The Most Beautiful German Books 2025 - Die Schönsten Deutschen Bücher 2025

Like other design disciplines, architecture is increasingly having to address the challenges of climate change and take a critical look...

Like other design disciplines, architecture is increasingly having to address the challenges of climate change and take a critical look at old and new approaches. This book brings together various current research projects plus essays deriving from research at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne Architecture. They look at issues such as material use, land and soil degradation, environmental justice and circular urban flows, offering a range of perspectives on the critical relationships between comfort, standards, profit and individual needs.

A particular design highlight is the table of contents printed on the front cover. Together with dummy index tabs on the cover’s edge, it guides the reader to the relevant chapter in the page block, making for intuitive navigation, while the title page’s subtly embossed surface immediately provides an architectural feel. As you flick through the inside pages, you then encounter an intriguing variation in paper types that lends structure to the book block and makes for aesthetically pleasing edges. Given the subject matter, it almost goes without saying that the book features recycled paper, but the use of a high-volume variety is a smart choice given the page count.

All of which makes for a book that’s rigorous in design concept and pleasing to the senses – and that’s before we even mention how impressive the print quality is, especially given the open-pore recycled paper.

Events such as wars, the Covid-19 pandemic and material shortages show just how vulnerable our global infrastructure is. Visible Upon...

Events such as wars, the Covid-19 pandemic and material shortages show just how vulnerable our global infrastructure is. Visible Upon Breakdown examines various dimensions of these networks, exploring their political and social meaning in a transdisciplinary conversation between photography, social sciences and architecture. Featuring striking images and informative essays, the book illustrates the extent to which we are dependent on functioning interconnections.

Right from the dust jacket, which features an appealing holographic film, the book reflects the multi-layered nature of its subject matter. The cover visual is overlaid with lettering in an expressive typeface that recurs on the chapter dividers. It’s the impressive photographs, however, that play the starring role. They are given space to shine in various sequences, with transparent prints of additional images at the end of each. The judges also noted the lively typesetting, which boasts an optimal rag and lends a dynamic feel to longer essays, and the variation in how the photos are presented, with both full-page displays and strict geometric arrangements.

They succeed in creating a visual bridge that eases you into the interdisciplinary discourse, where you then find further details that testify to the production quality. The neon-orange sewn binding, for instance, provides a charming eye-catcher, while the unpretentious cardstock cover contrasts intriguingly with the shimmering jacket.

Children’s books are not just a way for kids to entertain themselves, they can also help parents to explain complicated...

Children’s books are not just a way for kids to entertain themselves, they can also help parents to explain complicated issues. This particular book, for instance, focuses on a question that even adults might find difficult to answer: what is poor and what is rich?

Narrative illustrations featuring comic-style speech bubbles present everyday occurrences, incidents and conversations, seamlessly complementing the explanatory texts. They even tackle abstract terms such as “relative poverty”, unemployment benefit and homelessness in an age-appropriate and easy-to-understand way. The author succeeds in communicating facts in an honest but sensitive fashion while also looking beyond a purely national perspective. Like the language, the typography is tailored to the needs of the target group, being reader-friendly and harmonising well with the illustration style.

Equally fitting is the use of premium-quality recycled paper that lends the pages a tactile feel, making the book a pleasure to peruse. Another eye-catching feature is the printed endpapers, which echo illustrative elements from the inside pages. Featuring a high-quality sewn binding for perfect openability, the format is as appealing as the message of the final picture spread, which reads: “Komm, wir machen unsere Leben reicher!” (“Come on, let’s make our lives richer!”).

This sensibly executed volume commemorates 86 Jewish women and men from various European countries. They were all murdered in 1943...

This sensibly executed volume commemorates 86 Jewish women and men from various European countries. They were all murdered in 1943 in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, with their skeletons destined for the anthropological collection at what was then Reichsuniversität Straßburg. 80 years later, descendants of those victims joined teachers and students at a Franco-German gathering to remember this crime of science. The book itself documents what was an intensely moving occasion and also examines the culture of remembrance today.Wrapped in a dust jacket of blue Bible paper, the open-spine volume combines portraits in muted tones with a title in bold white lettering, creating a visual bridge between past and present. The see-through effect impressively echoes the dichotomy between remembering and forgetting. The jacket’s bold blue hue, meanwhile, recurs in the typography and even in the sewn binding.Thanks to its easy openability, even rag and pleasing contrast, the book encourages deep reading. The elegant upright format and optimum tactility also help readers to engage fully with this unique document, which balances the seriousness of the subject matter with the need to make it as accessible as possible – an impressive feat.For the printed front endpaper, the designers chose a visual metaphor: a film still, taken from one of the student projects, that shows the Europabrücke bridge linking Kehl and Strasbourg. It’s a symbol of reconciliation, of attempts to span borders, overcome differences and bring together nations.

Is it sculpture, a report or a design object? According to our judges, Without Full Disclosure is “an exceptional and...

Is it sculpture, a report or a design object? According to our judges, Without Full Disclosure is “an exceptional and outstandingly executed work of art”. In this experimental book project, the artist Sung Tieu examines the controversial issue of fracking. Over more than 1,000 pages, she combines 600-plus specially taken photographs with tables of data, aiming to thus highlight the incalculable risks the process poses for the environment and human health.

“What initially appears contradictory or even meaningless here comes into sharper focus when viewed in the round”, commented the judges. It’s true that readers might initially be somewhat vexed by the seemingly endless and ostensibly uniform columns of data, which are printed on Bible paper. Here, reading the material becomes an almost meditative exercise, at least until you come across one of the numerous visual obstructions. These superimposed photographs stop you in your tracks, inviting you to flick back and forth, to compare and contrast. The book design is deliberately used to emphasise the author’s point, making it not just a medium but also part of the message.

The well-chosen paper, too, helps you abandon any attempt at linear reading; instead you can simply lose yourself as you browse the featherlight pages. Despite its size and format, the book comes across as soft and flowing. The carefully curated cropped images catch the eye, while the meticulous typography is similarly impressive. With its playful use of transparency, flexible binding and contorting page block, the work’s physical form nods to the opaqueness of communications around fracking in Germany and the US.