Free architecture books online in PDF, Word or Epub
The formation of every architect, interior designer or engineer must be constant and more taking into account that architecture does not stop evolving.
The Internet offers us educational platforms and digital libraries with an extensive catalog of free architectural books, which can be downloaded online.
Free access to architectural literature is an open door to continuous learning.
On the network there are free volumes in Spanish of architecture in PDF, but also of construction, works, history, construction techniques, urban planning, design, structures, biographies of great architects and much more.
These are examples of architecture with free access in PDF, Epub for Ebooks, in the famous Word or the latest for mobiles in mobi format… Do you want to expand your library of digital books?
Where to download free and legal books?
Although we can buy books at Amazon, El Corte Inglés, La Casa del Libro or Fnac… Why not take advantage of the Internet? If we can download free books in PDF to read them on mobile, Ebooks, tablets or computer, let’s start!
? Note: The reviews provided are assigned with copyright-free downloads (No copyright – Creative Commons) and free. In legal format or hosted by non-profit organizations and institutions that offer it for free.
1.- The digital publications union catalog
Did you know that on the net there is a library of libraries, a search engine optimized for free books! It links to 14 million digital records from more than 900 Institutions, Universities and hundreds of official organizations, the great Worldcat information library!
We can follow the steps in the image below once you enter from HERE. We only have to put in the search engine the word we want, and it will give us thousands of results.
Then, in order to better target the searches (since we will see articles, theses – dissertations, visual material, journals…ect), on the side, we can specify downloadable file + e-book educational material, and even search by author or year as we can see in the image above.
Well, we have already started with 103 results of digitized books for download on architecture, not counting the thousands of documents and information that we can find.
2.- Modern architecture books in Issuu
A good platform to find quality texts is Issuu. We can get lost in hours and hours of reading, it is as simple as accessing the Issuu portal and follow the steps below:
- Although we can see the volumes, we must create an account to download the books.
- Then, we look for “books architecture” or if we want it in English “books architecture” and then click on “Stacks”, which are small libraries that users have created. To understand it better…
We can already tell you that there are very conscientious people in compiling the best PDF books on architecture. You will be surprised how many volumes and copies there are to download them quickly and easily or read them online.
Remember, you can also search by authors or find other information such as presentations, free images and infographics that are really useful for our projects.
3.- From Internet Archive
One of the world’s largest information libraries is the Internet Archive (many know it as Archive ORG) with more than 2 million scanned documents.
A non-profit institution that tries to preserve educational information presented on the web, with such interesting gems as Vitruvius ‘ famed book : The Ten Books of Architecture (15 B.C.) which you can see HERE in English only.
Among its qualities, is an extensive library of digital books on architecture and related subjects. Entering from the following link we only have to put “architecture” or “architecture” to see a good amount of huge volumes.
4.- The library of Google eBooks
By now we all know that Google has a huge library of Ebooks(The Download Ebooks) that although they claim it is free, in reality there are not many complete free books, most of them, we will only see a few pages and the rest, if you want to see them, you have to pay!
So the only thing we have to do is to search conscientiously from the advanced search options HERE. And you have to put, for example:
Remember that it is important to add “Full view only” to read the volumes in full. Not everyone knows that you can collect and catalog them in what is called “My Collection”.
We have created a contributor with the best technical books, in total 65 complete volumes that you can see from HERE. A good collection of works to read online or download.
We remind you that from the Google Scholar search engine you will also find interesting files.
5.- Arquinube
It is an online platform specialized in the style of a library of free architecture books where we can also find resources and construction details of the sector.
We can access the library directly from Arquinube HERE.
6.- complete books in Spanish on Slideshare
This is one of the great platforms to download thousands of books on architecture where you will even find the latest news.
If it is within the legality or not, that is another issue that the platform must assume with its users, copies without copyright are mixed with others that are not so much.
We will only investigate how to download free books from Slideshare in PDF in a simple way. Steps to follow:
- You have to register in the portal from HERE at the top (You can do it quickly with Linkedin or Facebook).
- In the search specifications: Indicate subject or author title. Add Documents or Slides and Spanish, as shown in the image.
- As a tip, go directly from Documents with few slides (The slides are the pages). They are of no interest in 99% of the cases.
To download them just click on the button as in the image below. Direct download of books!
We have to comment that some texts do not appear in the “Download” tab but we can view them online, without problems.
🟧 Note: The doctoral research can be found in full from Tesis Doctorales en Red, of interest to students or university students. And the manuals of construction, works and rehabilitation, which are very good!
7.- The Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library
The portal allows free access to the titles of the virtual library, where books on Spanish literature stand out. Practically the majority of PDF on architecture that you find on the network, comes from this repository. Access from HERE and we can find some suggestive collections:
A search for volumes with advanced options as in the previous image is advised. Remember that there are other words of interest such as construction, urbanism, design, structures… etc, from which you can also obtain varied content.
8.- In the Digital Library of Iberoamerican Heritage
In addition to entering into the searches of national libraries such as those of Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, El Salvador, Portugal, etc.. It has a filter at the bottom to specify that only books are returned.
You can access from HERE. At the moment we have 211 books.
9.- For the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council)
The CSIC platform in Spain also has a section on its website dedicated to free electronic publications.
In the virtual library we can find a few free electronic works on some of the research of this organization (42 on architecture) although, yes, the download requires registration on the web.
You will also find other topics such as archeology and prehistory, art, science and technology, philosophy and religion, health, romance, self-help, computer science, linguistics and philology.
10.- From the National Library in Spain
It has a free portal of digitized documents that is actually the Hispanic Digital Library. When we enter click on “advanced search”.
The results we get are older books, but as a counterpoint, in the section “Discover Collections” we will find sections of interest with architectural drawings, manuscripts, photographs, prints … etc.. From multiple disciplines (Art, philosophy, history… etc.).
11.- Advanced search of books in Google to download in PDF.
In the Google search engine you can not only explore information as we usually do, it also has the Advanced Search.
Google’s advanced searches work on a series of specific commands that only the searched searcher understands. An example of an advanced search to find PDFs about books is:
- We enter Google Advanced Search from HERE.
- We add the fields as in the following image. It is recommended to test the different boxes without changing the one that indicates “File type” that we have initially put PDF. Although, as you can see, there is also the option for Excel, Word, Autodesk DWF files, among many others.
The example of results that it gives us with architectural PDF is very long:
We also remind you that we have created a search engine specialized in PDF and Word documents, a very powerful tool to find all types of documents!
12.- From the library of the UPM of Madrid
We also have to consider that the big Universities, in their libraries, have a section of digitized archives open to the general public.
For example, from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and accessing here. According to its search engine, it gives us quite a lot of documents and volumes of architecture.
You have to look for the free access section. For the rest, then go trying in different universities and surely there are very interesting documents such as digitized theses of alumni. Not to mention that the municipal libraries, especially if it is a big city, with a simple card – which in many cases is free – you will have access to hundreds of works.
Platforms to download books with 30 days free
- From the Amazon Bookstore with Kindle Unlimited which you can enter HERE. We have the first 30 Days Free trial. For any device, you can read and reread with the Kindle App.
They boast over 1 Million titles Perfect for gathering information for a paper or project!
- Another great bookstore, Nubico. Unlimited reading, with 30 days trial, you don’t need to include your bank details to try Nubico Premium. No advertising and no commitment of permanence (about 100 titles for the word architecture).
- The 24symbols library. From your computer, tablet or smartphone you can access more than 500,000 books offline. With the offer of. “Now read the first three months for the price of one”.
There are no more excuses not to read!…. If you like to read eBooks on different devices or you simply don’t have an Ereader and want to read on a computer, tablet or smartphone, a good option is PDF books.
Why download PDF books?
As a small aside, remember that the advantages of PDF formats are more substantial (Adobe format files) than in epub or mobi e-books (Kindle) or Word itself.
- They can be read on any device since native applications are already included for reading on cell phones, tablets, desktops or laptops and are compatible with all operators.
- In addition, it allows saving the document, certain pages or printing in a simple way, always within the legality, of course.
- Among the main disadvantages of PDF, it does not adapt well to e-readers or e-book readers, or has shortcomings such as enlarging the letter quickly, translating it, knowing the meaning of a word.
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