life. The eventual fate of the church is a powerful testament to the folly of blindly bulldozing our way to modernization.

Lars Mytting’s characters are engaging and multi-faceted, and he’s written an emotionally powerful, well-crafted novel that is sprawling in its ambition, yet deeply intimate. I can pay no larger a compliment than to say that it brings to mind Ken Follet’s masterpiece, The Pillars of the Earth—high praise indeed!

I’ve seen the moody tv series adaption – but the book is a must-read for any domestic-thriller list! I really enjoyed this roller coaster ride that takes you through romance, twists, and sometimes creepy revelations. I also found the alternating of character voices and time compelling. Sometimes, it doesn’t work – but I think the author did a great job of this to build up to the surprise ending. Famed and mysterious architect Edward Monkford carefully chooses occupants for a home he rents out who must adhere to an extensive (and peculiar) list of rules in order to live there. The story follows two “lucky” occupants of the property, Emma. 

A mammoth of an historical novel set in the time of the Ottoman Empire.

A unique love story between the elephant keeper (and royal architect) Jahan, his special white elephant, Chota, and the interesting princess Mihrimah. As funny as it is heartbreaking, with characters so compelling they felt like cherished friends mourned and missed at parting, but whom I’ll always remember with deep fondness.   

All of the architects mentioned in my other recommendations are men. Yet many women broke barriers to become noteworthy architects. This recently-published book aims to bring to readers the profiles of dozens of women architects. Organized by the birthdate of the architect, this book also has short essays throughout that bring context to the profiles. Some of the names will likely be new to you (Marion Mahony Griffin) and some well-known (Julia Morgan, Jeanne Gang). This is an excellent corrective to the history of architecture.

Some of the biggest disasters I've seen in home remodels are when clients pick the wrong architect or don't know how to communicate with them. This book fixes that.

The Forever Home shows you how to pick the right architect, communicate your vision, and avoid common pitfalls. The author is an architect, and it is based on his many years of experience. The book does an excellent job of using visuals to illustrate key points. 

I’ll never look at a highway median strip the same way again. The oldest entry on my list, a classic that describes in tortuous detail the epitome of urban alienation. The urban prison within which the Robinson Crusoe-ish protagonist finds himself is an external setting created by our impersonal, uncaring urban life, but it is also an inner state of mind of semi-comforting psychological detachment. Could we city-dwellers all be urban castaways, no matter our physical location? Ballard’s theme of cars perpetuating dehumanization in Concrete Island followed his urban-focused novel Crash published the previous year. 

Hands down, the best book on modern architecture from someone who lived it. Peter Blake was an architect and renowned critic who ran in serious architectural circles during the modern movement. As editor-in-chief of Architectural Forum, he was an expert on the topic and knew everyone involved. His engaging and approachable writing style makes this a must-read for every budding modernist. I re-read this book every year…it’s that good.

For an architect to take an incisive, unflinching look at his own profession is refreshing and enlightening. Francis-Jones positions architecture’s strengths and failings in reflection to society, politics, equity, aspiration, ecology, power, and defiance. As a promoter of architects and what they do, I’m happy to see a title that places architecture in a broader scope, and in the same breath as other creative expressions, such as film, music, and literature. He raises questions and observations about the nature of architects and architecture that make one think: Is there any truth in architecture? Why are we driven to build so tall? Why do architects feel so sad, overwhelmed, and helpless? Conversely, within its rubric of architecture, Truth and Lies is a book about us—about how people engage and disengage from society and the consequences that ensue. 

After the earthquake, people had to rebuild. This one features a female architect who trained under Julia Morgan, rebuilding a luxury hotel that once belonged to her family. The tension rises she competes with a male architect to have the first finished hotel. This book is filled with great descriptions of the setting and events surrounding the quake. It is filled with people reimagining themselves and their city after tragedy and loss.