At 18 inches by 12.25 inches, the new 20th Century World Architecture: The Phaidon Atlas is a beast of a book. (It arrived at our offices in its own custom cardboard carrying case to help transport its 7-pound weight.) But hoisting the tome onto your coffee table is worth it: This new resource presents a geographic picture of architectural design from 1900 to 1999, with 757 buildings representing over 80 countries and six world regions. Whether an iconic building such as Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light in Japan or a lesser-known star such as Norman Eaton’s Greenwood House in South Africa, each structure gets one or two pages full of pictures, floor plans, and background text. Geographic organization and map-based infographics are what make the book unique, especially if you ever wanted to know what population, climatic, geopolitical, and architect-migration patterns might have influenced styles as they swept across the globe. • $200, Phaidon, November 2012
