Literary Dose #44

"What defines a good (architecture/design) book for you?

Ninety-seven percent is rubbish, I wouldn't touch it with a ... [sic] The rest is woth living for. For example Max Bill's Maillart. Lovely. Perfect. Not too thick. Super proportions. Fantastic typeface. Balanced. Nice bridges of course. Something contemporary? [...] Nine Swimming Pools by Ed Ruscha. It's old too, and an artist's book, sorry. Can't think of anything else. It's dreadful. No good Zumthor book, the one by Lars Müller just scrapes through. The book about Vals is a disaster [...] The Herzog & de Meuron book by Peter Blum, it's got something. [...] Honestly, it drives me nuts, all I can think of is rubbish. Even the Dhaka book I did for Louis Kahn, it was successful but I wouldn't say it's that good. [...] In short: Less is more. Little books, choice books, thin books, 'unpolished' books, normal books. Or an eight-pound door-stopper like the Valerio Olgiati for König, of which I'm a little bit proud."

- "Interview with designer Dino Simonett" in Birkhäuser's Complete Catalog 2010/2011 (PDF link), p. 13.