Editors: gestalten & Sam Lubell
Features: Full color, hardcover, linen quarter-binding, 304 pages
Format: 24,5 × 33 cm, 9 ¾  x 13  inches
Price: € 60 (D)  £ 55  $ 80 (US)
ISBN: 978-3-96704-134-7
@gestalten 

EU + UK PUBLICATION DATE: APRIL 29,  2025
INT PUBLICATION DATE: JUNE 24, 2025
EMBARGO DATE: MARCH 29, 2025

Please ask for permission first if you would like to review the book before the official embargo date.

AMERICAN ICONS VOLUME 2 is an essential resource for architects, historians, and design enthusiasts. Expanding on the foundation of American Icons (Volume 1), this second volume examines the evolution of US-American architecture through the landmark structures that define its skylines. Featuring a carefully curated selection of more than 50 projects and four insightful essays, AMERICAN ICONS VOLUME 2 offers a comprehensive perspective on the country’s architectural landscape—from private residences and cultural institutions to soaring skyscrapers. Broadening its scope beyond its predecessor, it captures the diversity of styles, emerging trends, and adaptive transformations that have shaped US-American architecture in recent decades. Enriched with stunning images and analysis, the book shows how American modernism, influenced by the Bauhaus movement, emphasized transparency, simplicity, and timeless elegance. It showcases the International Style and midcentury modernism while offering critical insight into the ideas shaping its future. An essential resource for architecture enthusiasts, it celebrates architectural achievements and inspires future design.

ABOUT the CO-EDITOR
Sam Lubell is the author of ten books on architecture for Phaidon, The Monacelli Press, Metropolis Books, and Rizzoli. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Dwell, Wired, The Atlantic, Metropolis, Architectural Record, Architect, The Architect's Newspaper, Travel + Leisure, and other publications. Lubell has co-curated the exhibitions ‘Never Built Los Angeles’ (A+D Architecture and Design Museum) and ‘Never Built New York’ (Queens Museum), and taught at Columbia University GSAPP and Syracuse University School of Architecture.

ABOUT gestalten
gestalten is an international publishing house collaborating and engaging with the world’s most interesting creatives to document and anticipate vital movements in architecture and interiors, design and fashion, escape and mobility, travel, food, and beverage, as well as visual culture. Exploring creativity in every form, gestalten is known and loved by millions around the globe for its unique lens across print and digital mediums. gestalten also publishes illustrated books for children through its imprint Little Gestalten. 

gestalten PR 
Tatiana von Mallinckrodt                
Tel: +49 30 72 61 32 203             
t.mallinckrodt [at] gestalten.com (t[dot]mallinckrodt[at]gestalten[dot]com)