1 comments about Barns: Styles & Structures.

1. I was really looking for a book that can give you ideas of how to remodel your barn in different climates. We recently purchased a new home in Oregon and put all of our machinery in the pole barn. Well, the machinery is starting to rust. So I bought a bunch of these "Barn" books thinking that I could find some ideas of how to insulate our barn. No such luck. However, this book is pretty nice.

No comments about Solar Power in Building Design (Green Source) (GreenSource Books).

2 comments about Scotland's Lost Houses.

1. This is a very well produced book on Scotlands great lost estates. The text is highly informative and the images are fanstastic. It is so disgraceful that so many of these great houses were so underappreciated, they were torn down like dilapidated public housing: it's tragic. The great Robert Adam house Bardelie was the worst lose, how anyone could tear down this masterpiece is unfathonable. The book is a joy to peruse, but you can't help but have a touch of meloncholy for the ease at which the philitines pulled so many of these great houses down. Be assured, you'll never see the likes of these houses again.



2. As a fan of Scottish country houses I found this book to be very interesting reading. There are many particularly fine photographs detailing the history of these fine buildings which unfortunately became victims of changing times.

No comments about The English House.

2 comments about Light Structures - Structures of Light: The Art and Engineering of Tensile Architecture Illustrated by the Work of Horst Berger.

1. This is a book positioned at exactly the right level for someone interested in the concept of building with tent like features. While there are several such structures in the US and around the world, the best known is the new Denver airport. Here is a building concept that offers considerable advantages to conventional design, not the least of which is an entirely new concept in modern architecture that in turn goes back to the days of tents.
   
   The author has been involved in many, if not most of the dramatic structures built using these new techniques. While this book has somewhat of a missionaries dedication to these roof structures, it rather makes sense.
   
   This is not a book designed for engineers, it is a book designed for the concept phase. This is what an interested buyer might use to talk to an engineering firm to tell him what he wants. This is a book that an engineer might use to understand what the customer wants before he gets deeply into the software and the design.
   
   I really liked the book. I only have one argument with the author. As a very frequent flyer for many years, the new Denver airport may have a very nice roof, but the airport itself sucks. It's the worst airport I habitually used.



2. a wonderful, accessible and personal journey through an understanding of the basis and historical development of tensile membrane structures by a world renowned engineer-designer and teacher. through historic examples and his own contemporary projects, prof. berger allows the reader to grasp a scientific understanding and aesthetic appreciation for these unique structures.
   
   a must book for all architects, engineers and anyone who desires a better comprehension of light weight structures.

1 comments about Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noémi Raymond.

1. This is a long overdue work of a couple of architect/designers which is a catalog of a simultaneous exhibition on their contribution to the profession. Tremendous research and exquisite reproductions of photographs of their work which runs from the U.S.A. to Japan and beyond. Both of the husband/wife team have worked for Wright, Corbu, et al., and have contributed their own "quality" to their work, here and abroad.

3 comments about La Tour de 300 M'Tres (Tour Eiffel).

1. I've been wanting to build model of Eiffel Tower for about 20 years. I've been drawing the main structure from bits and pieces I was able to collect over the years, and a lot of guess work. Then I came this book, and it was everything I've been looking for. It has all the dimensions and details you need to build an acurate model. It has details of the base of legs, the tower structure, original floor layouts and mechanical plans.
   This book is worth every penny, I wish I would of found it 20 years ago.



2. What can you say? You got all the original drawings, the explanations, and also the calculations.
   It is amazing the way they did things in the past.
   Also if you like history, the book is full of it.
   The book is a complete review of all the facts of the Eiffel Tower.
   You don't need to be an engineer to enjoy the book, but if you are, I bet you'll enjoy it even more.
   The pictures are excellent.



3. This is a wonderful reproduction of Gustav Eiffel's original design. Every detail of the Eiffel Tower is represented here. The book is HUGE, though, so make sure you have room for it.

No comments about Vitruvius. The Ten Books on Architecture: Translated by Morris Hicky Morgan.

5 comments about Ugly As Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces and How We Can Change Them Back Again (Forthright Edition).

1. A priest-friend once confided that if he were appointed as parish priest of a particular parish he would enter its church for the first time on a bulldozer to the cheers of the long suffering parishioners. The parish in question had built one of those modern churches with which we're all too familiar.
   
   The title of this book says it all about prevailing trends in modern church architecture, rather directly but not without subtlety. For it is Rose's conviction that such buildings are not only aesthetically abhorrent, but that they are also theological distortions - sinful in the same way that sin is a privation of a due good.
   
   Rose offers a typical tour of both a traditional and a modern church, which provide a sound catechesis on Catholic architecture, liturgy and faith. He identifies the origins of the modern departure from the traditional principles of Catholic architecture (which he identifies in his first chapter), and `names and shames' those largely responsible for the protestantisation of Catholic churches. A six-step plan for recovery is offered, and some encouraging examples of re-reordering are given. The book is thoroughly illustrated, though one cannot but shudder at photographs of jackhammers destroying a high altar.
   
   This book has been a long time coming. Would that it were published twenty or thirty years ago. Now that it is available, there is no excuse for perpetuating the pretence that such buildings as have been inflicted upon the Catholic faithful in the past few decades are pleasing to either God or man. If you dare, give your parish priest or your bishop a copy.
   
   Ugly As Sin belongs on your shelf beside Thomas Day's masterful exposé of the woeful state of Catholic Church music Why Catholics Can't Sing, and it awaits the company of a much-needed book asserting the true, the good and the beautiful in the face of the polyester and the pathetic in the realm of church vesture. With such books in print, the recovery of the sacred in our worship cannot but be one step closer.



2. Rose is simply excellent. Most modern churches look like the exact same buildings I go to for business conferences. Will my children dispatch their encounter with God and His sacraments with reverence when it looks just like where they will likely work during the week? Why get up and go to Mass at all?
   
   Even a pagan would appreciate Rose's criticisms, for you could probably substitute the words "church" for "temple" and still have a comprehensible document. But Rose's chief criticism is what the goals of a Christian Church are and how architecture should assist and inspire towards those goals.
   
   So what is going on today? Well, Church architecture is "Cr*p-tastic" as David Letterman would say. Fully polluted with Bauhaus, meaninglessness, abstraction, and the ever-present demonic zeitgeist of "in the spirit of Vatican II," we've got churches where we might as well be served hotdogs and snow cones. As a "Roamin' Catholic" because of business travel, I often look around for the "1/2 price" table from the GAP in most vestibules, given the architecture. Lord knows where they put the Lord, usually tucked away in a forgotten box in a side "chapel" which is (and I have *never* found an example to the contrary) even *more*hideous* than the church it self, if you can imagine such a thing were possible. Rose walks us through why this all happened, and it is sickening work to read.
   
   Buy a copy for your Bishop today. And the next time the Diocese starts to raise money for a parish plant in some newly constructed suburb, be sure that you get the names of all involved and send this book as a gift before the first sketch.



3. In this book, Rose tackles the continuing de-emphasis of Catholicism within the liberal ranks of the Catholic Church. With photographs, Rose cannot be challenged in his assertion that in the past four decades, liberal bishops and priests have deliberately constructed edifices devoid of inspiration. Take the example of Holy Spirit Church in Montgomery, Alabama, built in 2001...A horrendous example of precisely what Rose exposes. Here is another of those bare-bones stone science labs, astounding in its total absence of the aura of spiriuality, to which all Catholic church architecture should aspire. Small wonder, then, that in the Sanctuary of this albatross, there is no room for something as "bothersome" as the tabernacle holding the Blessed Sacrament, as space MUST be given over to the choir, so they can sit in mock-concelebratory position and sing their Methodist ditties. The heartening news is that this architectural madness is slowly dying of its own worthlessness. Rome, alarmed at these church designs, and with a keen eye toward all manner of abuses in the Church as it exists in America, has issued a growing number of texts regarding elements of church architecture and interior setting. A new generation of more orthodox priests, along with a growing number of parishioners who have tired of this silliness, have become more vocal and there are plans for new churches which return to the architecture designed to inspire, to enhance solemnity and to be treasured as truly Catholic. We didn't get in this overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight. But, with perserverance, we can ensure that future generations will have churches which are truly Catholic.



4. 
   This is an important book for a number of reasons:
   
   1. It can be counted among that group of books that signaled that something has gone terribly wrong with the post-Vatican II renewal. In 2006 we (thankfully) are finally seeing true reform. The seminaries are being reformed, the priesthood is being cleaned up, our Catholic Universities are being called to return to their roots, we have a new catechism and the faithful are finally being taught the faith, and many of the new churches and shrines being built are eschewing the modernist trends of the last 50 years and returning to design that is timeless and a faithful representation of the Faith. Indeed, we are seeing more and more Churches being restored (as opposed to renovated)- a sign that the changes imposed during the 70's and 80's were theologically and aesthetically wrong. This book is important because it was possibly the first to tackle the issue head on and call a spade a spade . . . a sin a sin.
   
   2. From this work, and others like it, a movement has emerged of Church architects to defend and advance the Tradition of architecture. An organization was launched called the Instituted for Sacred Architecture (www.sacredarchitecture.org) and it publishes a journal and highlights best practice and critiques poorly designed new church buildings. Another website grew out of the book: www.dellachiesa.com - which too is about traditional sacred architecture.
   
   3. The word is getting out. The laity is no longer sitting back and doing what they are told by psudo-experts who toute themselves as authoritative interpreters of Vatican II and then dismantle the tabernacle, move the altar and form the pews in a circle around the "family meal". Thankfully, the lay person can now say STOP! And have the supporting evidence to defend what is beautiful and sacred.
   
   We are beginning to see the emergence of what Dr. Paul Vitz, PhD called a "Transmodernist" movement which is marked by a transcending of the modernist doctrines (which the Church has declared heresy) and recovering an authentic experience (and theology) of the Sacred.
   
   Mr. Rose's book is important because it has signaled the fall of the old regime and the restoration of the sacred in Architecture. This is an excellet book for learning why this happened and why it was wrong. It is a hopeful book because it points out the direction of where things are headed for the Church which is marked by the John Paul II Generation!
   
   Thank you Mr. Rose.
   
   PS: If you look at the negative Amazon reviews of this book, they claim Mr. Rose is biased. But if you look at their other reviews, you can quickly surmise who carries the bias. The reality is that a minority of people have invested their identity and professional ethos on the kinds of buildings Mr. Rose legitimately tears apart and exposes to the light of common sense. That is why you will read ugly posts that tear apart Mr. Rose and his book. If you can't win based on ideas, you have to attack the bearer of the ideas himself.



5. This book is, quite frankly, trash. Someone needs to read the Bible. Are the examples carefully chosen to show ugly buildings? Yes, of course. But the theology of architecture is both biased, and sinful. Zero stars?

No comments about Surveying (10th Edition).