2 comments about Architectural Drawing and Light Construction (7th Edition).

1. While I am not an architect or an engineer of any stripe, I have sold and setup CADD systems for engineers and seen them convert from their drafting boards (this was years ago - I am sure most students learn on computer systems today). I do like the fact that this text still talks about the manual methods of drafting and believe that it has some benefit to the student to learn to draw by hand in order to develop their sense for the methods and means in a very direct way. Learning to letter by hand, sketch freehand, and all the other aspects of architectural drawing can only help one use the computer-based systems in more rich ways. Also, even in our day and age it is conceivable that one would be in a situation where a computer system is unavailable and one has to produce a drawing. It is good to have the skills to do so. The text also discusses the use of CADD systems (particularly AutoCAD).
   
   Since architectural and technical drawings are meant to communicate specific things to many users, it is good to learn the conventions as well as the lessons of what has been shown to work over the years and what does not. This book communicates this important information very well. There are twenty chapters and they are:
   
   1) Drafting Equipment and Its Uses, 2) Computer-Aided Drafting and Design (CADD), 3) Lettering, 4) Drafting Expression, 5) Modular and Metric Drafting, 6) Basic Technical Drawing, 7) Axonometric and Oblique Pictorial Drawings, 8) Freehand Sketching, 9) Perspective Drawing, 10) Shades and Shadows, 11) Presentation Drawings and Renderings, 12) Principles of Light Construction, 13) Structural Member Selection, 14) Typical Architectural Details, 15) Basic Residential Planning, 16) Building Models, 17) Writing Specifications, 18) Working Drawings of Small Homes, 19) Residential Mechanical and Electrical Systems, 20) Drawing a Small Commercial Building.
   
   As you can see, this book centers on learning how to draw residential and small commercial buildings. This is a great place to start and happens to be what I was interested in learning when I obtained this book.
   
   There are six appendices that cover abbreviations, modular vertical brick coursing, metric system in construction, tables from the UBC, span tables for wood structural members, and heat loss / gain calculation examples. There is also a helpful glossary and a useful index.
   
   A very good text that has helped many and has passed the test of time.



2. I recommend this book to anyone looking for quick building or construction reference. Excellent for Design students.

1 comments about Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, Vol. 2: High Baroque (Yale University Press Pelican History of Art).

1. This is one of the most intelligent book I've ever read about art. It's simple, complete, full of original point-of-views. In asingle word: you can't miss it if you like the Art History!

2 comments about Provence Style (Icon (Taschen)).

1. Excellent!! I've given several as gifts to friends. Wonderful things do often come in small packages!



2. Beautiful pictures. Pictures only, with a brief title at the end of each section. A good small book to take on a drive to augment the scenery, as you can talk while you glance through it. My copy is falling apart even though it has been barely handled. This book doesn't evoke for me the mood of Provence, just the mood of someone else's vacation. I would describe it as the vacation photos of a stranger. I still gave it three stars because the photos are beautifully done

2 comments about Living in Tuscany.

1. I bought this for my wife, after visiting Luca, in Tuscany! This book captures the memories! Excellent book!



2. A very beautiful and detailed book. A place to think about living out the golden years there. Becoming part of the local living.

No comments about Spas (Architectural Interiors).

5 comments about Santa Barbara Style.

1. you just can't go wrong with these series of books, I have them all and they are outstanding



2. As an interior designer, several of my colleagues mentioned that this was the most requested style from their newer clients. I thought there would be more current interiors, referring to a new style. It was more of a historical chronicle of design in Santa Barbara, for exteriors and interiors. It is a nice book, but not exactly what I expected.



3. Im building a santa barbara style house and I was disappointed. Not a lot of details. Sure some pics of some SB mansions but not enough photos or details to actually do anything with this book. I guess if you are into SB history it might be OK, otherwise save yourself the $. You will be done browsing it in about 10 minutes and never use it again.



4. This is an amazing photo essay about the Spanish Architecture of Santa Barbara. I own several books like this and this is my favorite.Casa California: Spanish-Style Houses From Santa Barbara to San Clemente



5. Such a beautiful book, recommended by our architect and builder for obtaining ideas on building a real Spanish Colonial or Revival house. The landscape designs were fantastic as well. Another reader wanted to see "beach shacks" and was disappointed by this book. I lived in Santa Barbara for 6 years and I can tell you have never traveled there. No beach shacks in Santa Barbara. Try along the eastern seaboard coastline.

5 comments about Paint Along with Jerry Yarnell Volume One - Painting Basics (Paint Along With Jerry Yarnell, 1).

1. Jerry Yarnell is a versatile and talented painter who has written a number of excellent "how to" books and this one is as good as the rest. Just looking at his beautiful work is enough to provide motivation and inspiration.
   
   The book is divided into several interesting projects / paintings, each of which is supplemented with step-by-step instructions that show how to develop the painting.
   
   A beginning painter will find the insight offered by the the instructions to be invaluable in deciding how to choose a brush, mix paints, apply paint to the brush, execute a brush stroke for a specific purpose, and countless other fundamentals.
   
   It is not expected that the student's painting will be a replica of the master's. But the vast knowledge imparted here by Mr. Yarnell will help any interested and properly motivated person peer into the mind of a great painter and benefit from the wisdom of his life of devoted and passionate artistry.



2. I was terribly disappointed in this book. I can't believe he sells this stuff. Every sky is lurid orange and purple, every landscape is palpably phoney and is created by using every color in the paint box. I never saw him on TV. I wish I had. I would not have wasted my money. Cassie



3. I have already worked through half of the projects in this book and am amazed at the detail and finished quality I have achieved.
   One thing I would highly recommend is to get hold of at least one of Jerry's instructional DVDs as well. I found that once I had watched him using the techniques he describes in the book, a light clicked on in my head and the books became an even more valuable resource.
   If you want to learn acrylic painting or improve your skills by discovering some of the tricks or secrets experienced artists use, then this book is an essential addition to your library.



4. This book like so many so-called beginner's acrylics books follows the usual pattern: a chapter on materials and then an immediate huge jump into technique. It is interesting to note that the author's suggested palette contains eleven colors, three of which are not particularly light fast. After this chapter he dives into the first of ten demonstration paintings. These painting are all extremely complex and large undertakings on 16x20" canvases. I predict that most beginners are going to get lost early on in the first painting a flick it in. Maybe after I find some way to get the basics down, I'll come back to some of the Yarnell books, though I find his style rather garish.
   
   As my growing collection of unsatisfactory "beginner's" acrylics shows (the nearest big bookstore is almost three hours away) there is a huge difference between a gifted artist and a gifted art teacher, though in fairness what is probably lacking are gifted art instruction authors. When writing these books they apparently don't have any reader feedback (why not?) who could slow them down by asking questions like how do I thin the paint, how thing should it be, what's the best way to mix colors, how do I clean the brushes, how do I keep the paint from drying out on my palette or my painting, etc., etc., etc.
   
   The only painting book I've found so far which can truly claim to be a beginner's book is Jack Reid's "Watercolor Basics: Let's Get Started". That book is full of exercise paintings that let the reader learn a technique on a simple painting; the paintings are simple enough so that the beginner doesn't get lost in the detail yet have some artistic character. There are also beginner's drawing books that really do start from zero and build up the reader's technique.



5. This book is great for the beginning acrylic painter. I have been acrylic painting for 10 years now and this book helped me out with a lot of things I didn't know.

5 comments about New York's Fabulous Luxury Apartments: with Original Floor Plans from the Dakota, River House, Olympic Tower and Other Great Buildings.

1. If you live in New York City, this is a great book to see what the building "insides" look like. Although I don't live there, I still enjoyed seeing the floor plans and getting a very brief descriptive of each building. Just a fun book to look at and imagine yourself living in one of the more grand one-floor coops or condos. Fun to dream! The only downside is that some of the floor plans were so small that I needed a magnifying glass to identify the room layout.



2. Originally published under the title 'Apartments for the Affluent,' this book is aimed at a very narrow audience indeed. Alpern takes us through 75 luxury Manhattan apartment houses in chronological order, from 1869 to 1974. Each building has a full-page b&w photograph, a diagram of a typical floor plan, and a quarter-page-or-so description. Alpern explains the reasoning behind the various room arrangements, and how that reasoning evolved over the years. I enjoyed this book immensely, but it's not for everyone. If you ever walked by an older high-rise apartment building and wondered how the rooms were arranged and why, this slender volume will fascinate you. Otherwise, you may prefer a book that's a more general survey of the topic (including some by the same author).



3. Finally I got a hold of this book! Great floor plans; but as usual, I would have liked more interior pics (hardly any).



4. This book provides excellent descriptions and floor plans of many of New York's finest apartments. It proved to be a great guide book on a recent trip to the city.



5. This book is a must have for any fan of architecture. A glimps into some of the most amazing buildings, complete with floorplans! My personal favorites: The Langham, 1107 Fifth Ave, 960 Fifth Ave, 625 Park Ave, River House and my ultimate favorite, the late great 410 Park Ave. I am so glad I discovered this book.

3 comments about The Place of Houses.

1. This is a great book for a college class or coffee table. I was needing something to help me design a home for today. I took the recommendation from an architect but it did not relly give me enough practical info.



2. Ever since its arrival in the mid-1970's as a reference for architecture students and professionals alike, this book has been one of the finest references, also, for budding homeowners as well. It places into beautiful perspective the almost anatomical linkage between large and small scale; neighborhood, house and room. It further discusses, eloquently, the relationship -- the emotional relationship -- between architecture and its users. Moore, et al, uses examples of old American neighborhoods, discussing the evolutionary nature of their success, contrasting it with the tragic results of uneducated development in suburban sprawls. If I sustain one distant criticism, it is that Moore slightly overdid the use of his own design examples which, though helpful, present less variety in style than would have been helpful to the central point of the book. But let there be no doubt, this is quite a little gem for *anyone* interested in what makes for exquisite personal residential lives. It is timeless in its core content.



3. Primarily concerned with the design of residences that are appropriate to their settings. Lots of photos of Moore's houses

5 comments about The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933.

1. My review will be brief. I basically agree with several other reviewers. This book is well written. Given that it is an MIT Press publication it is academic in approach. So it can be wordy and a little dry, but is well researched and documented. I appreciate the thorough references & illustrations.
   
   Basically this book reinforces that many of the major concepts that are fundamental to audio systems and acoustics were developed by the 1930s. It clearly reinforces that we stand on the shoulders of those that came before us.
   
   As a side note I think the basis of analog color television was worked out in the '20s. It's amazing the power of concentration and insight early designers had, and they lacked the modern tools we have today.
   
   This is a must read for a history of acoustics & sound system development in the previous century and it's impact on out modern world. However, it is not a light, topical title.



2. The way that this book approaches the history of sound in the early twentieth-century is truly unique. Thompson catalogs the events from 1900-1933 from four different perspectives, each perspective in its own chapter. The explanation of the science involved in the evolution in sound is done extremely well; easily understandable to the non-technical person, and yet with enough detail to satisfy the technically minded. I am an engineering student and bought this book for a project for my noise control engineering class-a graduate level class-and it provided extremely useful to me in describing how the scientific community changed and evolved in the area of acoustics.
   
   So many differently things were happening all at once during this time period. Books that focus solely on science and the scientific community totally disregard the social atmosphere that drove the scientific community to achieve as they did. Also, any social history would be remiss in omitting the contributions of the scientific community in a time period where science was celebrated and embraced by society. Thompson does a wonderful job of showing the history of both areas and how they interrelate to one another.
   
   What follows is a brief outline of what the book includes and how it is presented:
   Thomspon uses architecture, and the science of acoustics used to aid in design, as milestones in the development of what she refers to as the 'soundscape'. She begins with opening night at Symphony Hall in Boston on October 15, 1900, and ends with Radio City Music Hall, which opened December 27, 1932.
   
   The introduction and brief overview is given in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 begins with opening night of Symphony Hall and how the work of Wallace Sabine impacted the design of music hall. It also gives a brief history of earlier attempts at sound control, which illustrates just how significant Sabine's work was for both the scientific and architectural community. Chapters 3 through 6 each cover the time period 1900 to 1933 from four different perspectives.
   
   Chapter 3 follows the work of the scientists throughout this period who, by building on the work of Sabine, focused their careers in the study of sound and developing the science of "New Acoustics". The chapter catalogs the development of the new tools available to accurately measure sound, new techniques to measure sound and the new language used to define sound.
   
   During this time period, the sounds of a city dramatically changed from human sources to mechanical sources. This created new challenges in noise control, which had previously been addressed by controlling the behavior of the people causing the noise. This type of noise control became obsolete once mechanical noise became prevalent. Chapter 4 addresses these changes and how the public dealt with the changes in the problem and meaning of noise.
   
   Chapter 5 restarts the period again, this time focusing on how the technology of architectural acoustics, the science that Sabine basically invented with his groundbreaking work outlined in Chapter 1 & 2, was used indoors to alleviate the problem of noise. This chapter follows the new acoustical material industry which was focused on new building technologies dedicated to isolating and absorbing sound. It tracks scientific knowledge being applied to create sound-engineered buildings, which were designed to keep noise out of a building, and how this eventually became known as 'modern noise control'.
   
   Chapter 6 shows how the electro acoustical technology moved out of the lab, where it was developed to measure sound, into the world. Microphones, loudspeakers, radios, public address systems and sound motion pictures were all world applications of the lab technology which filled the soundscape with electro acoustical signals. It also shows the rapid change in the soundscape that this new electric acoustic sound bears little resemblance to the sound of 1900. So little resemblance that Sabine's reverberation formula failed to describe it, forcing the equation to be revised, signaling the final transformation of the soundscape.
   
   Chapter 7 finishes off the time period with the opening of Radio City Music Hall.



3. Thompson focuses on the role of modernist tendencies in the construction and commodification of the auditory culture of America in the early twentieth century. She looks not only at the science of architectural acoustics but their linkage to the new recording technologies and general changes in the aural landscape of New York and elsewhere. We discover the completeness of the modernist retreat from the world into skyscrapers which had among their attributes the ability to silence all the outside noise of life. Thompson displays how the perception and creation of sound is absolutely coupled to a culture and its historicity. By doing so she links herself to the great French historian of the senses, Alain Corbin, who wrote Village Bells and allowed us to rediscover the sounds of the eighteenth French countryside and the culture that created it. To read a work written in such a provocative and entertaining way is a wonderful experience and to have such an experience with a book that centers around a topic as possibly dull as architectural acoustics is doubly impressive. As more talented historians are "coming out of the woodwork" and lending their abilities to the study of aurality our picture of the world past is quickly becoming a more vivid and less silent one.
   Secondly, I fell the need to criticize one reviewer's critique. One, though F Murray Schafer may have helped create a new field of study and generated concern for a the loss of a particular kind of soundscape I think criticizing an entire book because you have a semantic disagreement about the title with the author is slightly ridiculous. Thompson states her differences with Schafer in the first couple hundred words. If it was that upsetting, just take the book back. I personally find Schafer's writing quite lacking in theoretical vigor and drawing on questionable statistical evidence. Secondly, Thompson does in fact go well beyond just discussing the technical "progress" made in the field of acoustics by looking at the reasons that a culture would look to alter its sound in the first place.
   A fantastic book. I hope she writes more.



4. "The Soundscape of Modernity," is the title of Emily Thompson's book. However, it has little to do with soundscapes or modernity and everything to do with the less-sexy sub-title (in very small print), "Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1033."

   Despite the author's attempts to re-define R. M. Schafer's meaning of "soundscapes," she fails to connect the thrust of her exposition to the more resonant and common significance of the term and thus obscures and distorts the meaning of both the term and concept. The author confines her discussion to changes of the performance, creation, and perception of sound in our culture during the first third of the last century due largely to the engineering and construction of interior architectural spaces and related supporting technologies. Unless one can successfully bestow on the interior of Boston's Symphony Hall or the Radio City Music Hall the rational equivalent of soundscape (aural) as landscape (visual), one cannot expect to make the transition and apply the term "soundscape" to the acoustic result of those designs with any authority. It simply doesn't fit. The book, in the end, speaks nothing of soundscapes as they have come to be understood in the arts and sciences, but addresses, instead, architectural acoustics and the technologies that drive and/or enhance them. While the text is readable and historically loaded with informative discussion on the transformation of architectural acoustics, it is not consistent with the expectations contained in the title of this book.

   I bought the book because the title suggested an illumination on the manner in which soundscapes - human and natural - changed during the first three decades of the 20th century. It delivered, instead, a very different, misleading, but nonetheless instructive narrative. As my interest in the work was more along the lines of that anticipation, I was somewhat disappointed especially because the book is so expensive.




5. Those invited to read an academic book on acoustics might well decline because of a headache, or an urgent need to wash the cat, or the constant press of quality daytime television. It would be hard to convince them that such a book could be exciting, or even interesting, especially if it weighs in with the heft of a textbook. But a remarkable work by historian Emily Thompson, _The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900 - 1933_, ought to be enjoyed by non-specialists and those who know nothing about the science of acoustics. Thompson has written a comprehensive, well-referenced, but witty and entertaining book about an important subject whose influence is surprisingly pervasive.

   Thompson briskly reviews acoustic history; before this century, listeners knew there were better auditoriums and worse, but no one really knew why. To create a new venue for the important Boston Symphony Orchestra, the architect consulted a young Harvard assistant professor of physics, Wallace Sabine, who may be dubbed the Father of American Acoustics. In 1895, Sabine had been asked by the president of Harvard to improve the terrible acoustics of the lecture hall in the new Fogg Art Museum. In studying the problem, Sabine learned that the important thing to measure within a hall was the time of reverberation, the dying out of sound echoing through the room. This seems obvious now, but was the founding insight for all subsequent acoustical thought. He developed an equation relating the absorbing power of the room and its furnishings to the reverberation time. When Boston's Symphony Hall opened in 1900, the acoustics were an overwhelming success with critics. There were carpers who gradually dissented from the praise, but the musicians and the audiences became familiar with the sound, and its reputation remains high. Making beautiful sounds is but one aspect of acoustics treated in Thompson's book. Chapters are also devoted to the shielding from ugly sounds which the machine age was producing. Legal remedies for noise were largely unsuccessful, but there were brilliant successes in architectural use of sound-absorbing material to keep out the din. Movies changed the way auditoriums sounded, and making them presented its own peculiar problems. They had to have their camera sounds deadened and their studio lots coated to damp echoes, and the air conditioning (necessitated because the noisy carbon arc lighting had been replaced by quieter but hotter incandescent) had to be acoustically insulated from the production.

   Thompson ends her fascinating study with the Radio City Music Hall, a progeny of the new electroacoustic science. The hall was designed for the capture of sound by stage microphones and the projection of amplified sound into the highly absorbent and cavernous hall. The system worked very well, but ironically, although the audience could hear every speaker as if they were close to the stage, only those physically close could see with equal clarity. Live spectaculars failed, and the hall became a white elephant, playing mostly movies that people could see cheaper elsewhere. But the theatrical amplification of sound became a standard; as the century wore on, theaters were designed to be "tunable" to sound gothic, baroque, or modern, without one "best" setting. The soundscape we have become used to will continue to change, but Thompson's volume, full of clear, small essays and biographies, and cheerfully laced with humor and unobtrusive puns, is an insightful description of the origins of the sounds of the future.