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For kids (but you'll want a copy, too)
 

Archidoodle: The Architect's Activity Book

by Steve Bowkett

This innovative book is the first to provide a fun, interactive way to learn about architecture. Filled with an array of beautiful and elegant drawings, it poses all manner of architectural challenges for the user: from designing your own skyscraper, to drawing an island house or creating a Constructivist monument, plus many others more.

Aimed at anyone who loves drawing buildings, it encourages the user to imagine their own creative solutions by sketching, drawing and painting in the pages of the book. In so doing, they will learn about a whole range of significant architectural issues, such as the importance of site and materials, how to furnish a space, how to read plans, how to create sustainable cities and so on.
 

Architecture According to Pigeons

by Speck Lee Tailfeather

Architecture According to Pigeons is a fun, lively introduction for children to world’s most beautiful buildings. In this delightful book, Speck Lee Tailfeather reveals that he and his fellow pigeons are in fact great aficionados of architecture. Speck delivers his account of a journey around the globe, offering a "bird’s eye view" of the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, Golden Gate Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, and dozens of other buildings to delight children and parents alike.
 

Built to Last

by David Macaulay

This new book — inspired by three classic, award-winning books — reveals the how and why behind some of the most fascinating and enduring structures humankind has ever created. Macaulay has revised texts based on new research, created gorgeous new drawings, in some cases wholly re-imagined scenes from the books, bringing Castle and Cathedral to life in full-color for the very first time. The resulting illustrations add to the reader’s understanding of these buildings, capturing intriguing new perspectives and a depth of detail in structure and atmosphere.

This impeccably researched volume is not only a necessary addition to the bookshelf of any David Macaulay or architecture fan, but will delight readers of all ages who are experiencing his work for the first time.
 

From Mud Huts to Skyscrapers

by Christine Paxmann

Children will be utterly absorbed by this journey through the history of architecture, from the earliest mud huts to today's soaring towers. Chronologically arranged, this large-format book gives each iconic building its own double-page spread featuring an exquisite watercolor illustration and clearly written descriptions, facts, and features. These vibrantly detailed pages are filled with people, animals, and other objects that help bring the buildings to life. A detailed appendix includes a timeline, a world map that points out where each building can be found, and an extensive glossary. Children will enjoy poring over this book--and will come away with a fundamental understanding of not only the most common architectural terms, but also of how the built world has evolved marvelously over time.
 

If You Lived Here: Houses of the World

by Giles Laroche

If you lived in the mountains of southern Spain, your bedroom might be carved out of a mountain. If you lived in a village in South Africa, the outside of your house might tell the story of your family. And if you lived in a floating green house in the Netherlands, you could rotate your house to watch both the sunrise and sunset. With intricate bas-relief collages, Giles Laroche uncovers the reason why each home was constructed the way in which it was, then lets us imagine what it would be like to live in homes so different from our own.

Showing the tremendous variety of dwellings worldwide--log cabins, houses on stilts, cave dwellings, boathouses, and yurts--this book addresses why each house is build the way that it is.
 

The Story of Buildings: From the Pyramids to the Sydney Opera House and Beyond

by Patrick Dillon and Stephen Biesty

We spend most of our lives in buildings. We make our homes in them. We go to school in them. We work in them. But why and how did people start making buildings? How did they learn to make them stronger, bigger, and more comfortable? Why did they start to decorate them in different ways? From the pyramid erected so that an Egyptian pharaoh would last forever to the dramatic, machine-like Pompidou Center designed by two young architects, Patrick Dillon’s stories of remarkable buildings — and the remarkable people who made them — celebrates the ingenuity of human creation. Stephen Biesty’s extraordinarily detailed illustrations take us inside famous buildings throughout history and demonstrate just how these marvelous structures fit together.
 

The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale

by Steven Guarnaccia

In this quirky, artsy retelling of “The Three Little Pigs,” the pigs and their homes are nods to three famous architects — Frank Gehry, Phillip Johnson, and Frank Lloyd Wright — and their signature homes. Each house is filled with clever details, including furnishings by the architects and their contemporaries. Of course, not all the houses are going to protect the pigs from the wolf’s huffing and puffing. Which one will? The wolf, and readers, are in for a clever surprise ending.
 

Unbuilding

by David Macaulay

In this wonderfully urbane fantasy, the Empire State Building is dismantled after being purchased by a foreigner who wishes to re-erect it closer to home; the step-by-step process of taking the building apart, richly illustrated by David Macaulay, shows what went into building the iconic skyscraper in the first place. "It is not a work of nonfiction but a work of fantasy, and not the story of the making of the skyscraper but the story of the unmaking of a very particular one, the Empire State Building ... The exquisite drawing style that marked Mr. Macaulay's earlier works on architecture remains as whimsical as ever." (The New York Times)
 

Underground

by David Macaulay

David Macaulay takes us on a visual journey through a city's various support systems by exposing a typical section of the underground network and explaining how it works. We see a network of walls, columns, cables, pipes and tunnels required to satisfy the basic needs of a city's inhabitants. "A straightforward yet fascinating description of the labyrinth beneath the feet of any city dweller. And what a complex covered world David Macaulay reveals! He invents an intersection of two streets and proceeds to show what we all might find if we dared to descend through that Alice-in-Wonderland manhole." (The New York Times)