“What are the best books about Skyscrapers?” We looked at 78 of the top Skyscraper books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
The top 10 titles, all appearing on 2 or more “Best Skyscraper” book lists, are ranked below by how many lists they appear on. The remaining 60+ titles, as well as the lists we used are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
Lists It Appears On:
Houses are built with many different materials, and in many shapes and sizes. Step by step, this picture book explains how homes are built–from the architect’s plans through the arrival of a happy family. The many processes of construction are explained with simple language and bright, clear illustrations, perfect for kids starting to wonder about how the world around them works. Many different careers–including carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and landscapers–are introduced, each doing their part to bring the picture wood-frame house to life. A great read for kids who love construction sites, or who can’t get enough of Building a House by Byron Barton. According to The Washington Post, Gail Gibbons “has taught more preschoolers and early readers about the world than any other children’s writer-illustrator.” Ms. Gibbons is the author of more than 100 books for young readers, including the bestselling titles From Seed to Plant and Monarch Butterfly. Her many honors include the Washington Post/Childrens Book Fuild Nonfiction Award and the NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book Award.
Lists It Appears On:
The much-anticipated follow-up to the E. B. White Award-winning picture book If I Built a Car In If I Built a Car, imaginative Jack dreamed up a whimsical fantasy ride that could do just about anything. Now he’s back and ready to build the house of his dreams, complete with a racetrack, flying room, and gigantic slide. Jack’s limitless creativity and infectious enthusiasm will inspire budding young inventors to imagine their own fantastical designs. Chris Van Dusen’s vibrant illustrations marry retro appeal with futuristic style as he, once again, gives readers a delightfully rhyming text that absolutely begs to be read aloud.
Lists It Appears On:
A hilarious, irreverent book about doing your own thing Meet Iggy Peck—creative, independent, and not afraid to express himself! In the spirit of David Shannon’s No, David and Rosemary Wells’s Noisy Nora, Iggy Peck will delight readers looking for irreverent, inspired fun. Iggy has one passion: building. His parents are proud of his fabulous creations, though they’re sometimes surprised by his materials—who could forget the tower he built of dirty diapers? When his second-grade teacher declares her dislike of architecture, Iggy faces a challenge. He loves building too much to give it up! With Andrea Beaty’s irresistible rhyming text and David Roberts’s puckish illustrations, this book will charm creative kids everywhere, and amuse their sometimes bewildered parents. Also from the powerhouse author-illustrator team of Iggy Peck, Architect, is Rosie Revere, Engineer, a charming, witty picture book about believing in yourself and pursuing your passion. Ada Twist, Scientist, the companion picture book featuring the next kid from Iggy Peck’s class, is available in September 2016.
Lists It Appears On:
New York City is home to more skyscrapers than any other city in the world. Iconic in stature, they tell the story of the city’s commercial and architectural history. The buildings pictured here stretch from the sidewalks to the sky, from the East River to the Hudson, from Battery Park to the far reaches of Central Park. Along with structures that are familiar to readers such as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler and Woolworth buildings, there are other less recognizable but nonetheless important structures that have become a part of New Yorkers’daily lives. Each chapter focuses on an area of Manhattan, and opens with numbered maps showing the exact locations of the featured buildings. In a series of two to four page spreads, fullpage photographs of the skyscrapers are accompanied by additional illustrations, historical insights, architectural details, and interesting facts about their construction and evolution. An essay on the collective history of the city’s skyscrapers rounds out this compilation of nearly 85 examples of New York City’s most magnificent feature-its far-reaching, ever changing skyline.
Lists It Appears On:
The invention of the New York skyscraper is one of the most fascinating developments in the history of architecture. This authoritative book chronicles the history of New York’s first skyscrapers, challenging conventional wisdom that it was in Chicago and not New York that the skyscraper was born.
Lists It Appears On:
Ever since he was a wee mite (a termite, that is), Roberto has wanted to be an architect. Discouraged by his wood-eating family and friends, he decides to follow his dream to the big, bug city. There he meets a slew of not-so-creepy, crawly characters who spark in him the courage to build a community for them all.With stunning collage illustrations and witty text, the creator of the bestselling The Night I Followed the Dog, Private I. Guana, and When Pigasso Met Mootisse brings to life a funny and inspirational story that will encourage readers of any age to build their dreams.
Lists It Appears On:
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.
Lists It Appears On:
Young Frank is an architect. He lives with his grandfather, Old Frank, who is also an architect and his spotted dog, Eddie. Using anything he can get his hands on; macaroni, pillows, toilet paper, shoes, Young Frank likes to build buildings that twist, chairs with zig zag legs and even entire cities. But Old Frank disapproves, saying architects only build buildings.
Lists It Appears On:
Hello, I am Speck. Come along, come along! 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.
Lists It Appears On:
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.
# | Books | Authors | Lists |
11 | 1,001 Skyscrapers | Thought Co | |
12 | Age-friendly Housing: Future design for older people | RIBA Bookshops | |
13 | AIA Guide to New York City | Norval White | Riffle |
14 | Archidoodle: The Architect’s Activity Bo | Archinect | |
15 | Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak, and Hope along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx | Constance Rosenblum | Riffle |
16 | Built to Last | Archinect | |
17 | Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction | David Macaulay | BuzzFeed |
18 | Chicago Skyscrapers: Postcard History Series | Thought Co | |
19 | Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels | Jill Jonnes | Riffle |
20 | Cool Architecture: Filled with Fantastic Facts for Kids of all Ages | Simon Armstrong | Young Architect |
21 | Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan | Rem Koolhaas | Riffle |
22 | Divided We Stand: A Biography Of New York’s World Trade Center | Eric Darton | Riffle |
23 | Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building | Archinect | |
24 | EMPIRE STATE BUILDING: The Making of a Landmark | John Tauranac | Riffle |
25 | Five Hundred Buildings of New York | Bill Harris | Riffle |
26 | From Mud Huts to Skyscrapers | Archinect | |
27 | Goldilocks and the Three Bears: A Tale Moderne | Archinect | |
28 | Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center | Daniel Okrent | Riffle |
29 | Guide to New York City Landmarks | Riffle | |
30 | Henry Builds a Cabin | Archinect | |
31 | Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City | Neal Bascomb | Riffle |
32 | If I Built A Car | Chris Van Dusen | BuzzFeed |
33 | If You Lived Here: Houses of the World | Archinect | |
34 | Julia Morgan Built a Castle | Archinect | |
35 | Law in Practice: 3rd Edition | RIBA Bookshops | |
36 | London Rising: Illicit Photos from the City’s Heights | RIBA Bookshops | |
37 | Look at That Building!: A First Book of Structures | Scot Ritchie | Young Architect |
38 | Makers of Modern Architecture: From Frank Lloyd Wright to Frank Gehry (New York Review Books (Hardcover)) | Martin Filler | Riffle |
39 | Manhattan Skyscrapers | Thought Co | |
40 | Manias | Archinect | |
41 | Moxie: The Dachshund of Fallingwater | Cara Armstrong | BuzzFeed |
42 | Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places | Sharon Zukin | Riffle |
43 | New York Transformed: The Architecture of Cross & Cross | Peter Pennoyer | Riffle |
44 | NY Skyscrapers & Law in Practice: 3rd Edition | RIBA Bookshops | |
45 | NY Skyscrapers & Part 3 Handbook (3rd edition) | RIBA Bookshops | |
46 | NY Skyscrapers & Small Projects Handbook | RIBA Bookshops | |
47 | NY Skyscrapers & Spon’s Architects’ and Builders’ Price Book 2019 | RIBA Bookshops | |
48 | On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change | Ada Louise Huxtable | Riffle |
49 | Part 3 Handbook (3rd edition) | RIBA Bookshops | |
50 | Rosie Revere, Engineer | Andrea Beatty | BuzzFeed |
51 | Sky High | Germano Zullo | BuzzFeed |
52 | Skyscraper Rivals | Thought Co | |
53 | Skyscrapers and the Men Who Build Them | Thought Co | |
54 | Skyscrapers: A History of the World’s Most Extraordinary Buildings | Thought Co | |
55 | Skyscrapers: A Social History of the Very Tall Building in America | Thought Co | |
56 | Skyscrapers: The New Millennium | Thought Co | |
57 | Skyscrapers!: Super Structures to Design & Build | Carol A. Johmann | Young Architect |
58 | Small Projects Handbook | RIBA Bookshops | |
59 | Spon’s Architects’ and Builders’ Price Book 2019 | RIBA Bookshops | |
60 | Steven Caney’s Ultimate Building Book | Steven Caney | Young Architect |
61 | Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America | Donald L. Miller | Riffle |
62 | The Aspiring Architect: An Activity Book for Kids | Travis Kelly Wilson | Young Architect |
63 | The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects | Lewis Mumford | Riffle |
64 | The City of To-morrow and Its Planning (Dover Architecture) | Le Corbusier | Riffle |
65 | The Death and Life of Great American Cities | Jane Jacobs | Riffle |
66 | The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City That Arose with It | Riffle | |
67 | The Future Architect’s Handbook | Barbara Beck | Young Architect |
68 | The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper | Thought Co | |
69 | The Insect Architect | Archinect | |
70 | The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New York | Suleiman Osman | Riffle |
71 | The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream (The MIT Press) | Meredith L. Clausen | Riffle |
72 | The Skyscraper | Thought Co | |
73 | The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York | Gail Fenske | Riffle |
74 | Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White: Art, Architecture, Scandal, and Class in America’s Gilded Age | Mosette Broderick | Riffle |
75 | Twenty-One Elephants and Still Standing | April Jones Prince | BuzzFeed |
76 | Under Every Roof: A Kid’s Style and Field Guide to the Architecture of American Homes | Patricia Brown Glenn | Young Architect |
77 | Underground | David Macaulay | BuzzFeed |
78 | Who Built That? Skyscrapers: An Introduction to Skyscrapers and Their Architects | Thought Co |
Source | Article |
Archinect | Never Too Young; 15 Librarian-Recommended Architecture Books for … https://archinect.com/…/never-too-young-15-librarian-recommended-architecture-boo… |
BuzzFeed | 15 Adorable Children’s Books For Your Little Architect – BuzzFeed https://www.buzzfeed.com/mackenziekruvant/childrens-books-for-architects |
RIBA Bookshops | NY Skyscrapers | RIBA Bookshops https://www.ribabookshops.com/item/ny-skyscrapers/87546/ |
Thought Co | Best Books About Skyscrapers and Tall Buildings – ThoughtCo https://www.thoughtco.com › Arts, Music, and Recreation › Visual Arts › Architecture |
Young Architect | 15 Awesome Architecture Books for Kids – Young Architect! https://youngarchitect.com › Blog › Architect Gifts |
Riffle | 25 Great Books About New York City Architecture – Riffle Books https://www.rifflebooks.com/list/150746 |
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