Best summer books of 2024: Architecture and design

Protest Architecture: Barricades, Camps, Spatial Tactics 1830-2023 edited by Oliver Elser, Anna-Maria Mayerhofer et al (Park Books)

Coinciding with the outbreak of global student protests over the destruction of Gaza, this small, chunky volume attempts to analyse the various manifestations of the ad hoc architecture of protest over the past two centuries, from Parisian Barricades to the tent cities of Occupy and the Arab Spring. Taking the form of a kind of gazette it covers a lot of ground, in its densely packed pages and manages to be both pessimistic (few of these protests had the desired outcome) and optimistic (the protesters are ingenious, tenacious designers and mostly proved right by history).

Carlo Scarpa: The Complete Buildings by Jale N Erzen, Emiliano Bugatti and Cemal Emden (Prestel)

Carlo Scarpa’s reputation comes from his work with historic buildings, many around his native Venice, in which his rich interventions are as complex and intriguing as their settings but always determinedly modern. This big book reveals a wider frame, with many lesser-known new-builds captured in epic photographs by Emden and perfectly illustrates his enduring appeal.

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Emergency Money: Notgeld in the Image Economy of the German Inflation, 1914-1923 by Tom Wilkinson (MIT Press)

Germany’s hyperinflation produced a surprising cultural medium — money. The “Notgeld” or emergency money (to replace now worthless banknotes) became a riot of expressionist graphics and biting satire. There were figures defecating money, proto-socialist-realist industrial scenes and Caligari/Nosferatu nightmares. An economic nadir proved a cultural zenith as these graphic mini-masterpieces were adopted in collage and art as well as payment. Wilkinson manages to encompass economics, art, architecture, design and social history in a book buzzing with vivid images.

Horace Jones: Architect of Tower Bridge by David Lascelles (Profile)

Horace Jones is not a name much known today but his works will be familiar to anyone who works in the City. He was the City architect in its late 19th-century pomp and, working with iron, stone and complex contemporary engineering he built not only Tower Bridge but Leadenhall, Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets among much else. Jones was the archetypal Victorian designer, mashing styles together and blending iron and glass with stick-on historicising facades but his works have terrific energy and Lascelles here tells his story with clarity. 

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