An architecture book you color in — or a coloring book serious enough to read.

Thirty-four Mid-Century Modern homes drawn in fine architectural line, from Palm Springs desert modernism and Case Study glass houses to Eichler atrium homes. Hardcover, printed full bleed, with a page of facts facing every drawing and a visual glossary at the back. 

Most coloring books are printed to be used up and thrown out. This one is a hardcover collection of thirty-four mid-century homes, drawn with the restraint of a real architectural rendering.

It opens with an essay, The Shape of Optimism, tracing the style from its Bauhaus roots through the Case Study House Program of Neutra and Koenig, Eichler’s tract modernism, Albert Frey’s Desert Modernism and the Sarasota School. Every plate faces a page about the building — what it is, and one detail to look for while you work on it. A six-term visual glossary closes the book: post-and-beam, breeze-block, butterfly roofline, jalousie windows, clerestory windows, cantilever.

The author, Eric Steele, spent forty years in the building trades — union carpenter, then twenty years running a design-build shop, reading architects’ drawings and building from them. The illustrations are AI-generated and chosen by hand, which he explains openly on his site.

• Title:  Mid-Century Modern — An Architectural Coloring Collection
• Series:  Residential Lines, Book One of six
• Author: Eric Steele
• Format: Hardcover, 82 pages, 8.25 × 11 in 
• Contents: 34 full-page architectural plates, an opening essay on the style’s history, a page of facts facing every drawing, and a six-term visual glossary