2 comments about Inside Africa South & West.

1. Having visited South Africa, I have become interested in all things African. This book covers a lot of regions in pictures, and I am pleased with its presence on my coffee table. It makes me want to see even more of Africa.



2. This book and the companion North and East volume are extraordinarily beautiful and offer images of a rich array of African homes -- traditional, contemporary and intermingled. The photography is excellent and offers images of architecture, art, landscapes and lives. Highly recommended.

3 comments about The Campus Guides: University of California Berkeley.

1. I've worked at this university for many years, and walked past many of the buildings described in this book without really wondering what their stories were. This book opened my eyes to the treasures that have surrounded me. (I think of the old jazz standard "How Long Has This Been Going On?") Mr. Helfand's knowledge of the history of the campus is matched by the intelligence of his appreciation.



2. I really enjoyed this book, and many others in the series.
   
   I did attend Berkeley, but my interests in architecture, photography, and history- specifically that of higher education in America, made this an excellent addition for me.
   
   Easy read, wonderful pictures... I just really enjoyed it. Great for moments of fond nostalgia. Go Bears!



3. this book does a great job painting berkeley in a very positive light and diving into its rich history. highly recommended because of the overall quality of the text and photographs.

2 comments about Illustrators 48 (Illustrators).

1. I guess I'm just a "Spectrum" kind of girl. Plus the publisher/edidtor or whatever person's idea of international is to feature mainly american and british artists. while that does meet the criteria of international, to compile the vast majority of the works from two countries whoes art history is so intertwined is laughable. also there aren't that many women involved in the book, both in judging/scouting field and in actual artist, which i find a bit disappointing.



2. This book is absolutely amazing. It has something for everyone: oil, acrylic, Illustrator, Photoshop, sketch, crayon, and so much more. I was hard-pressed to find much that made me wonder how it got in there.
   
   It is printed on high-grade paper that looks like it will withstand the yellowing of time.
   
   I can't begin to tell you how inspiring this book has been when I am blocked for ideas on a project. I have 5 books sitting on my desk that i have been pouring through over the past few months, and this one book managed to open the flood gates of inspiration for me to finish 3 projects in record time! Now that's worth it's weight in iPods.

5 comments about Harlem: Lost and Found.

1. Wow, for once I find myself agreeing with Ian Fletcher - really great job, Michael. Every neighborhood should have a book like this - but only Harlem does! And, Michael, you're too sensitive about 1-800-Riverside - he/she made some reasonably fair criticisms - who among us are without sin? - but still endorses your book.

   Hope you make a $million (Gianfranco Monacelli, are you listening?) - or at least enough for a computer.

   Best, Christopher Gray




2. This great book comes forward to change forever our view of Harlem. It is a highly significant step toward informed appreciation of Harlem's architectural importance, cultural complexity, and the abundant variety and beauty of its singular places. No publication at this scale has yet been attempted for Harlem and the grand scope and close detail brought together here by this talented historian will raise the intelligence of the national sense of this unique cultural center never before served so well. Harlem is a household word -- across the globe -- and many may have felt that "our country's African American center" or "jazz incubator" or "home of black Congressional leadership" or some such positive phrase sums it up. Here is presentation of the whole, its place in shaping our revolutionary republic, its welcome to those arriving first from Europe, then from southern states as well as the Caribbean Islands, its heritage of architecturally glorious churches, its handsome houses -- and the innate preservationist sensitivity of each wave of residents who have kept this heritage of fine architecture so largely intact. The book presents these churches and houses through the superlative photographic studies contributed by Paul Rocheleau which bring the reader right into the sites so brilliantly described by Michael Adams. This fine collaboration opens eyes to the deeper meaning of carefully designed housing itself as well as how these churches stand witness to the care of their parishioners. Those viewing these pages far from Harlem will feel on site; those here will want to walk these streets with newly opened eyes. The book is a lifetime purchase and is itself one of the most significant Harlem events in years.



3. Paul Rocheleau urged me not to worry about what I wrote stressing, "Most people only look at the pictures anyhow." Taking over ten years to research and write something, how tiresome it is to then be compelled to defend it. One is reluctant to do much beyond urging those who might disagree with what you've said to take a decade or two themselves and write their own work. After all no matter what one does or doesn't do the inadvertent error is sure to emerge. This was so for Galsworthy and for Langston Hughes. It will be for you as well. The Riviera Apartments, for instance, were designed by Rouse & Goldstone, not Schwartz & Gross. Mr. Charles Lovejoy is in fact Mr. Charles Loveday, and so it goes. It appears that Harlem Lost and Found will warrant a second printing at least, so thank goodness these mistakes and similar ones can be addressed.

   What cannot be altered, however, is my understanding of Harlem's boundaries. Quite justifiably, I believe they can be identified as extending as far north as 168th St. "Not For Tourists Guide to New York City 2003", sponsored by JPMorgan Chase Community Development Group, at least agrees to this hallowed region extending north as far as 160th St. Well, actually, they call the region south to 134th St. between Bradhurst Ave. and the Hudson River 'Manhattanville/Hamilton Heights'. However, surely these neighborhoods are agreed to be in Harlem, are they not?

   Unashamedly, I concede that my book was driven by handsome buildings. But, throughout its publication from circa 1910 through 1934, Harlem Magazine, an all white journal, included the very same structures that I have located north of 155th St. in its pages. Things do change, of course. Attempting to dissect Harlem into a series of hierarchically class-based districts, many, by the 1890s, designated all Manhattan west of St. Nicholas Ave. and north of 135th St. as 'Washington Heights'. Already by the 1860s the appellation was used from 155th St. north. But this initial usage much like that of 'Carmansville' was meant, I believe, to identify a subsection of greater Harlem. Certainly, the Audubon, Knapp, and Hooper families continued to identify their address as Harlem much as today many residents of the officially named 'Clinton' continue to give their address as 'Hell's Kitchen'.

   In any case, perhaps the old-fashioned but unfashionable race card trumps other considerations? Asked in the 1950s by Joe McCarthy where he lived, Ralph Ellison said 150th St. and Riverside Drive. He qualified his answer, though, noting that the area had once been regarded as 'Washington Heights'. But stated that from his experience, "Wherever Negroes live uptown is considered Harlem." Surely this is the logic whereby the Audubon Ballroom and Theater, where Malcolm X was slain in 1965, was and continues to be identified as a Harlem landmark. No doubt, as more whites displace more blacks and Latinos throughout Upper Manhattan, Brian Keith Jackson's satirical references to name changes in the novel "The Queen of Harlem" will, in fact, occur more and more. It's this likelihood that makes me even more adamantly compelled to document the old understanding amongst blacks and many whites of what is Harlem.

   How easy it is to regret what one has not done. If only I had a computer I might have addressed these issues earlier. If only I were more prosperous, I might have also included footnotes in Harlem Lost and Found and saved myself some grief. But as an author under contract to a small press it was difficult enough to pay for an index, I can assure you. As it was so dear, I especially wish the mystery reviewer at 800 RSD had consulted it. I reference Vaux & Withers twice. Once in relation to their Trinity Cemetery suspension bridge. Another time based on Francis R. Kowsky's 1980 monograph of Withers (Wesleyan University Press), on page 196, in the appended work list, I cite the George B. Grinnell house and stable on West 156th and 157th Sts. entered for 1869 and 1870. At no time, regarding this firm, do I ever mention either Mrs. John James Audubon or her dwelling.

   As for my attribution of Audubon Park's ownership by George Bird Grinnell, on page 21 of the pamphlet "Audubon Park" published by the Hispanic Society in America in 1927 and reissued in 1987, a later George B. Grinnell relates of his relative, "Long before this, the greater portion of what had been Audubon Park, that is to say, all of it except the track where the old Audubon houses stand had become the property of a single owner, George B. Grinnell, from whose estate, in 1909, a large part of it passed into the hands of builders who covered much of it with tall apartment houses."

   Similarly, so far as Jesse W. Benedict's earlier ownership of the park after 1864 goes, no less an historian than Audubon Park's own Reginald Pelham Bolton in his great book "Washington Heights, Manhattan, Its Eventful Past" asserts the same on page 111.

   Regarding record sale prices at the Grinnell, the New York Times, it's true, might inflate values, but can I really be faulted for believing all the news that's fit to print?

   Yes, indeed, whatever else it is, thanks mostly to Paul Rocheleau and designer Abigail Sturges, Harlem Lost and Found is a visual feast. Whatever its shortcomings, I hope that it is better written and researched than one critic suggests. Better than ever, I now appreciate the aphorism 'Some do, and others complain'. And anonymously, no less. Well, what can one say except God Bless America.




4. The long awaited oeuvre of Mr. Adams has finally arrived, and is sitting handsomely on many Coffee Tables around the world. Exquisite photgraphy. It is unfortuante that many of the details within the text are inaccurate, and it's a shame that the author was not more careful with his research. However a very pretty book to own - buy it for the pictures. Enjoy Mr. Adams stories

   What is intersting is that the owners of the cover (limestone) property are defacing THAT building as we write this. Metal Windows now everywhere. Whats a shame that the present owners of these structures cannot appreciate the efforts, craft and care of the original European Architects of Harlem. So it might serve to document the continuing erosion of a once handsome place.




5. The long awaited oeuvre of Mr. Adams has finally arrived, and is sitting handsomely on many Coffee Tables around the world. Exquisite photgraphy. It is unfortuante that many of the details within the text are inaccurate, and it's a shame that the author was not more careful with his research. However a very pretty book to own - buy it for the pictures. Enjoy Mr. Adams stories (for they are that).

   What is intersting is that the owners of the cover (limestone) property are defacing THAT building as we write this. Metal Windows now everywhere. Whats a shame that the present owners of these structures cannot appreciate the efforts, craft and care of the original European Architects of Harlem. So it might serve to document the continuing erosion of a once handsome place.

1 comments about Westminster Abbey (Wonders of the World).

1. Westminster Abbey has long been a seat of royal and ecclesial significance; certainly since the time of Edward the Confessor (before the Norman Conquest), up until the most recent times (royal weddings and the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, perhaps the most watched funeral in history). According to the introduction of Jenkyns book, it is 'perhaps the most complex building of any kind'. It still bear the stamp of being a 'royal peculiar' - in that the clergy and ecclesial hierarchy of the abbey fall outside the standard patterns of the church, and instead fall under a more direct jurisdiction of the monarch.
   
   Its history is as impressive as its architecture. It has been a cathedral church and an abbey, a coronation church, a 'national church'; it houses Poets' Corner, the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, the shrine of a Roman saint, and more. The national legislature (the House of Commons) has met here, and it has been both the National Archive and the National Treasury. Still, it is not as large as the French Gothic cathedrals upon which it is based, and (Henry VII's Chapel excepted) much of the art and architecture of the building, each element taken separately, can be better represented elsewhere. However, as a package whole, Westminster Abbey is second to none.
   
   Jenkyns' book on Westminster Abbey is not a tourist guide, but rather a wholistic history of the building. Looking in detail beginning with the medieval church (there were much older structures on the site, but what we come to think of as Westminster Abbey today was really born in the medieval period), Jenkyns continues chronologically through the Renaissance, Reformation, Baroque and Victorian periods. Jenkins then explores particular aspects of the Abbey overall - as a place of ceremony, as a national cathedral or shrine, as a church in and of the city, and the church as a masoleum of sorts of the famous and historical (this last chapter is somewhat out of place, put among the chronological listings).
   
   Jenkyns draws on wonderful material for a complete picture of the spirit of the place. There are poems from the Renaissance up to the twentieth century - Betjamin's portrayal of a woman visiting the Abbey during the war time is a classic example. He has historians and royals with their own reflections of events that have taken place, and material from clergy and monastics who have lived, worked and worshiped here. 'The world changes, but as a building and as a community, the Abbey continues to do what the Benedictines called the opus Dei, the work of God, to teach and preach and praise.'
   
   Jenkyns is not shy with his opinions. For example, in discussion the change in the north transept rose window, he has little good to say about Pearson's replacement of it in the restoration of the late nineteenth century. 'Pearson was a very fine architect and it is a pity (and puzzling) that he chose to blot his escutcheon in this way.' Jenkyns similarly describes others' attempts at restoration and improvement as 'impertinent', 'controversial', and 'destructive'.
   
   The book could benefit from a few more diagrams and a few colour photographs (the only colour prints are on the sleeve on the outside of the book; the rest are black-and-white, which, while they have their own character and excellence, still do not give a sense of the glory of certain aspects, such as the Henry VII chapel). However, the text is interesting, easy to read and interesting without being simplistic or not engaging with its subject, itself a complex Gothic creation.
   
   Part of a series published in the United States by Harvard University Press, published previously in the United Kingdom by Profile Books Ltd., this volume is a joy to have.

No comments about Houses of snow, skin and bones (Native Dwellings).

No comments about Future City: Experiment and Utopia in Architecture.

No comments about Pools & Spas, 2nd Edition.

1 comments about Introduction to Japanese Architecture (Periplus Asian Architecture Series).

1. IF you want 51 more colored photographs, 32 of which are 1- to 2-page spreads, 10 of which are 1/2- to 3/4th-page ones, IF you want what adds up to an additional 3.5 pages of text, THEN you will probably prefer Art of Japanese Architecture, David and Michiko Young's 2007 revision of this book.
   
   If, however, you opt for INTRODUCTION TO JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE, you will still get an excellent overview of the entire history of Japanese architecture. Granted, you will not learn, for example, that since this book was written, a particular site is now a National Treasure or that each sliding door handle of a particular mansion bears the design of the imperial chrysanthemum or that the cost of rethatching a roof is now the equivalent of up to half-a million U.S. dollars. But these are mere details, not major revisions.
   
   Nor, if you opt for INTRO, will you be lacking illustrations, for it does have 320, all in color. In fact, with the exception of the added 51 photos, a handful of photos retaken at a different angle and 9 other minor changes, the illustrations are the same as they are in ART.
   
   If you wish more information, please see my review of ART. I have also included the Table of Contents of both books in the following comment.

2 comments about The House Plans Bible (House Plan Bible).

1. I am not impressed with this book - there are so may boring, lifeless plans, and they are all completely disorganized. You can't search for homes by square footage, for example, or style, etc. It is a big jumble. And the designs look like every other house out there. If you don't mid leafing through every page to find a few things you may be looking for, it might be worth the money. And, most of the homes are on the smaller side.



2. Compiled and organized by the editorial staff of Creative Homeowner, The House Plans Bible is an inexpensive, 559-page compendium of more than 650 architectural house plans for houses in all manner of styles from Contemporary, Southwestern, Country and Farmhouse, to Craftsman, Vacation Homes and Ranches. Enhanced with 350 photographs and 400 color renderings, readers can browse with confidence to find the home plan most suitable for their tastes and needs. Plans are supplemented with "Smart Tips" and special sections on safety for kitchens and bathrooms, decorating tips, and guidance on creating a beautiful landscape for their selected home. Showcasing the work of top architects and designers from all parts of the country, The House Plans Bible is a welcome addition to professional, academic, and community library Architectural Studies reference collections. Also very highly recommended are two other Creative Homeowner architectural home design collections: Vacation Home Plans (1580113087, $11.95) and Brick Home Plans (1580113028, $11.95).