At the annual Frankfurt book fair, the German Architecture Museum (DAM) announced the list of the ten best architecture books for 2016.
Two hundred and fourteen books from 88 publishers were entered and judged according to criteria such as design content, quality of material and finishes, innovation and topicality.
Here is a list of the ten books, the author(s) as well as a short description of each book.
African Modernism – The Architecture of Independence. Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia
Authors: Manuel Herz (ed.), Ingrid Schröder, Hans Focketyn, Julia Jamrozik
Eighty structures in the Modernistic style built in the 1960s and 1970s in Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Kenia and Zambia are discussed.
Dieter Kienast -Stadt und Landschaft lesbar machen (Dieter Kienast – Readable City and Landscape)
Author: Anette Freytag
An investigation to the way in which design, theory and presentation are present in the work of Dieter Kienast.
Habitat Marocain Documents – Dynamics Between Formal and Informal Housing
Authors: Sascha Roesler (ed.), Jean Hentsch, Udo Kultermann, André Studer, Theres Studer
The design of two Swiss architects for three settlements in Morocco at the end of the French-colonial era.
Housing Cairo: The Informal Response
Authors: Marc Angélil, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes et al.
The informal urbanisation of this huge city with more than 20 million inhabitants is documented.
Das leichte Haus. Utopie und Realität der Membranarchitektur (The Light House. The Utopia and Reality of Membrane Architecture)
Author: Walter Scheiffele
A book dating to – Der Raum als Membran – is used as starting point to tell the story of light weight architecture.
Authors: Sara Stemen and Jennifer Lippers (eds.), Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, David J. Lewis
Sixty two buildings from the 20th Century presented in cross-section with very relevant construction information.
Nadogradnje – Urban Self-Regulation in Post-Yugoslav Cities
Authors: Sven Quadflieg and Gregor Theune (eds.), Martin Düchs, Monika Grubbauer, Hanna Hilbrandt, Vladimir Kulić, Sven Quadflieg, Dubravka Sekulić
Based on a series of pictures, this book investigates the creation of stories and additions to existing buildings in the states previously part of Yugoslavia.
The Other Architect. Another Way of Building Architecture
Editor: Giovanna Borasi
An exhibition catalogue. It doesn’t focus on forms of architecture but on the creation of new spaces outside of the traditional structures.
Authors: Liz Faber (ed.), Ian Volner
A mixture of a monograph and interesting stories about this very influential architect.
Völlig losgelöst – Architektur der 1970er- und 1980er-Jahre in der Nordwestschweiz und den grenznahen Regionen (Completely Detached – Architecture of the 1970s and 1980s in Northwest Switzerland and Border Regions)
Authors: Christian Flierl, Ulrike Jehle-Schulte Strathaus, Roger Ehret
Buildings dating back to the 1970s and 1980s in Switzerland, with pictures, sketches and interviews.
