The 10 Best Architecture Books of 2025

In past years of the annual DAM Architectural Book Award, we have noted the proliferation of winners coming from publishers based in Germany and Switzerland. This is a sensible outcome given that both DAM and the Frankfurt Book Fair are rooted in Frankfurt am Main, and because publishers in the two countries continue to produce high-quality books on architecture. While this characteristic of the award can be found again this year (9 of the 10 books were published in CH or DE), another country has come to the fore in this year's selection of winners, but in terms of the books' contents rather than their publishers: Japan. Three of the ten winning books are either wholly or partly about Japanese architecture: one book investigates pre-modern wooden architecture in Japan, another book thoroughly diagrams wood joinery in and beyond Japan, and a third book documents a three-month trip to Japan taken by Ise and Walter Gropius in 1954. This thematic synergy was accentuated by the naming of these three winners in succession during the 75-minute presentation that took place last night at the Frankfurt Book Fair and streamed live on YouTube.

• Fake Designs of Japanese Architecture / GADEN Books
• Grüne Dächer – Geschichte, Planung, Gestaltung / Edition Hochparterre
• The House That Kahn Built - The National Assembly Building in Dhaka by Louis Kahn / Quart Verlag
• Jaretti & Luzi - Wohnbauten in Turin 1954–1974 / Park Books
• Zur Vertikalität / Park Books
• Haus Marlene Poelzig, Berlin - Abriss und Aufbruch / Urbanophil
• Jeck. Der Comic zum Kölner Dom / Urbanophil
• Casa Rossa Chemnitz - Ein Beitrag nachhaltiger Baukultur / Deutscher Architektur Verlag
• The Joinery Compendium - Learning from Traditional Woodworking / Ruby Press
• Cooking Up Dinner Speeches - Ise Gropius in Japan / gta Verlag

This year's external jury was comprised of Vladka Kupska (Frankfurt Book Fair), Sonja Bröderdörp (ArchiTangle), Marie Schoppmann (designer), Danny Lettkemann (architect and member of the Friends of the DAM), and Piet Nieman (photographer), while the internal jurors were Peter Cachola Schmal (DAM Director) and Anne Scheinhardt
(documentation and digitalization).

Also as in previous years, “the wide range of topics and the high standard of the entries presented the jury with an enormous challenge,” DAM's statement on the award reads. “For this reason, the jurors once again decided not only to pick ten prize winners, but also to select a further ten entries for the Shortlist as part of the DAM Architectural Book Awards 2025,” as listed below.

• CHATY - Architektura za branou každodennosti / Idealab, s.r.o.
• Mass Housing in Ukraine - Building Typologies and Catalogue of Series 1922–2022 / DOM publishers
• Constructive Disobedience - An Experimental Methodology in Architecture / Birkhäuser
• Lacaton & Vassal - It's Nice Today: On Climate, Comfort, and Pleasure / Ruby Press
• Brutalism in Belgium: 1950-1980 / Prisme Editions
• Encounters - Denise Scott Brown Photographs / Lars Müller Publishers
• Francesca Torzo: Building Correctly / Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
• Buildings By Women - Rotterdam / nai010 publishers
• Sammy Stein: Le sentier / The Path / Spector Books
• Thinking Space - Readings from a Life in Architecture / Uro Publications