Lineage, Legacy, & Literature

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What does it mean to be at ART in 2025, a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century? What intellectual ground supports the way we think about architecture—about buildings, drawing, language, and meaning?

We are now in the third generation of the firm. Many practices survive after their founders depart, but fewer sustain a continuity of thought. Shepley Bulfinch (Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott Inc.) carried forward the name of H. H. Richardson’s office, yet the intellectual lineage did not persist in quite the same way. ART, I believe, is different. The name has evolved slightly over time, but the underlying way of thinking about architecture remains connected to the ideas that founded the firm.

My wife, Dana, once mentioned that as a painter she can trace her lineage back to Titian through her teachers and their teachers. There is something compelling about that idea—that one’s work participates in a chain of influence extending across generations.

It made me wonder about my own intellectual and architectural lineage. Who am I connected to? What path of influence led here? Could I trace myself back to someone like H. H. Richardson? Even if the line cannot be drawn with precision, what matters most is our connection to one another at ART through a shared set of ideas about architecture.

Those ideas emerged in the late 1960s, shaped in part by a reaction to Modernism and by the writings and teaching of Charles Moore. To work here is to stand within that lineage, whether we consciously recognize it or not. Ideas pass through teachers, mentors, colleagues, and offices. That is how traditions endure.

Which brings me to books.

For centuries, books have been one of the primary ways architectural ideas travel across time. Vitruvius. Palladio. Stuart and Revett. Asher Benjamin. Le Corbusier. Architecture has always been a conversation carried forward in print.

Recently we assembled several book lists from Jacob Albert, John Tittmann, and myself. Each list contains ten books. I figured that if “ten books on architecture” was good enough for Vitruvius, it works for us as well. These lists represent part of the intellectual lineage that has shaped the way we think.

Most of these books were written between the 1970s and the early 2000s. Many are now more than forty years old, yet they remain strikingly relevant.

A few themes run consistently through them:

  • Architecture is a language.
  • Design is human-centered.
  • Drawing matters.

The authors are careful observers of the physical world. They attend closely to the human body and to lived experience. They remind us that beauty is real, that buildings communicate meaning, and that architecture carries associative power. As John Ruskin once suggested, a house must do two things: provide shelter and speak to us.

We are creating a place in the office for these books and lists. My hope is that it becomes more than a small collection assembled by a few of us. I encourage everyone to think about their own list. It may not be ten books—it may be only one or two. Write them down. Share them. Add them to the shelf.

Over time, this shelf might grow into something larger: a collective record of ideas, influences, and curiosities—a kind of shared intellectual landscape for the office.

Legacy is not only the buildings we leave behind.  It is also the ideas we carry forward.

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 1957 -
JBT: philosophical musings on the nature of architecture and how it occupies our dreams
William L. MacDonald, The Architecture of the Roman Empire, 1965 -
JBT: simple description of the power of Roman architecture
Vincent Scully, The Shingle Style & the Stick Style, 1955/revised 1971 -
JDA: A ground-breaking book, bringing to light the wonders of American wooden summer resort architecture of the 1870’s and ‘80’s with one foot in the vernacular and another in the classical tradition. It describes a uniquely American synthesis of 18th century New England Colonial to French Chateaux, to Japanese houses.
Vincent Scully, American Architecture & Urbanism, 1969 -
JDA: The best short synopsis of the history of American architecture, which works on Scully’s broad definition of architecture as “the manmade environment,” and its relationship to the natural environment. The prose is beautiful, jargon-free and at times scans almost like poetry.
JBT: fundamental history of why American architecture looks the way it does
Thomas Hubka Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm, 1984 -
JBC: A classic architectural and cultural study of the interconnected farm buildings of 19th-century rural New England. The book analyzes these structures as a “vernacular architecture” that reflects the farmers’ ingenuity, cultural values, and a specific agricultural way of life.
Samuel G. White, Stanford White in Detail, 2020 -
JDA: No text—just sumptuous pictures of details
Witold Rybczynski, Home: A Short History of an Idea, 1986 -
JBC: Outlines the evolution of a space we all take for granted and a space we design daily – the house and the home.
Robert Venturi, Complexity & Contradiction in Architecture, 1966 -
JDA: A revolutionary but “gentle manifesto” throws off the rusty shackles of the Modern Movement (Less is a Bore) and examines in detail how architecture of the past achieved richness through complexity. Venturi reintroduces architects to long-ignored figures such as Lutyens, Frank Furness, and the masters of the Italian Baroque, among many others, and introduces us to his own work.
Peter Inskip, Architectural Monographs 6: Edwin Lutyens, 1979 -
JDA: A good general introduction to Lutyens which includes a plan of each of the buildings shown.
Mark Alan Hewitt, Draw in Order to See: A Cognitive History of Architectural Design, 2020 -
JBC: A book about how drawing connects our brain to the world, revealing architectural detail as a cognitive process involving perception, memory, and embodiment, not just symbols. Sketching helps us understand complex structures by linking hand-eye coordination with deeper understanding.
Léon Krier, The Architecture of Community, 2009 -
JBC: A wonderful collection of Léon Krier’s wringing and drawings. I had the privilege to interview Léon in 1992, as I wrote my thesis on Poundbury. He understands both the language of architecture and the language of drawing. I also love his individual buildings. They are innovative and artistic, what we strive here at ART.
JBT: brilliant illustrations of urbanism
Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, 1960 -
JBT: how we read cities
Kent Bloomer and Charles Moore, Body, Memory, and Architecture, 1979 -
JBC: Architectural design should prioritize human, sensual experience and emotional well-being over abstract, technical goals. The central premise of this book is that a building’s value is measured by its association with personal and collective memories, which are intrinsically linked to our physical experiences and emotional interactions within a space.
A.W. Pugin, Contrasts, 1836 -
JBT: polemical work, one of the first writings on architecture to link morality and design
Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness, 2006 -
JBC: Musing on the power of architecture and how it shapes our lives. Written by a philosopher, not an architect.
A.S. G. Butler, The Architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens (Vols. 1, 2, 3) , 1950 -
JBT: monograph of one of the 20th c’s great architects.
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961 -
JBC: Jane Jacobs argues that by promoting diversity, density, and human-scale design, cities could foster vibrant, safe, and functional communities, directly challenging the sterile, segregated visions of modernist planning.
J. J Coulton, Ancient Greek Architects at Work: Problems of Structure and Design, 1977 -
JBT: how architects in antiquity solved design problems
Frank Lloyd Wright, Drawing and Plans of Frank Lloyd Wright: The Early Period (1893-1909) , 1983 -
JBC: An inexpensive publication reproducing the drawings from the Wasmuth Portfolio, published in 1910. This publication launched FLW’s career. I found these drawings captivating as a student, and continue to marvel at their artfulness and clarity.
John Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture, 1966 -
JBC: Summerson’s work explains how architects, from antiquity to the modern era, use this shared, systematic vocabulary of proportion and elements to build structures that are simultaneously traditional and individual, forming a continuous “conversation” in stone.
David Watkin, Morality and Architecture, 1977 -
JBT: history of an idea, how concepts shift and flow through time
Claes Caldenby & Olof Hultin, Asplund, 1986
Charles Ramsey & Harold Sleeper, Architectural Graphic Standards, 5th Edition, 1956 -
JDA: Where to find the size of a ping-pong table or a piano, or how properly to detail a wood window or how big to make a fireplace flue. The line weights of the drawings are far superior to those of later editions, which are almost useless.
Charles Moore, Gerald Allen, & Donlyn Lyndon, The Place of Houses, 1974 -
JDA: Shows how architects and builders of the past have shaped the character of some of the most memorable American places and offers a guide to architects today on how to pick up on the cues of a place. This book isn’t just for architects—it’s as good for a general audience, written with clarity and wit.
Banister Fletcher, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, 1931 -
JDA: The best single-volume compendium of the world’s architecture (a delightfully outdated selection), with lovely graphics: beautifully laid out pages of plans, sections & elevations (at least in older editions)—the lettering style alone is worth the price of the book.
Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, and A Pattern Language, 1979 -
JBC: A philosophical guide to creating places that feel alive by understanding and applying fundamental, human-centric design patterns, emphasizing an intuitive, people-focused approach over rigid theories or styles.
Architectural Monographs: John Soane, 1983 -
JDA: Of the books we have on Soane, this paperback has the best illustrations, including fantastic fold-out drawings. Pay special attention to Soane’s sections and how he brings daylight into the interior.
Architects’ Emergency Committee, Great Georgian Houses of America, 1970 -
JBT: beautiful drawings done under the WPA, recording American houses

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