2 comments about Luxury Hotels Top of the World (Luxury Hotels).

1. This book is wonderful, there's a panoramic of some of the most beautiful hotels in the world. It's focused on ancient and classical design hotels, so if you're looking for the newest it's not recommandable.
   Brilliant pictures and good description of the hotels, if you put this book on the table of your living room your guests will like to read it!



2. This book is beautifully presented and photographed of some of my favorite hotels around the world. The properties chosen epitomize the full sense of luxury and being. I am fortunate being a merchant of the finest in luxury home furnishings that I travel the world searching for more "luxury treasures" and stay in many of the properties listed and showcased. The photography is much "real" of the feeing of the properties. Looking through the pages, I thought, "they missed this or that", but overall its a spectacular presented book....Splurge, pick up the telephone and call the airlines for a dream trip of luxury.

3 comments about Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture.

1. If one examines modernism, one is faced with a choice: either reject dialectic discourse or conclude that context comes from the masses, but only if consciousness is interchangeable with culture; if that is not the case, we can assume that the goal of the writer is deconstruction. In a sense, the premise of Sartreist absurdity suggests that society, somewhat paradoxically, has objective value. The example of dialectic discourse which is a central theme of Vidler's Warped Spaces ir Dogs is also evident in Hanfkopf's Narratives of Stasis, although in a more semanticist sense.



2. As the title indicates, Vidler's recent publication guides us to see the underlying forces that caused warping and irregularity in contemporary architecture. Beginning with defining various conceptions of 'phobias', Vidler navigates us into the realm of abnormal psychology. Critical theorists, such as Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin, are also introduced to interweave the ideas of 'estrangement' and 'flaneur(metropolitan nomad wandering unconsciously)'. In so doing, he allows readers to understand underlying mindset behind the buildings of Libeskind, Himmelblau, and Eric Owen Moss.



3. This is among the books that has given me a wholistic view of the design field- combining aspects of culture and society at the subliminal framework of understanding. It is a good read and very objective in its approach. I personally enjoy criticism and have read books by Victor Margolin and this one analyses the merits and demerits of a field that draws influences and in turn influences a wider spectrum of issues. It is interesting to perceive the manner in which the book uses a synchronic approach to arrive at a very comprehensive analysis of the current day status. For a young designer this book gives a lot of thought to treating design as a part of a larger framework. It forces one to think on larger issues that can be solved through design.

5 comments about American Shelter : An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Homes.

1. I'm looking into returning the book itself, just because I already own American Shelter from 1981, and it is the EXACT SAME BOOK. If you don't already own it, it is a great reference.



2. In the world of architectural field guides, there is a division between the guides that rely heavily on photographs and those that use line drawings to represent buildings. Photographic field guides are good in that you can see actual historic homes. This is a valuable thing for people who like me live very far away from historic areas and rarely see a building over a hundred years old.
   
   However, the great problem with photographic field guides is that it is often times difficult to understand a building style by looking at one or two representative photographs. What's worse is that often times the eye is drawn to details like electric lines or automobiles. One can spend more time trying to identify the decade the photo was taken than on concentrating on the image. For this reason, I prefer field guides that use line drawings to represent buildings. In my opinion, line drawings are a better tool for teaching the different architectural elements that come together to form a style.
   
   Of the field guides that use line drawings, Lester Walker's "American Shelter" is the very best. It is the best for two reasons. First because of the sheer number of styles he identifies. In this book he details 103 styles whereas a typical field guide will usually identifies 20-30 unique styles. Second and foremost, Lester Walker is a very talented artist. His drawings are not hyper technical like the Historical American Building Survey (HABS) drawings which one finds in some field guides. They have a lot of personality which seperates them from what I call the illustrator school of architectural drawings.
   
   I have been collecting field guides for a number of years and this is my favorite guide. That is not to say that there are not other very high quality guides. However, if you need to purchase just one field guide, this is the one. Hopefully, this book will inspire you to start collecting architectural field guides which in my opinion is a most worthy hobby.



3. I purchased this book while I was an undergraduate studying city planning. This book has been on my shelf since it was published and I still use it quite frequently today. This is a fantastic reference for anyone interested in housing, architecture and urban design. In fact, I highly recommend this book to any planning students with a housing or preservation focus. You will not regret having made the investment!



4. If you ever have reason to write (fictionally or otherwise) about American architecture (chiefly domestic), you shouldn't miss a chance to add this volume to your shelves. (It's included in the file I always send to Old-West mavens wanting to know what they should read.) Chapters range from two to eight pages in length and cover everything from the earth lodge of the Southeastern Plains Indians to the projected space station now three years past due. Typically, each includes the time and region in which the original style was most abundant, a few paragraphs explaining its history and salient features, and a number of finely detailed pen-and-ink sketches portraying exterior details and often cutaways and floor plans. The book can also be used as a field guide to help you decide what kind of house you happen to be looking at. From log cabins to Frank Lloyd Wright, Mount Vernon to the humble Quonset hut, every major kind of American house is here. This is an item that cries to be brought back into print. Until it is, don't miss a chance to pick up a used copy if you're afforded one.



5. I own the poster American Shelter by the same author, and wanted to see the explanations behind the dates and titles. As an architectural historian, I've studied many of these styles, but there are some new variations of house styles that are not part of any other reference book. This book has fun graphics and easy to follow descriptions. For the trained historians, architects, etc., this book is an amusing addition to your collections. To the architectural housing enthusiasts, this could be a helpful resource.

No comments about The Big Book of Lofts (Big Book of).

3 comments about Bungalow Basics: Fireplaces.

1. We just built a new Craftsman home and wanted to incorporate period details while still making our home modern. This book has lots of photos from period homes and illustrates many different styles of bungalow fireplaces. However, I wish there were examples of newer bungalow fireplaces. In the end, I did end up mixing details from two of the photos in the book to create the design for the wood parts on the fireplace we built. Instead of using porcelain tile or brick, we ended up using slate tiles for the face of the fireplace.



2. The "Bungalow Basics" series is economy-sized and economy-priced, and fits well, appropriately enough, on bungalow-sized shelves. With their lavish illustrations and attractive size, these books form a good introduction to the basics, ahem, of classic bungalow elements. There's something very satisfying about the cozy size and format of these books.



3. Popular and abundant a century ago, the bungalow is today enjoying a renaissance as people discover the craftsmanship, utility, and charm of these little gems. Whether you're living in a masterfully maintained bungalow, are interested in restoring a bungalow to its former glory, or just a fan of good architectural or furniture design, Paul Duchscherer and Douglas Keister's "Bungalow Basics" series has a lot to offer.
   
   Unlike many modern homes with their spacious and luxurious "master suites," bungalow bedrooms were often small and utilitarian spaces. As much as half of the home's limited space was generally devoted to the public living and dining rooms. But though the bedroom was often a small retreat, the quality of the design was not inferior to the rest of the home, and this volume in the series is every bit as informative and evocative as the others. Master, children's, and guest bedrooms are all covered, as are lofts, Murphy beds, and other innovative space-saving solutions.
   
   As you would imagine in a book this small, there's not a lot of depth to the discussion. Nor does any individual example receive more than one or two photos (except for the famous Gamble House in Pasadena, California). And finally, there's no list of sources where an interested reader could find any of the items or materials pictured herself. So this is not, by any stretch, a do-it-yourself handbook. As the series name suggests, however, this is a focus on the basics. And someone who reads this will have a better idea of the theory of bungalow design, and more than a few great examples of the theory in practice. For the handy little resource this is intended to be, this title carries out its mission quite well.

5 comments about Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses: Designs for Moderate Cost One-Family Homes.

1. This is a very good book for the purpose it was written for. Nice historical information about the development of Wright's Usonian homes.



2. My impetus for purchasing this book last month was a visit to the home my parents built in 1956 in New Jersey. They designed it themselves with a bit of help from books by Frank Lloyd Wright and others (his "Natural House", for instance), but the interpretation was their own. I was a middle-aged adult before I realized that the house could be classed among the "Usonians", although it was not a Wright commission, and this visit stimulated my desire to know more about the "real" ones. I bought this book as a start and agree with the other reviewers here that the book is a bit too "design-driven" to answer all one might want to know. But it is a basic book on the subject (published 1984--about when I discovered the Usonian possibility), and it covers well the principles of the Usonian: affordability, open plan on a grid, built-in essentials, and underfloor/radiant heating. The book's many appendices allow the reader to see how Wright organized his business and related to his clients. Twenty-two years after it was published this book is still a good starting point for learning about the Usonian house and Wright's commitment to 'everyman/woman'.



3. I asked a Usonian "fanatic" about buying this book, and he told me that he owned it, but "never could get through it." I bought it anyway, and now I see what he means. Excerpt from page 62: "Symmetrical implications of the wig-wam roof-form of the living area are immediately combated by the off-center core and built-in seat and table."
   
   WHAT? After five minutes of staring at the floor plan, I finally deduce that this must be some reference to a group of unmarked "things" there in what must be the living room. Of course, nothing is marked, and I still can't be sure what this sentence means because there are no useful photos or sketches to clarify the point. Lack of decent illustrations makes this book a nightmare to read. Another example, Page 68: "... utility... sensations...and...materials all make the Pew house, for me, the greatest of Wright's late career." This is accompanied by a single 3" x 5" high contrast, B&W photo of the house from a distance, partially obscured by trees. The author calls it the greatest work of Wright's career, and it is impossible to tell what it looks like.
   
   Thank goodness I also bought "The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion" so I can actually see some decent photos and floorplans. This book could just as well be written in Braille.



4. This book was one of my earlier books on FLLW and used heavily in my undergraduate class at Iowa State University in my early 80's tenure there. The bbok had no other precedent at the time and is still to be considered the most complete text with the reader going away from the book with a good understanding of the usonians unique place in history. The construction method and inclusion of the Oskaloosa IA home is very helpful in understanding the mid 50's time period in America and the people's thoughts and images before them of available home plans at that time. I think the layout was fairly well done and photos were a little poor exposure, blurry, dark on some --however considering the originals were used as photos I don't think it's too badly done. It doesn't have ALL of his work and certainly doesn't show the 'projects' he designed that weren't built however more complete than any current titles which have the words 'USONIA' in them currently. Even though I own the newer 'USONIA' books also they aren't as fulfilling as this original book by Sargent. I'm sure you'll agree.



5. It seems that this important phase in Wright's illustrious career has not been given the attention it deserves. As Frank Sergeant noted, Wright was most proud of his Usonian Homes and actively promoted his vision of a "Broadacre City." Unfortunately, Sergeant's book was the product of the 70's. He offers a good text, but poor photographs and mediocre illustrations that don't give the reader a compelling vision of these homes.

   Wright started with the Jacobs House, built in the late 30's, which got the ball rolling. With a lot of sweat and material contributions by the owners, they were able to keep the cost near the $5000 budget Wright had set. He wanted these homes to be affordable, clean, efficient dwellings that reflected his streamlined view of America. Wright abhorred the wasteful society America had become, and envisioned a "Broadacre City" that would satisfy Americans' insatiable appetite for detached homes, without destroying the landscape in the process. He incorporated many passive solar features into these homes, relied on natural materials, and as always created an open plan that characterized the democratic nature of society.

   More enticing books are now available on Usonian homes, but Sergeant's book is a good place to start in getting an impression of the quality of these homes, and how they came to shape America's suburban lifestyle.

1 comments about Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities.

1. Here we have a very interesting investigation about the stories of the american cities and specially its downtowns, how they have growned, its shinning past and its following falldown. We can learn about very brilliant redevelopment projects that are intending to rebuild and to regain once again progress and live to some parts of the modern cities that have been in a great depression since long decades of desinvestments. It is very important to take in accounts the stories very well written by the authors about how the joining between public and privates forces is the only way to rebulit american ( and everywhere) abandoned downtowns!

No comments about Trees in the Urban Landscape: Site Assessment, Design, and Installation.

2 comments about Color for Interior Design.

1. This book has some lovely interiors and color combination ideas, but it's more of a textbook and has many pages devoted to color spectrum charts and the science of color. I read about it in a well-known home decorating magazine which described it as one of the best books for decorating with color, but I really found it a little too technical. If you are a design student, it would probably be more appropriate.



2. This book is good for those who have limited background in color theory and want a concise history of color. Most of the book discusses color from cave to modern and contemporary periods culminating with applications to decorating. The color plates are good examples of the content being presented. Certainly a good handbook for a beginner.

No comments about The Essential Frank Lloyd Wright: Critical Writings on Architecture.