The Library — Books Worth Owning

A curated collection of books that deserve a permanent place in your home.

Some books are meant to be read once. Others become part of the room.

They sit on coffee tables, disappear into bookshelves, travel from one home to another and slowly acquire the traces of being lived with. Their pages become references we return to; their covers become familiar objects within an interior.

For those who care deeply about design, a library is more than a collection of information. It is a portrait of taste.

For this edition of The Library, we look at books worth owning, volumes dedicated to interiors, architecture, art and decoration that offer something beyond beautiful imagery. Books to collect, revisit and leave within reach.

Interiors: The Greatest Rooms of the Century — Phaidon

Consider this an archive of exceptional rooms.

Interiors: The Greatest Rooms of the Century brings together some of the most memorable interiors of the last hundred years, crossing periods, countries and creative disciplines. Rather than prescribing a particular aesthetic, it reveals just how personal a remarkable room can be.

Historic spaces sit alongside contemporary ones; restrained interiors beside highly expressive rooms. The result is less a manual for decorating than an exploration of the many ways we choose to live.

A book to return to whenever a room begins to feel too predictable.

 

By Design: The World’s Best Contemporary Interior Designers — Phaidon

For understanding the present state of interior design, this belongs on the shelf.

Bringing together more than 100 contemporary interior designers and decorators selected by leading figures from the creative world, By Design moves effortlessly between very different philosophies of space. Kelly Wearstler, Vincent Van Duysen, Faye Toogood, Studio KO, Norm Architects and Studioilse are among the practices represented.

More than 400 images make it highly visual, but its real value lies in the dialogue created between radically different approaches to interiors.

It reminds us that there is no single definition of good design, only conviction.

 

Atlas of Interior Design — Phaidon

A library needs its atlas.

Rather than focusing on a single designer or aesthetic movement, Atlas of Interior Design takes a global view of contemporary interiors, making it particularly valuable as a reference book.

It is the kind of volume you open looking for one thing and close an hour later having discovered something entirely different.

That element of discovery is precisely what makes a physical design library irreplaceable.

 

100 Interiors Around the World — TASCHEN

How we inhabit space changes dramatically from one place to another.

100 Interiors Around the World travels across six continents, moving from rustic minimalism to sophisticated urban eclecticism and documenting homes whose personalities are inseparable from their surroundings.

Across 720 pages, architecture, geography, objects and individual expression begin to tell a much larger story about contemporary living.

It is an especially good reminder that the most compelling interiors rarely come from following a formula.

They come from identity.

 

Life Meets Art: Inside the Homes of the World’s Most Creative People — Phaidon

Perhaps the most intimate book in the collection.

Rather than presenting interiors as perfected design projects, Life Meets Art enters the homes of creative minds and explores what happens when art, objects, furniture and everyday life accumulate naturally within a space.

These are rooms shaped by curiosity rather than decoration.

And perhaps that is what makes them so compelling: they reveal that a beautiful home does not necessarily begin with an interior concept. Sometimes, it begins with a life well observed.

 

Architectural Digest at 100: A Century of Style

Few publications have documented the evolution of interiors quite like Architectural Digest.

Drawing from a century of its archives, this monumental volume moves through homes belonging to designers, artists, architects, collectors and cultural figures, creating a visual history not only of interior decoration but of changing ideas around taste.

The appeal lies in the contrasts.

Decades collide. Styles disappear and return. What once seemed radical becomes timeless.

It is the kind of book that makes you reconsider the idea of trends altogether.

 

Axel Vervoordt: Wabi Inspirations

There are design books that provide references, and others that change the way you look at space.

Axel Vervoordt's work belongs firmly to the latter.

His interiors celebrate imperfection, patina, emptiness, natural materials and objects carrying the evidence of time. Inspired by the Japanese philosophy of wabi, the spaces feel quiet without feeling minimal and ancient without becoming nostalgic.

For anyone interested in materiality and the emotional presence of objects, this is essential.

Luxury here isn't perfection.

It is depth.

 

Kelly Wearstler: Evocative Style

At the opposite end of the spectrum sits Kelly Wearstler.

Bold stone, expressive colour, sculptural furniture, vintage discoveries, contemporary art and unexpected combinations define a world where interiors are composed with extraordinary confidence.

Evocative Style is particularly valuable because it demonstrates that sophistication does not require restraint.

Sometimes the most memorable rooms are precisely those willing to take a risk.

 

Jean-Michel Basquiat — TASCHEN

A design library should never contain design alone.

Art changes the way we understand colour, proportion, composition and visual tension — and few artists demonstrate that energy as immediately as Jean-Michel Basquiat.

TASCHEN's substantial art editions turn the experience of encountering an artist's work into something almost architectural: large pages, rich reproduction and the physical presence of the book itself become part of the experience.

This is the kind of volume that does not need to disappear onto a shelf.

Leave it open.

 

The Collector's Editions

And then there are books that move beyond publishing altogether.

Limited editions, numbered copies, signed monographs, out-of-print exhibition catalogues and oversized art volumes can become collectible design objects in their own right.

Publishers such as TASCHEN have pushed this idea particularly far, producing Collector's Editions of major art, architecture, photography and design titles — sometimes accompanied by specially designed cases, stands or objects. The publisher's relationship with designer Marc Newson, for example, has extended into bespoke book supports and presentation pieces created specifically for monumental editions.

At this level, the boundary between book and object begins to disappear.

And perhaps that is the ultimate book worth owning: one whose physical presence matters almost as much as the world contained within its pages.

Building a Library Slowly

The best libraries are rarely bought all at once.

They accumulate.

A monograph discovered while travelling. An exhibition catalogue brought home from a museum. A first edition found unexpectedly in a second-hand bookshop. A book about an architect whose work changed the way you see proportion. Another chosen simply because its photography was impossible to forget.

Over time, these books begin to speak to one another.

Art beside architecture. Radical contemporary interiors beside centuries-old houses. Minimalism beside maximalism. Different philosophies sharing the same shelf.

Much like the objects we choose to live with, the books worth owning are those that continue to reveal something long after we first encounter them.

Read them. Display them. Return to them.

A beautiful library should never be finished.