Completed in 1994, it serves as a private sanctuary conducive to careful study, reflection, inspiration, and as a room designed to relieve stress. Lined with books on three sides, this well-groomed library room exudes permanence, and also serves as a den, home office, a study, and a refuge and therapeutic haven of privacy and individuality. The books themselves are a pure reflection of my own personal design intelligence, my wide-ranging interests, and my endless curiosity. Every architectural book I own was acquired because I wanted to read it although, frankly, some remain unread, but are instantly accessible to me for reference, for reading, for fact-checking, and for the study of architectural precedent considered so vital to contemporary practise. As we continue to be inundated with the onslaught of ephemeral new media such as the dreaded online texts, audio books, E-readers, and Kindle editions, it is essential to underscore how important a real book can be, and how much joy and pride there can be when celebrating the appearance of a new publication on an architectural subject which has never before been published. Nothing matches the look and tactile feel of handling a new book, admiring the organizational structure of the content, the graphic layout and appearance, the heft of a substantial work prepared by authors who may have spent years researching and assembling material from disparate sources. Despite the erosion of the book trade through the disappearance of bricks and mortar retail bookstores, it is continually surprising how the flow of fine quality architectural books continues unabated, especially from small press European and American publishers, even when faced with a global pandemic plague and supply chain issues, they are still able to produce and market hardcover books and catalogues to satiate the thirst of architects for high quality books on new subjects. Constructing a personal architectural library is endlessly rewarding, and the thrill of the hunt has been made much easier with powerful online search engines giving access to literally thousands of book dealers and book sellers around the world who market original printed editions of architectural books that have long been out-of-print and unobtainable. For me, an essential task (and a very enjoyable one at that) is to travel to other cities to visit the great architectural bookstores, some of which still exist – Hennessey & Ingalls in Los Angeles, Peter Miller Books in Seattle, William Stout in San Francisco, Chicago’s Prairie Avenue Bookshop. New York City: George Wittenborn, Jaap Rietman, Seymour Hacker Art Books, Rizzoli, Urban Centre Books, Strand Book Store. Toronto’s Karelia Bookstore, run by the architect Janis Kravis, opened on Front Street in 1966; Ballenford Architectural Books in 1979. In Montreal, the CCA Bookstore opened in 1989.
Steven Evans
Equally important were my visits to Europe: London, RIBA, the AA,the bookstores on Tottenham Court Road. And there was the book store owned and operated by Ben Weinreb (1912- 1999), the dean of the architectural book trade in the United Kingdom, whose shop in Great Russell Street in London was architectural heaven. And then there is the continent and excursions to thriving bookshops in Paris, Milan, Berlin, Stockholm and Helsinki. These visits are absolutely necessary because new architectural books can be found which will never, ever, turn up in Canada. The discovery of unknown books can only occur by actually travelling, taking the time to visit a bookstore and to examine the new titles or, even more important, to see out-of-print or antiquarian architectural titles which a specific dealer may have on hand. The careful process of curating and building an architectural library is pure intellectual pleasure, but it comes with one caveat: a beautiful library room is never done, is never complete, and is continually growing and developing.
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on site review 40 : the architect’s library :: books, shelves, collections
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