fb pixcode

ARCHITECTURE SURVEYS, COMPETITIONS, AND PERIODICALS

PUBLISHER
Metropolis Books

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 11.75 x 8.75 in. / 352 pgs / 500 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2011 p. 175   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781935202462 TRADE
List Price: $49.95 CAD $67.50

AVAILABILITY
Not available

TERRITORY
NA ONLY

THE FALL 2025 ARTBOOK | D.A.P. CATALOG

Artbook | D.A.P. Catalog Cover Link
Preview our FALL 2025 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
  

METROPOLIS BOOKS

Architects' Sketchbooks

Text by Will Jones. Foreword by Narinder Sagoo.

Architects' SketchbooksDrawing by hand is making a big comeback. Tired of ubiquitous slick computer renderings that look the same the world over, architects are rediscovering the importance of this very basic, immediate medium: seeing the world and recasting it through their imagination and visual and manual skill. The resurgence of drawing is not merely a retrograde trend, but an affirmation of the continued importance of sketching as part of the design process. Architects' Sketchbooks is the first survey to present pages from the private sketchbooks of a wide international spectrum of architects, who use drawing to express their spatial ideas while revealing their unique thought processes. Sketches from some 85 architects and studios are featured, including Will Alsop, Architects Atelier Ryo Abe, Shigeru Ban, Elemental, Thom Faulders, Norman Foster, Carlos Jiménez, Alessandro Mendini and Office dA. Their works range from simple line drawings and clear perspectives to more abstract, artistic compositions, from quick freehand to measured mapping, from spontaneous squiggles on scrap paper to careful drawings on art paper. Accompanying texts by editor Will Jones include comments by the architects and profile how they use sketches to help evolve their initial inspirations and concepts into more developed ideas, revealing the artistry behind the built world.

Featured image is reproduced from Architects' Sketchbooks.

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

ArchNewsNow

Norman Weinstein

A delightful substantiation of Frascari's ideas arrives in an anthology of sketches by 85 architects collected by Will Jones in The Architect's Sketchbook (Metropolis Books, 2011). Here's eye-candy as brain-candy; coffee-table book as a door into creative playground graffiti of a serious order. From the crazed comic designs conceived by M15 Arquitectos to the unnervingly precise and photo-realistic pencil drawings of interiors of Peter Clash, there's more invention and more humanism, more room for enticing puzzling, in these informal sketches than you'll find on a bookshelf of glossy architectural journals filled with BIM bling. A book for all ages, for professionals and the merely curious.

A Daily Dose of Architecture

John Hill

Ultimately this book is loads of eye candy and inspiration for architects, just not the type we're used to seeing online and in magazines. Enthusiasts of architecture may find interest in the imagery, but the stunning level of diversity makes the book especially appealing for architects who can appreciate the sketches as a means towards completed buildings and as artistic expressions in their own right.

Architects' Sketchbooks

STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely.

FROM THE BOOK
"Here’s eye-candy as brain-candy; coffee-table book as a door into creative playground graffiti of a serious order. From the crazed comic designs conceived by M15 Arquitectos to the unnervingly precise and photo-realistic pencil drawings of interiors of Peter Clash, there’s more invention and more humanism, more room for enticing puzzling, in these informal sketches than you’ll find on a bookshelf of glossy architectural journals filled with BIM bling. A book for all ages, for professionals and the merely curious."

-ArcNewsNow

FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/28/2011

Architects' Sketchbooks

Architects' Sketchbooks

In his introduction to Architects' Sketchbooks, Metropolis Books' stunning new collection of drawings, paintings and models by 85 architects from around the world, editor Will Jones writes, "Where do architects get their inspiration? What does that first stroke of pencil on paper look like? And how do they embark on the monumental task of turning a sketch into a skyscraper? Architects' Sketchbooks provides the reader, or perhaps we should say viewer, with a rare glimpse of the first inklings of the individual creative processes – the blood, sweat and pencil lead – that go into designing the world we live in."
All sketches and quotations below are reproduced from the book. continue to blog


OF RELATED INTEREST

Tall Buildings

TALL BUILDINGS

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

ISBN: 9780870700958
USD $29.95
| CAD $39.95

Pub Date: 11/2/2003
Out of print | Not available


FORTHCOMING AND NEW: ARCHITECTURE

2G #93: Olafur Eliasson & Sebastian Behmann

2G #93: OLAFUR ELIASSON & SEBASTIAN BEHMANN

Walther König, Köln

ISBN: 9783753307817
USD $55.00
| CAD $78

Pub Date: 8/26/2025
Forthcoming


2G #94: b+

2G #94: B+

Walther König, Köln

ISBN: 9783753307824
USD $55.00
| CAD $78

Pub Date: 10/28/2025
Forthcoming


Common Sensing

COMMON SENSING

Spector Books

ISBN: 9783959056885
USD $35.00
| CAD $49

Pub Date: 9/30/2025
Forthcoming


ARCH+: Wonders of the Modern World

ARCH+: WONDERS OF THE MODERN WORLD

Spector Books

ISBN: 9783959058971
USD $35.00
| CAD $49

Pub Date: 9/30/2025
Forthcoming


Biennale Architettura 2025: Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.

BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2025: INTELLIGENS. NATURAL. ARTIFICIAL. COLLECTIVE.

Silvana Editoriale

ISBN: 9788836661176
USD $95.00
| CAD $130

Pub Date: 10/28/2025
Forthcoming


Architecture in the Netherlands

ARCHITECTURE IN THE NETHERLANDS

nai010 Publishers

ISBN: 9789462089099
USD $60.00
| CAD $85

Pub Date: 9/30/2025
Forthcoming


OASE 120: Quality Settings

OASE 120: QUALITY SETTINGS

nai010 Publishers

ISBN: 9789462089105
USD $29.95
| CAD $41.95

Pub Date: 9/30/2025
Forthcoming


Materiae Palimpsest

MATERIAE PALIMPSEST

Kaph Books

ISBN: 9786148035739
USD $38.00
| CAD $54

Pub Date: 7/15/2025
Forthcoming


Rooted Transience

ROOTED TRANSIENCE

Kaph Books

ISBN: 9786148035753
USD $40.00
| CAD $55

Pub Date: 8/5/2025
Forthcoming


Pressure Cooker Recipes

PRESSURE COOKER RECIPES

Kaph Books

ISBN: 9786148035944
USD $40.00
| CAD $55

Pub Date: 9/30/2025
Forthcoming


Mexican Architectures: 2023–2024

MEXICAN ARCHITECTURES: 2023–2024

Arquine

ISBN: 9786078880508
USD $38.00
| CAD $54 UK £ 30

Pub Date: 11/18/2025
Forthcoming


2G #92: NP2F

2G #92: NP2F

Walther König, Köln

ISBN: 9783753304830
USD $55.00
| CAD $82.5

Pub Date: 4/15/2025
Active | In stock