Best free online architecture magazines
If you are looking for the online architecture magazines in PDF of your dreams and don’t want to pay for them, this may be your place to discover some gems running in the holy field of the Internet.
We won’t be looking at last month’s issue of the big publications, but we will have access to hundreds of more than relevant online magazines.
The following image is the perfect representation of the beginnings of plastic in architecture in 1956. House & House magazine.
Modernist architecture and design magazines
The North Carolina Nonprofit Organization is well known for its work in preserving, documenting and promoting housing design. It also has one of the world’s largest digital archives specializing in 20th century architecture and design publications.
The Colossus has 1.3 billion pages of specialized magazine content.
- This organization with other partners have teamed up to create Colossus with hundreds of magazines to view (scroll down and click on the appropriate magazine) which represents the largest digital archive of modernist design and architecture magazines available to the general public, with over 1,300,000 million pages of content – almost nothing!
Although the visual content leaves much to be desired, I mean the design of the web, here is not rewarded the container, but the good content and this overflows for its abundance with the compilation of free architectural magazines which we have access.
And what are we going to find?…. Well, articles from the most boring to the ones we always wanted to read about the great architects of the history, going through the design or urbanism of the time.
We will find a visual that deserves to remember those modern architectural magazines and many detailed plans, photographs of great quality, through the field of urban planning of the careful (some monumental).
Including some interior design magazines that reflect the good work of interior designers and planners of the time edited in its original version that although seeing it now, is still fashionable.
Some issues take a while to load, patience! there are many 170 pages of details in PDF format.
We can literally get lost with monthly or bimonthly publications of projects and works that we will find in the search, being that some have been the favorites of many people worldwide in the international arena.
Architecture magazines in Spanish
I think we understand that we are clear that access to a free architecture publication will be through PDF and with some advertising if we talk about quality publications. Sorry, I don’t think they will send it to our home!….
So we started to investigate the different magazines and digital formats in PDF on the net: (I know we have a 99% chance of leaving many, so leave a comment to add them)
- Actually if we want to get lost in literally hours and hours of reading, it is as simple as accessing Issuu but in a particular way.
We enter the portal and search for “magazines architecture” or if we want it in English “magazines architecture” and then click on “Stacks”, which are folders that have created portal users dedicated exclusively to the word we have searched. To understand it better…
Remember that intellectual property laws are there to be complied with!
- From Arquine. A project founded in 1997 and dedicated to the construction of architectural culture at its best. It has a free digital magazine which we can enjoy from HERE.
- D+A Magazine , the magazine Diseño + Arquitectura from Chile with a long trajectory and quality from HERE.
- A good contribution, a magazine about interior design and lifestyle called Singulares. Quality both in graphics and topics to deal with HERE with many pages to review.
- From Chile we have Bifurcaciones from HERE. A magazine of urban cultural studies. Good quality, although for this 2016 I don’t think they are still publishing but it’s worth to take a look at the previous issues.
- From Ecoconstrución from HERE, a bit more specialized than usual and aimed more at sustainable and eco construction, materials… etc.
We must remember that many Official Colleges of architecture, engineering or technical architecture have their newsletters – magazines in free digital format and are not always only for members.
Also, most interior design or architecture magazines such as Summa+, Arquitectura Viva, A+t, TC cuadernos, Croquis, El Mueble, Spanish version of AD Architectural Digest, let us test a few free pages before buying.
Architecture magazines in English
There are plenty of publications about architecture in English; ICON Architecture, Detail, Dezeen, Domus, Design Detail, Dwell, A+u, Wallpaper, Interior Design, etc, but most of them are paid.
- The decoration and interior design magazine AD from HERE we can see it online if we register on the platform.
- From the Yumpu platform there are thousands of magazines of all topics, many of them can be read online for free like Wallpaper magazine from HERE.
- From the Architectmagazine portal from HERE. With long history and easy to view online magazine.
Remember that if you can access a university, you will have access to the library where, in many cases, they subscribe to several interesting magazines in the sector.
Mobile app for architecture magazines
Let’s be frank and straightforward about the Internet, which offers us a thousand and one possibilities, but, in reality, they are not always good.
Just download the mobile app for ZINIO available for iOS or Android from here – bottom – you can see the multiple options of architectural magazines.
It’s not just for mobile viewing, which is possibly the best choice you can make, but also for downloading or sharing images directly from your mobile. Definitely a good choice!
A document search engine where there are many magazines
From the OVACEN website we have created a document search engine that filters the information from Google and only returns results in PDF, Word, etc. format.
Although it is more focused on searching for information related to regulations, technical documents, theses, etc. The truth is that if we include in the search engine, for example,“architecture magazines” or any title we are looking for, we will easily find the magazine we want to read.
The document search engine can be accessed from the following link and to give you an idea of how it works, we leave the following scheme:
In the past it was more difficult to find good information on the Internet but this has changed dramatically and we must take advantage of this situation.
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