Writing a blog devoted to architecture books means featuring monographs ? lots of monographs. Not exclusively, of course; but before this blog transitioned to its current weekly format, one of the thematic days of the week was appropriately devoted to monographs: Monograph Monday. Monographs are an unavoidable part of architecture books. No matter how often they are decried as passé, endangered, or even dead, monographs persevere as one of the best means of presenting a firm's built and unbuilt works and for marketing the same to new clients. These "uses" of monographs find their origins in books on Frank Lloyd Wright but were most influential in Le Corbusier's Oeuvre Complete, put out in eight volumes between 1929 and 1970, the last one posthumously. Though edited by others, the series of monographs were strongly controlled by Le Corbusier, which enabled a comprehensiveness many contemporary monographs forget about in their photo-heavy presentations. These three monographs don't necessarily follow the Corbusian model (Richard Neutra and James Stirling did that, strictly so, decades ago), but they do build upon it in ways that led me to think they should be commended and emulated ? in bits and pieces, at the very least ? by other architects. Before delving into the three monographs, here is a trio of statements I derived from considering the Corbusian lineage and from examining the most beneficial traits of these three books; while these do not come fro...