Architizer Journal is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more.
Architecture and its adventurous cousin Interior Design have long since been the keystone of the coffee-table book market, with hundreds of magnificent books published yearly. Our industry’s penchant for beautiful objects lends itself to curating captivating reading material that is inevitably bolstered by stunning imagery from some of the world’s greatest photographers that expertly illustrate these library luxuries. Often collected and coveted as objet d’art in themselves, encased in bindings equally as beautiful as their contents, architectural coffee-table books always make excellent gifts for friends, family and colleagues or, as we at Architizer actively encourage, as gifts to yourself. You deserve it!
Right now, we are celebrating the arrival of the latest edition of Architizer: The World’s Best Architecture (available for order now!). While we might be biased in saying that ours is the best yet, we thought it was only fair to spread the love and share some additional inspirational coffee table books from recent times that we adore. Each book we’ve selected to feature is packed with fascinating stories and mesmerizing architectural imagery, with every book showcasing the beauty of our built environment through the lens of the incredibly talented architectural photographers that inspire, surprise and delight on every page. After reading these, we’re sure you’ll be desperate to dust off your camera and head straight for a snap of your favorite constructions.
Architizer: The World’s Best Architecture
First up, our publishing pride and joy: Architizer: The World’s Best Architecture is a stunning, hardbound compendium of the world’s most inspiring buildings from the past year.
Showcasing both Jury and Popular Choice winners from the 12th Annual A+Awards, this edition includes incredible projects like Google Borregas by MGA | MICHAEL GREEN ARCHITECTURE, Haus 1 – Atelier Gardens by MVRDV and the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center by REX, among many more.
The incredible collection is loaded from cover to cover with inspiring, beautiful, emotive architecture and is, without a doubt, the definitive guide to the year’s best architecture and spaces.
100 Contemporary Houses
100 Contemporary Houses by Philip Jodidio of the Architecture Now! series is a stunning compendium of, you guessed it, contemporary homes. Focusing on the nuances of designing private residential dwellings, the book looks at the complexities surrounding residential architecture and how personality, emotion and individual taste form the vision and influence the process when working at this scale.
This intimate publication rounds up 100 of the world’s most exciting and pioneering homes designed in the past two decades, featuring a host of talents, both new and established.
African Modernism: The Architecture of Independence
Arranged by the book’s editor, Swiss architect Manuel Herz, and featuring photography by Iwan Baan and Alexia Webster, African Modernism tackles the period of reemergence in the era following independence from colonial rule across the African Nations. In what has come to be seen as Baan’s signature style, the photographs illustrating the book reject the glamorous minimalism typical of architectural coffee table books. In this enthralling summary, shots are populated with people and real life, with the buildings merely urban context for their inhabitants. A refreshing and sensical decision.
African Modernism investigates the close relationship between architecture and nation-building across Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Zambia following the independence of each of the countries. Exploring the rejection of colonial values yet the explicit adoption of European Modernism driven by a lack of African architectural education and, ultimately architects.
Shingle and Stone: Thomas Kligerman Houses
Thomas Kligerman has been immersed in the history of residential architecture for over forty years. Shingle and Stone: Thomas Kligerman Houses is a full-career monograph that features a selection of inspiring residences that highlight the evolution of his architectural thinking. Shingle and Stone presents thirteen major highlights from Kligerman’s portfolio.
The featured projects are all set in breathtaking natural landscapes, from the coasts of Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons to the forests of South Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains and the Pacific Northwest, showcasing the depth and breadth of the architect’s oeuvre. With more than 200 spectacular photographs of interiors and exteriors alongside plans, renderings, and sketches that reveal the design process, this new book is immersive and powerfully nuanced in the language of Kligerman’s architectural vision.
Sacred Spaces: Contemporary Religious Architecture
Sacred Spaces by writer James Pallister although one of the oldest books in our selection, is a beautiful example of emotive imagery destined to inspire any architectural photography enthusiast. Crossing religious divides and geography, Sacred Spaces showcases thirty modern spiritual structures. The gripping collection draws upon spiritual dwellings across all major religions.
Within its ethereal pages, the book covers cathedrals, mosques, cemeteries and memorials, each designed by established architects and lesser-known practices. The collection expertly captures each religious venue’s unique meaningfulness, spirituality and energy, leaving the reader with a deeper understanding of their significance to their sect.
Accidentally Wes Anderson
Born off the back of a viral online phenomenon and community of the same name, Accidentally Wes Anderson celebrates the undeniable visual vernacular of one of cinema’s greatest filmmakers. Each of the locations highlighted throughout the intriguing book boasts the recognizable singular aesthetic that is oh-so typical of film master Wes Anderson. Bright, vivid and often slightly jarring to reality, Wally Koval collects the world’s most Anderson-like sites in all their faded grandeur and pop-pastel colors, telling the story behind each stranger than-fiction-location.
Authorized by Wes Anderson himself, the vibrant coffee-table book is not only fun and a little unbelievable but celebrates much of the weird and wonderful architecture that exists in our unique world.
AphroChic: Celebrating the Legacy of the Black Family
Architectural photography repeatedly focuses on the big picture, viewing a structure or residence as a whole. With their visual narrative, AphroChic by Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason allows you to peek behind closed doors, inviting the reader into the intimate spaces of actors, musicians, artists and curators. These homes defy the stereotypes of urban living and are places filled with precious objects that each tell stories of their own, embedded with sentiment and handed down from generations past. Hays and Mason break away from the big picture and hone in on the detail of the sub-plots that must come together to create any home.
The vibrant and eclectic book recounts everyday Black experiences through the medium of portraits of the home, using beautiful imagery to express the history, the joy and the community that is interwoven in all sixteen homes that are documented while lending light to the ongoing generational struggles surrounding Black homeownership in the US and beyond.
Jutaku: Japanese Houses
Organized geographically and taking readers on a bullet train journey across Japan’s architectural landscape Jutaku is architecture at the speed of Japan. Frenetic. Pulsating. Disorienting. With a culture that is constantly in flux and in stark contrast to the centuries-old imperial architecture of Kyoto, recent Japanese architectural practices have ushered in an era of continuous experimentation that is expertly captured by this mammoth book.
With 500 houses, one house per page, one image per house, Jutaku: Japanese Houses is a fast-paced shock to the system that shines a Harajuku-bright neon light on the sheer volume, variety and novelty of contemporary Japanese residential architecture. Featuring the work of many of Japan’s most famous architects.
Berlin: Urban Architecture and Daily Life 2009–2022
Constantly transforming, never ceasing to reinvent itself, the cityscape of Berlin is in nonstop flux. Berlin is a giant building site where derelict land is converted to urban space, old buildings are reappropriated, and new districts and architectural beacons are regularly being completed.
The new book Berlin: Urban Architecture and Daily Life 2009–2022 takes the reader on an architectural discovery tour of the asperous, vibrant, mysterious German capital. Edited by Sandra Hofmeister, editor in chief of Detail, and Florian Heilmeyer, Berlin architecture critic, it documents the continual urban upheaval that has defined the city since the opening of the Neues Museum in 2009 by examining 30 separate projects.
The book emphasizes the sheer diversity of architecture created in Berlin over the 2010s, from the urban planning milestones on Museum Island to landscape creations like Gleisdreieck Park. Interviews with protagonists of Berlin’s architectural scene give an insider’s glimpse into the city’s development. At the same time, complementing essays address the city’s history and future – from the classicism of Schinkel to the cultural heritage of the 1970s, all the way to the city’s iconic train stations and airports.
prettycity
While not technically a coffee-table book but a collection of books, the prettycity series by Siobhan Ferguson spotlights some of the world’s most beloved cities. With books on Paris and its quaint les passages couverts and beautiful jardins. As well as the pretty tree-lined avenues, eclectic shops, and serene getaways that do not immediately come to mind for cosmopolitan New York. Fergeson also depicts the picturesque seaside villages and romantic medieval castles that guarantee a warm Irish welcome in Dublin and the secluded mews, undiscovered cafes and blooming flower markets of London’s tree-lined streets.
These alternative views of otherwise hectic cities are full of quiet, gentle moments that inspire you to seek out the tranquillity that might be hidden but is always there if you’re willing to look for it.
For over a decade, Architizer’s A+Awards have been championing architectural excellence worldwide. This year, the program celebrates local innovation with global recognition. Click to enter before the Main Entry Deadline on Friday December 6th.
