Seven books for thinking about space: a personal reading list

The question we hear most often is “what should I read?”. This list is not a bibliography. These are books we have returned to again and again over the years, and that changed the way we look at space and light. None of them is a technical manual. All of them try to understand what it is like to be inside a space.

1. Juhani Pallasmaa — The Eyes of the Skin (1996)

Pallasmaa argues that contemporary architecture has put sight above the other senses, and reminds us of the role touch, sound and smell play in how we experience space. It is a slim book, yet each time we read it we underline a different sentence. Since reading it, we take more care to run a hand over a material rather than only look at it.

2. Gaston Bachelard — The Poetics of Space (La Poétique de l’espace, 1957)

As a philosopher, Bachelard reads the house, the drawer, the corner and the attic as spaces of the imagination. For an interior architect it is a surprisingly practical book: it explains why a home is more than its floor area, and why a corner can feel like a refuge.

3. Peter Zumthor — Atmospheres (2006)

Born from a short lecture, this book lists one by one the elements that make up the “atmosphere” of a space: the compatibility of materials, temperature, sound, the tension between composure and seduction. It takes an hour to read and stays with you much longer.

4. Steen Eiler Rasmussen — Experiencing Architecture

Written in the late 1950s for readers with no background in architecture, this book teaches how to look. Its chapters on rhythm, scale, texture and light are still among the best introductions we recommend to students.

5. Jun’ichirō Tanizaki — In Praise of Shadows (In’ei Raisan, 1933)

Tanizaki writes about the beauty of dimness in Japanese houses, of lacquered wood and light filtered through paper screens. It reads like a warning against spaces where every surface shines and every corner is lit. It is one of the books we reopen before starting on a lighting design.

6. Sai Mustafa Çelebi — Tezkiretü’l-Bünyan

Written down by the poet Sai Mustafa Çelebi from Mimar Sinan’s own account, this text tells Sinan’s life and buildings in his own words. Reading how an architect saw his own work five centuries ago is a reminder that what we do belongs to a very old tradition.

7. Christopher Alexander et al. — A Pattern Language (1977)

This thick book, made of hundreds of “patterns” that range from the town to the window sill, is not meant to be read cover to cover but to be dipped into again and again. Entries such as “light on two sides of every room” and “window place” show that a good space often grows out of simple, humane decisions.

While reading

Don’t try to finish these books in one go. Read a chapter, then look at a space you are in that day through its eyes. Books only come alive when they are measured against real places.