The MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies is a robust digital collection of classic and previously out-of-print architecture and urban studies books, on the digital book platform, MIT Press Direct. The collection was funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of the Humanities Open Book Program, which they cosponsored with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
For years, the MIT Press has fielded requests for digital editions of the classic, out-of-print works listed below. Many of these foundational texts were published before the advent of eBooks and remained undigitized because of complex design requirements and the prohibitive cost of image permissions.
Now, with funding from the Mellon Foundation and thanks to the efforts of an open-access-savvy digitization team, the MIT Press has been able to secure image permissions and also solicit fresh forewords that bring new insights to bear on many of these classic texts. Many of the titles will also be made available on the open access platform PubPub where readers will be able to interact with and annotate the works with contemporary context and related readings.
These books, and many other open access titles, are also available through the MIT Press Direct platform.