1 comments about Old Brooklyn Heights: New York's First Suburb.

1. This is a wonderful book as we are new to Brooklyn Heights and are eager to learn it's history. However, the condition of the book was less than what i expected. Just a bit disappointing in that respect.

No comments about Architecture Tours L.A. Guidebook: Downtown.

No comments about Written into the Void: Selected Writings, 1990-2004.

No comments about The Singular Objects of Architecture.

4 comments about Architecture: From Prehistory to Post Modernism.

1. I am a Registered architect(with National Certification), Registered Interior Designer and instructor of Architectural History. Trachtenberg and Hyman have written the definitive history of western architecture in this tract. The reading is awkward at times, but the ideas conveyed comprise the foundation of todays architectural theory. There are few, if any textbooks on this subject which maintain a consistant thread of thought all the way through. This one does. If you are vitally interested in the underpinnings of today's designs, you should read it.



2. This book is a very good text book. I have just recently needed it and just started to use it. As far as I have gotten it is easy to read. The only thing that I don't think that I like about it is that it is black and white. If you want to get the full feeling for the achitecture I would think one might need to see it in color but oh well.



3. This book summarizes over ten thousand years of architectural history in such a practical and clear form. Ignoring its price, I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in architecture. However, though the book briefly studies such vast expanses in the history of architecture, it fails to even touch architecture in the eastern world. Asia still continues to remain much of a mystery and covering it would truly enlighten the human imagination. Yet, doing so would also probably double the size of the book, thus increasing its cost to over a hundred American dollars. The book also, I feel, seems to enter into too much detail in the forms of modern architecture. In buying this book, one most likely seeks to learn more of history not 'postmodernity,' nevertheless it can be interesting to learn how modern architecture has come to pass.



4. An update of an acclaimed survey of world architecture that is a much better read than its drab illustrations, dull layout and paucity of plans would suggest. Indeed, itÕs as hard to put down as it is to heft. The close analyses of Philip JohnsonÕs AT&T tower in New York and Norman FosterÕs HKSB tower in Hong Kong are brilliant, and the authors have the audacity to suggest that the high tech look of the one is as dishonest as the faux antique masonry of the other. This is an example of how the authors illuminate architectural history with concrete examples rather than windy generalizations. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

No comments about The New Downtown Library: Designing with Communities.

3 comments about Historic Hudson: An Architectural Portrait.

1. A thoroughly entertaining account of a Hudson River city with a truly fascinating history. I recommend it to anyone interested in nineteenth-century America, American architecture, especially the vernacular architecture of the northeast, and America as it once was. The vintage photographs are wonderful!



2. This is/was a great book and it is beautifully written I have spent many weekends and summers in this area of the hudson valley. This book brought to life, the colorful past of this wonderful city.



3. The old photos are the best part, but everything else, especially the quality of the printing & the total lameness of the writing is inexcusable. A very sad exercise in vanity publishing.

1 comments about Vernacular Architecture (Material Culture).

1. This book works very well as an introduction to vernacular architecture. It does, indeed, offer a leisurely stroll through the scholarship on vernacular architecture by demonstrating ways to read buildings in relation to American history. The approach works very well as a way to train one's eye to look at buildings, and the focus provides good ways to connect the various elements of design to wider issues about social history and cultural change -- and continuity. It's also a beautiful book to read. I especially like the way that the photographs are integrated into the text. This type of layout takes a great deal of planning, and the illustrations really support and embellish the writing. There are numerous comparisons to show how American buildings are related to various styles in England, Ireland, Turkey, Bangladesh, and various and sundry places around the world. These comparisions are designed more to illuminate an understanding of American architectural forms and to show origins of various styles rather than to provide an in-depth understanding of global history. The overall method, however, can be applied to learning about buildings in any-place.

No comments about Modern Architecture: Being the Kahn Lectures for 1930.

No comments about SOM Journal 4.