On Towns & Houses: Architectural Books for Children

palac.jpg, default, Spread from the book 'Women Architects: Post-war Buildings in Warsaw', author: Marlena Happach, photo: Warsaw Uprising Museum

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Will children who read beautiful volumes about architecture become more sensitive to the surrounding space? There is a good chance that it will happen, because modern publications explain architecture to the youngest in a really attractive way.

It all started in 2008, when Aleksandra Machowiak and Daniel Mizieliński published a book by Aleksandra Machowiak and Daniel Mizieliński D.O.M.E.K. Doskonałe Okazy Małych I Efektownych Konstrukcji (Small House. Perfect Specimens of Small and Effective Structures). It turned out that in a country where architecture wasn’t arousing much interest, even among adults, it was possible to successfully publish a children's book devoted only to buildings.

Thumbnail — Aleksandra Machowiak, Daniel Mizieliński, 'D.O.M.E.K.' , Publisher: Dwie Siostry

This colorful review of 35 interesting, surprising, but also iconic residential houses from around the world was a hit: both its light, witty approach to the subject and its way of presenting the objects described gained recognition. It will not be an exaggeration to say that a decade ago, when the debate on architecture in Poland was in its infancy, the book D.O.M.E.K. was a read equally interesting for both children and adults...

However, a lot has changed since then. Many new buildings were built, ones that gained fame also beyond a handful of experts, buildings in cities and towns regained their splendour, revealing their charm again after years of neglect, and local authorities and popular media began not only to talk and write about architecture, but also to organize engaging users plebiscites for most beautiful buildings. As a result, interest in architecture has increased significantly. No wonder that it also became an inspiration for the authors of other children's books. Looking through the rich offer addressed to the youngest connoisseurs of the art of building, we cannot fail to appreciate the variety of ideas on how to talk about architecture in general.

Great buildings by great architects

The sometimes crazy, but still, until then, small, and single-family publishing house which published D.O.M.E.K publishing house – Dwie Siostry (Two Sisters) - has since gone on a large scale by publishing the The Illustrated Atlas of Architecture and Marvelous Monuments.

Sarah Tavernier and Alexandre Verhille, the authors of this volume, collected data on hundreds of the most famous, original and impressive buildings in the world (the Polish translation was prepared by Maria Zawadzka-Strączek). The reader, wandering through successive continents via colourful illustrations and accompanying certificates, will find out when the 3rd Century El-Djem amphitheatre in Tunisia was built and how many spectators it can accommodate, how many years it took to build the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, how a museum dedicated to the Titanic in Belfast can look, or a building covered with 16,000 aluminum hexagons in Mexico City.

They will also get to know the most famous edifices designed by Oscar Niemeyer, Tadao Ando and Frank Gehry, and take a journey through the architectural achievements of humanity from antiquity to the present day. They will certainly learn that numbers matter in architecture - the height, number of residents, spectators, stairs, floors, workers building a building or tourists later visiting it.

Not all arches are equal

The young reader will also learn about the most famous buildings in the world through the volume Archistoria. Opowieść o Architekturze (Archistory. The Story of Architecture) (Muchomor Publishing House).

Its author Magdalena Jeleńska (in cooperation with illustrators from Acapulco Studio), as an educated and practicing architect, showed buildings through the most important elements and forms that are repeated and have been used in construction for centuries. It's a good idea to understand the continuity in architecture: in the chapter on ‘Stone’, we'll see the buildings that were erected from this material in antiquity, in the Middle Ages and ... 10 years ago. The author uses examples to show how architects used arches or domes in their projects in different eras, and how ideas for bridges and towers changed over the centuries. It turns out that there is a set of motifs that have been functioning in architecture for a very long time which designers are still willing to employ and reformulate in various ways.

Archistory: A Story About Architecture [Image Gallery]

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From Podkowa Leśna to Hong Kong

According to UN research, in 2050 two-thirds of the people on our planet will be inhabiting cities. Before we all get crammed in overpopulated metropolises, it is worth taking a look at the book by Joanna Łozińska and Maciek Blaźniak Ale Miasta (What a city!) (Wytwórnia publishing house).

The authors offer young readers a journey through the better and the less known, the small and the large, the old and the new cities of the world. With locations spanning from Podkowa Leśna to Hong Kong, the book describes 41 cities, grouped according to their most characteristic features.

And so Brasilia represents a visionary project of creating a city in just a few years, Nicosia and Cieszyn are the ‘divided’ cities, there is Petra carved in stone and the colourful Eskimo settlement of Kulusuk, the abandoned Bodie – an American ghost town – and Pripyat or Aleppo consumed by tragedies. Several paragraphs of the description of the city are accompanied by illustrations reflecting not so much the appearance as, above all, the atmosphere typical of the presented places.

In an urban fairy tale

Atmosphere, mood - these are the words that best describe the publication of the Babaryba publishing house titled Miastonauci (The Citynauts). It is a collection of watercolour paintings by the master of atmospheric urban landscapes, Tytus Brzozowski.

The protagonists of the book are a boy and a penguin who, like the mythical Argonauts, wander through fairy-tale cities where fantastic things happen. However, an attentive viewer will also find well-known shapes in the densely built-up spaces of Brzozowski's paintings, e.g. the towers of St. Mary's Church in Kraków, the silhouette of the Royal Castle in Warsaw or the Gothic shape of the Cathedral of Saint John in Toruń. Consisting only of dreamlike illustrations, the book allows you to take a journey deep into your own fantasy.

A 3D building

Most architectural books for children stimulate the imagination, allow you to travel between different epochs and styles, but we must not forget that the concrete is very important in architecture: structure, mass, shape. But how to talk about the three-dimensional form of a building on a flat sheet of paper? This limitation was overcome in the book Architekturki. Powojenne budynki warszwskie (Little Architectures. Warsaw’s Post-war Buildings) published by the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising.

When opening the book on the right page, a 3D model of a famous building will emerge from its interior! For this book, Marlena Happach wrote about, and Robert Czajka drew nearly fifty buildings of the capital city, eight of which were presented in the form of fold-out paper pop-up models. Thanks to this, it is much easier to understand the advantages of the Rotunda's zigzag roof, the structure of the Świętokrzyski Bridge or the finesse of the shapes of the Metropolitan office building and the Polin museum.

But Architekturki is not only about these impressive models of buildings. It is a story about the capital's post-war architecture in its less acclaimed specimens – Marlena Happach convinces young readers why it is worth paying attention to the humble building of the Geological Institute (‘The authors of this building showed that beauty is not what is decorative, but what is logical and necessary’), blocks of flats in Torwar and at Promyka Street or the Złote Tarasy shopping center. The author explains what is valuable in the well-known and in the less appreciated buildings in Warsaw, where their shapes come from, and who the designers were. Very simple, graphic illustrations by Robert Czajka complement this story, perfectly reflecting the rhythm and order of modernist forms that dominate the capital's buildings.

Women Architects: Warsaw Buildings 1945 – 2014 [Image Gallery]

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How concrete is poured

What also comes to aid in looking at architecture as a material creation made of concrete, steel, stone or brick, is the following volume, published by the Media Rodzina publishing house. The book Uwaga, Budowa! Jak się projektuje i buduje dom (Caution, construction! How to design and build a house), written by the German architect Rolf Toyka and illustrated by Ferenc B. Regös and Heike Ossenkop (Polish translation: Emilia Kledzik), presents architecture as the art of building. We will not find spectacular works of famous designers or famous monuments here – we will, however, learn how a concrete ceiling is made, what girders and formwork are, how stairs are built, or how parquet floors and tiles are laid.

The book's protagonist is a boy named Marek, who leads the reader not so much through the history of architecture as through the history of the construction of one specific house. Step by step, one can observe the stages of construction, along with the tools used and the activities performed. Readers acquainted with the great works of world architecture get to know the building ‘from behind the scenes’, finding out what the foundations are for, what the walls and ceilings are made of, becoming aware of the importance of properly placing all installations, windows and stairs in each building.

Text & illustration

Contemporary books on architecture for younger readers have their noble ancestors. In the 1930s, Stefan and Franciszka Themerson wrote a verse story about an investor fascinated by modernity who wants to build his dream apartment. Mr Rouse Builds His House with the help of an army of specialists, learning about the principles of erecting buildings and similar projects from around the world.

The book is a collection of funny adventures of the distracted Mr. Rouse, and at the same time a true praise of modernity – the era of airplanes, telephones, radios, electric doorbells, central heating and sewage systems.

A few decades later, in the times of prefabrication and industrialized construction, Witold Szolginia wrote several small books of significant educational value. Domy z fabryki (Houses from the factory), W podziemiach wielkiego miasta (In the underground of a big city) or A jak Tomku w twoim domku (And how do you like to live in your house) not only familiarize the young reader more closely with the advantages of modern construction, but also remind them to save water and electricity.

Despite many changes for the better, the Polish urban landscape still needs fixing. Reaching the youngest inhabitants of cities with the help of interesting books showcasing the value of architecture is very important: these children will soon be the ones who decide about our surroundings. Now that several excellent books on beautiful buildings have already been published, maybe it's worth expanding the subject to include urban planning or landscape aesthetics? We already know that there are authors able to translate into images and text the topics that are not the easiest to explain to the youngest, we also know that aesthetic education from an early age bears fruit. Maybe with the help of books it will be possible to improve the quality of space in Polish cities?

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