Art historian and TV presenter Dan Cruickshank explains the beauty of Palladian proportions, takes us on a tour of some key English country houses and describes the poetry of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles. He recommends the best books on ‘architectural history’

What’s at stake when we call a building beautiful or denounce it as ugly? MIT professor Timothy Hyde, author of Ugliness and Judgment, explores five books about the social, political and economic dimensions behind debates that often masquerade as arguments about style, but which deal with matters at the very heart of civil society.

Architecture depends at the building stage on money and politics, and later on users, time and weather. Jeremy Till picks five books to allow you behind the scenes of the building sites.

Bestselling author Harry Mount thinks that the British sell themselves short when they fail to appreciate their architecture. He also expresses his thanks that Christopher Wren didn’t redesign London on a Parisian/New York grid system following the 1666 fire.

Venice once ruled an empire that stretched across the eastern Mediterranean, but by the early modern period was already evolving into a city whose greatest claim to fame was as a tourist destination. Here Matthew Rice, author and illustrator of Venice: A Sketchbook Guide, recommends books to read about Venice and its history and architecture, as well as a couple of crime thrillers to read while you’re there.

John Grindrod, the author of books about the built environment Iconicon and Concretopia, reflects on the ingredients that add up to an architectural icon as he selects five books that explore how buildings might define an era or a particular place in time.

We are a city-dwelling species. Our urban existence creates both opportunities and challenges, as the recent pandemic has illustrated. One thing seems clear, however. Understanding the way we interact with our built environment is becoming an increasingly data-driven enterprise, as Davina Jackson argues compellingly in her book, Data Cities. Here, she shares the five books that best explain the technology behind the urban planning of the future.

How did the UK end up in a housing crisis? More than a century on from the 1919 Housing Act, a look back at the history of social housing with architectural historian Mark Swenarton provides some clues, and insights into the ennobling effect of architecture on peoples’ everyday lives.

The architect, writer, lecturer, and director of Kilburn Nightingale Architects says architecture should not be just about buildings, but about everything else in our environment

The architectural teacher and writer explores the origins and consequences of urban partition along ethnic lines and selects five books that focus on divided cities such as Jerusalem, Belfast and Beirut