Kids love to build things. Adults do too. Watching a childs imagination hard at work creating worlds within their minds while they are building pillow forts and constructing deconstructivist cities out of Legos is one of the true pleasures of parenting. The idea of building and architecture seems so fundamental to childhood, when they discover that the world is no longer flat, but three dimensional.
Encouraging a love and appreciation for architecture might sound daunting and bourgeoise, but by doing so you’re really teaching your kid how to think and how to interpret their world, how to see things from a different perspective. There are a number of amazing books out there that can really help foster a love for architecture and help kids think about and help with their understanding of the world around them, below are a few of our favorites.
Number one on the list is Young Frank Architect, excellent story of a young boy, Frank, who wants to be an architect and his grandfather, Frank, who is an architect. Young Frank is building all sorts of whacky constructions in their apartment out of all sorts of found materials and old Frank isn’t sure that what his grandson is doing can be called architecture. The two go for a visit to the Museum Of Modern Art to where they discover the works of Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright and see that architecture in fact takes on all sorts of forms and functions. They return home to play and build together. The book is published by MoMA (Abrams), written and illustrated by Frank Viva.
Fallingwater The Building Of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Masterpiece is exactly as the name would suggest, a retelling for children of the inspiration, design and construction of Fallingwater. Great introduction to one of the all time iconic works of architecture and iconic architects. Visually as a building Fallingwater is easily accessible to kids, easy for them to interpret and be wowed by. The book also happens to be visually stunning, the illustrations were done by the incredibly talented LeUyen Pham.
Little People Big Dreams Zaha Hadid is another favorite, the book follows the typical Little People Big Dreams format, a short biography starting at childhood for Zaha Hadid, she grew up, her influences and her style. Feel this is a good one for some many different reasons, Hadid’s architectural style is stunning, the drawings do an ok job of showing that, but also it’s great to have a woman thrown in to our book mix.
There are a lot of other kids books on architecture, building and design, the three above can be considered a good jumping off point, but many more to explore.
