Unpacking My Library Architects and Their Books Jo Steffens

What does a library say about the mind of its owner? How do books map the intellectual interests, curiosities, tastes, and personalities of their readers? What does the collecting of books have in common with the practice of architecture?

Unpacking My Library provides an intimate look at the personal libraries of fourteen of the world's leading architects, alongside conversations about the significance of books to their careers and lives. Photographs of bookshelves - displaying well-loved and rare volumes, eclectic organizational schemes, and the individual touches that make a bookshelf one's own - provide an evocative glimpse of their owner's personal life. Each architect also presents a reading list of top ten influential titles, from architectural history to theory to fiction and nonfiction, that serves as a personal philosophy of literature and history, and advice on what every young architect, scholar, and lover of architecture should read. An inspiring cross-section of notable libraries, this beautiful book celebrates the arts of reading and collecting.

Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books features the libraries of: Stan Allen; Henry Cobb; Liz Diller & Ric Scofidio; Peter Eisenman; Michael Graves; Steven Holl; Toshiko Mori; Richard Meier; Michael Sorkin; Robert A. M. Stern; Bernard Tschumi; and, Todd Williams & Billie Tsien.

Jo Steffens is director of Urban Center Books and editor of Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York City.

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