No comments about Modern Retro: Living With Mid-century Modern Style.

No comments about The Science and Technology of Building Materials.

No comments about Villas and Gardens of Tuscany.

No comments about The Parthenon: Illustrations, Introductory Essay, History, Archeological Analysis, Criticism (Norton Critical Studies in Art History).

No comments about Homes in Colonial America (Welcome Books).

No comments about Hotel & Restaurant Design.

No comments about A Royal Passion: Louis XIV as Patron of Architecture.

3 comments about Japan Country Living.

1. Spectacular photographs serve to illustrate a view of Japan that is far different from the bustling cities. This represents three things to me:
   
   First is the fact that until recently Japan was a rural rountry. People lived a farming, fishing existance.
   
   Second, the sense of using natural surfaces: wood, fabric, thatch and some rudamentory manufactured items: paper, pottery, cast iron makes for a room appearance that we could all strive to find.
   
   Third, as with any architecture book, the ideas of style, decoration, and utility in a small space give one ideas that may well be applicable in housing designs that we may be considering.
   
   These houses have a utility and a simplicity that is all their own. It is great to see what they have done with simple items and a rather small amount of money. These are not the million dollar homes often seen in architecture books, these are lived in.
   
   Beautiful book.



2. Sigh, disappointed: poorly composed, lousy photos inside the covers make this book visually un-stunning. Houses and vignettes looked dull, close, shabby, untidy, underexposed, overshadowed, and only very rarely triggered a moment of interest. I felt that I've seen better Japanese country design books and magazine layouts, and I was truly disappointed. Feh.



3. This is an amazing book, as are all by Amy Katoh. I was lucky enough to live in Tokyo two doors away from her store, and visited it at LEAST weekly.

   She specializes in simple but beautiful "country craftsmanship," as opposed to the opulent, such as dress kimino, and such.

   Her knowledge of Japanese culture and her sensitivity has even awakened the appeciation of Japanese citizens who had previously taken their material culture for granted.

1 comments about Virginia's Historic Courthouses.

1. The Peters took their avocation of loving and studying Virginia architecture and combined it with their vocation as historian and photographer to create this great resource. If you are the kind of person who wants to know the real details behind Virginia public architecture, this is the text to have on your shelf. You get an insider's play book into Thomas Jefferson's inspiration and influence, and which of his builders worked on what projects and why. You also get the nitty gritty of what the battles were like leading up to the structures becoming a reality. The color photos by John Peters are calendar quality, and even if you are not a Virginian, they crisply illustrate how the Old Dominion influenced municipal and governmental architecture all over the country,and maybe even in your own town or state.

1 comments about The History of Postmodern Architecture.

1. Klotz's work offers definitely a better survey of Postmodernism than Jencks' multiple texts and revisions on the subject. Klotz's scholarly work also shows the continuities rather than the radical break between Postmodernism and Modernism. How else can we explain Aalto's later works, Corbusier's Ronchamp, and the work of BBPR in Italy? The critical revisions of dogmatic modernism were already in the air around 1950, and many architects can hardly be labelled in one camp or another.
   This is what makes this history book still worth reading today. It is rich in details and theoretical insights into the developments of architecture in the Twentieth century.