4 comments about Castles: Their Construction and History (Dover Books on Architecture).

1. This book was written in the 1930's but it is indeed a timeless record of castles from BC to the age of fortifications. I first thought that this was too old of a book but after reading it, it is clearly a great castle book. The real treasure is that it was compiled before Hitler bombed the crap out of Europe. It is chronilogical. It is referenced perfectly. The illustrations include floor plans with scales and north arrows. Building sections keyed to the floor plans. Renderings and photographs keyed to the text. Sidney takes you thru all the different building types and features that make a castle. My favorite is the "Keep". The text is very easy to follow. I was amazed at Sidney's gift of describing without the aid of photographs and drawings castle configurations. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a book that gets to the core of the subject of castles.



2. There is no fluff and no romanticizing. This book is just plain hows and whys on castle construction and their evolution from wooden stockades to stone fortresses. It examines the changes in defenses as warfare evolved. It is dry reading, but this is bare bones information with no fantasizing....just what I wanted.



3. I bought this book because, well to put it plainly, I have always wanted to design a castle of my own. Having no real talent for architecture, I thought I'd see how others had done it before, and why they made the decisions they did. This book does a lot for the novice who wants to learn these things, but does so with enough illustrations to keep the readers interest through the text. I can see why another reviewer said it would make a good textbook -- it reads like one, and provides quite the education!

   Add it to a military history collection, a chivalric texts collection, or to your Lego room for the next time you want a more powerful castle than the kit suggests (but, putting little lego men heads on pikes at the gates may be going overboard).




4. As an Army Officer the study of military history is a professional necessity. The book: Castles their Construction and History has proven to be an incredible aid to this end. I am stationed in Europe and use the book as a guide when I travel and explore the castles in Germany, France and Italy. The book is very technical, it wastes some space giving detailed step by step descriptions of many castles but the casual reader of history will find the drawings, photos and overviews of history very interesting. The text of the book is rather dull to the non-history buff. It was very useful as a reference book while at the University of Florida.

2 comments about Victorian Architectural Details: Designs for Over 700 Stairs, Mantels, Doors, Windows, Cornices, Porches, and Other Decorative Elements.

1. We've been working on rehabilitating a Transitional Victorian circa 1909 and have had this book for a year or so. Much of this ornamentation is grander than what is appropriate for our house, but this is a teriffic reference book for us and for me as a professional remodeler/restorer. True, there is no text, but I find the illustrations full of information when pored over carefully. One particularly helpful detail is that each profile within an illustration is provided with a cross-section to help gauge its massing and proportions. Oh, if only we had the lumber available to feasibly replicate all these great details! If you're considering this book, trust me, it'll be the best ten bucks you'll ever spend for your reference library.



2. The photo on the cover is a good sample of what is in this 1873 catalog reprint - many drawings of stairways, cornices, fireplaces, windows. It even has storefronts, 2 barns, and gazebos. It has a few house layouts and exterior elevations, and plaster cornices and ceiling designs. We are building a Victorian house, and the ceiling designs are ones I think I can replicate with Millwork and paint. Lots of neat ideas to ponder and show our carpenter. There is no text - just the index and the plates themselves.

5 comments about Rick Joy: Desert Works.

1. This is a most beautiful coffee table book with almost every page a work of art.
   Personally I have a great interest in the subject matter but found the introduction interesting and the architects comments pleasantly short winded.



2. A great book, beautifuly assembled, that provides an inspiring overview of the work. Numerous photos of the built work come along clear and elegant graphics. Simplicity and beauty of Rick Joy's work seem to come through the little book. Thank you.



3. The book is very complete. Although nothing substitutes the visit of the buildings themselves, it is great to have such information about the very interesting work of Rick Joy: great pictures completed by texts and drawings.
   For those who do not know his work but are interested in good architecture, where space, light, materiality ang gravity are so beautifully present, I advise you to buy the book and to travel to Arizona (I wish it was not that far away from Madrid!).
   I hope the most recent work of Rick Joy will be published in the future so I can keep on enjoying from his architecture.
   Un saludo: Diego G. de R., arquitecto.



4. unfortunately the projects in this book are not that much appealing like the fantastic ones you might find in other series like the "american house"... the materials are simple i agree, but the plans are very poor, doesn't add to your data bank of ideas, the photos don't help alot, and frankly it is the houses fault anyway, the plans are even worse, the text is very limited.
   I do recommed that you look somewhere else if you are looking for inspiration.



5. A musician from Maine, who headed west and apprenticed to Will Bruder, the godfather of new Arizona architecture, Joy has built little in his ten years of independent practice, and only around his home base of Tucson. And yet, as this delectable monograph shows, he is a master designer. His houses-of raw steel or rammed earth-respond to the brutal beauty and intense light of the Sonoran desert, and, like Glenn Murcutt, he uses the simplest materials and forms to satisfy all the senses. In Pallasmaa's eloquent tribute and the superb color photos, you can feel the heat of the desert wind, run your hand over a rugged wall, and watch the earth change color as the sun sinks beneath the mountains.

5 comments about Home: A Short History of an Idea.

1. May be of interest to househunters trying to envision what their happy home to be might want to be. It's basically a selective history of the concepts of home and comfort, related to changing forms of the family, over the last four or five hundred years. It's full of interesting factoids, probably ultimately of less significance than Rybczynski had hoped, but he's a good writer and charming (a hair too warm and fuzzy for me). It's a light, easy and pleasant read. It didn't leave me with anything of substance that stuck in my memory, but I definitely enjoyed reading it. It's the type of book you curl up with next to a fire with a skim mocha nutmeg and cinnamon whatever when you need to give your brain a break but can't quite stoop to watching American Idol. Okay, sorry - it's a much better book than that. And it's fun - and we all probably need to have a little fun now and then (in between reading all these serious books and growing our big, fat brains). But in the end it's not really substantial.



2. You probably have notions about what "home" means, and those notions probably revolve around your immediate family, domestic comfort and convenience, with a dash of nostalgia. Most likely you share my sense that home has been thus for a long time, subject to the whims of fashion and demands of social hierarchy. What I learned from Witold Rybczynski is that those are very near-sighted suppositions. The modern (Western) idea of a home is very new, historically. Even the notion of "family" that occupies so much of modern political cant, and seems so central to our social organization, goes back no further than the early 18th Century. Households before that time were comprised of groups of working adults, house owners and employees and servants, plus infants. Children were farmed out as apprentices at a tender age -- even in the wealthiest households where fortunate youngsters were placed as servants to courtiers and nobles in order to learn the ropes of oligarchy. Privacy was rare. Beds were built to handle 6-8 adults and work tables often tripled as dining boards and sleeping platforms. Rybczynski artfully traces the development of the modern household, decor and furnishing, to enable a deep understanding of why we live as we do, what works and what doesn't. As an architect he reserves some of his harshest criticism for his fellows, and neatly shoots down such icons as Le Corbusier and Wright who were too hung on their brilliance to notice that things weren't working. (As I reported in my review of Stewart Brand's excellent HOW BUILDINGS LEARN, Viking, 1994, most -- if not all -- of Frank Lloyd Wright's houses leaked, badly. HOME reports that they didn't work as living quarters either.) This author's highest praise falls to the women who invented household engineering in the late 1800s, stepping into the architectural void, inventing home economics, and shaping the modern home to suit the needs of a servantless woman charged with housekeeping and child rearing. Catherine E. Beecher and Ellen Richards come in for particular commendation. Modern furniture also falls under the author's verbal axe. Designed for style instead of comfort, he describes its advent as a foolish embrace of creativity above function, and offers the detailed research in France under the Louises (Louies?), which erupted as Chippendale and Hepplewhite designs: templates which carefully noted dimensions and proportions that actually fit a human body and allowed for the constant movement necessary to ongoing comfort. The only modern chairs which come near to the standard set in those classic designs are found in the best mechanical chairs, made to be adjusted to the user's body and to flex with movement. (More often to be found in office furniture than in a home.) Altogether an illuminating look at the circumstances of our lives. For this reviewer, who spent 20 years inventing an "alternative" house from scratch, it is greatly amusing to learn that I have spent a lot of hours reinventing wheels rounded out a hundred years ago. Talk about being forced to repeat history one has failed to learn! Been there. And so it goes.



3. Home is an articulate, rapid reading book about the developements leading to the current concept of "home". Tying history, architecture, sociology and technology together the emerging concept of home and comfort developes in clear visualizations.
   After reading this book I now appreciate the evolution of the contradictory outlooks over time and how they affect our current drives in creating our personal living spaces.



4. Witold Rybczynski's Home: A Short History Of An Idea, is an historical and informational text following the devlopment of the concept of home and discusses the psychological effects of different types of dwellings and personal space, architecture, and society. Home is a well-structured and planned tracing of society's development of the concepts of home and comfort and relates to today's audiences with a new perspective on where and how they live. One of Mr. Rybczynski's strengths as a writer is his conversational writing style and the flow of the organization of his main ideas.
   Home instantly dives into the development of society's ideas of comfort and home with an almost staggering jump into a strong comparison and analysis of the four style lines of the Ralph Lauren collection. Mr. Rybczynski highlights the different aspects of the setting that Lauren creates to entice the public and the different props he uses to create this feeling of home. Home utilizes the time line approach, begining in the medieval era, to explain Ralph Lauren's heightend understanding of the public's ideas of comfort. Mr. Rybczynski also examines the work of Le Corbusier and relates the modernist movement with current modern trends.
   Mr. Rybczynski's book remeinds architects and interior designers that even in today's society it is easy to get caught up in what is in style or what would make a statement rather than what is comfertable for occupants to inhabit. I recommend Mr. Rybczynski's book to anyone who would appreciate seeing their home in a whole new way.



5. So, I am predisposed to like Rybczynski -- his biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, "A Clearing in the Distance," is one of my favorites.
   
   Sure enough, I liked "Home" as well. It describes the invention of the concepts of "home" and "comfort" and "domesticity." Those are not things I ever thought of as having been invented; but if Rybczynski is right, they were, and relatively recently at that.
   
   Worth noting: My favorite chapter was the one on the Netherlands in the 1600s -- a really, really interesting society, it turns out, for a lot of different reasons.
   
   Also: The book has lots of interesting notes on the history of furniture, especially the chair.
   
   Finally: Above all this is a book that makes you look at familiar surroundings with new eyes.

1 comments about New Most-Popular 1-Story Home Plans (Lowe's) (Home Plans).

1. Terrific book full of 97% modern ranch plans. Great use of space with move of the designer/architect plans. House plans are not in order by square footage - which would be a little nicer. I know that it is easy to search through internet house plans - but it is so nice to have a color book with this quality of printed paper.
   
   Cheap price for the quality. Easy to compare the plans you like.

4 comments about Cabins and Camps.

1. I enjoyed this book but found it a little too rustic; kind of over-the-top for the average rustic aficionado. The same styles were repeated over and over with little variation.



2. Beautiful coffee table book. The pictures are large and there are many of them. The focus of the book was on the Adirondack style mostly and birch Adirondack style furniture.



3. This book is a banquet for the eyes. The reader feasts upon the visuals and is drawn into the rooms, the homes, and one can almost smell the wood.
   
   The author knows his subject and shares it well. I keep my copy on the coffee table in the living room as a wonderful accent to the room.
   
   It reads well and I am intrigued as to who the owners might be of the wonderful houses, homes, structures. Privacy is very important, but that is my only "complaint" with the book. I would like to know who the owners are. It would seem more personal.
   
   The book is wonderful.



4. This is by far the best cabin/camp book I own! Pages and pages of gorgous camps and cabins with wonderful decorating. I own many rustic decorating books and this is tops!! All Ralph Kylloes books are great but this one is the best! The pictures of inside all the beautiful camps and cabins is a true feast for the eye! I look at this book at least once a week and never tire of the homes and always put the book down with more ideas on how to make my home more rustic and adirondack/camp like. I can't imagine if you are a person that is into camp decorating that you would ever be disatisfied-it is truely the best of its kind!!

2 comments about Rustic Fireplaces.

1. You can get sooo lost in these beautiful photographs. After purchasing two, I'm sure to continue collecting Ralph Kylloe's books - what a pro!



2. Beautiful book written by one of my favorite authorities on rustic!!! I enjoyed this book but had a few reservations . I own all of Ralph Kylloes books and love them but my complaint with this book was,( and he did address this in the book) alot of the pictures of fireplaces were in his previous books so I was already familiar with a majority of them, but he did manage to sneak a few new ones in also that were enjoyable to view. My other complaint would of been the fact the pictures were very small but Im also aware he probably had to do this alot as there were so many pictures and this in return made for a fully loaded book but I found myself using my magnifying glass to zoom in the details of each picture more clearly. Anyone out there building a rustic home or wanting to get ideas on remodeling their current fireplace or simply to treat themselves to some rustic eye candy- this book is for you. Although I myself already own a gorgous floor to ceiling river rock fireplace I still delight in seeing what other rustic lovers have!!! I like to see whats on the mantels, and what kind of andirons they use and fireplace screens as well, not to mention what the rest of the room looks like- these pictures have it all but in smaller scale.

5 comments about Tibor Kalman, Perverse Optimist.

1. for those who like graphic design this is an icon. A rich illustraded biography and radical ideas



2. I waited 5 years before I bought this book. Just buy it, you'll love it.



3. i have been trying to write alot abt this great designer/man, but couldnt write a word because he is so true and real, that you start loosing words for him. He lives with designer who consider their resposibity and moves on. TIBOR tells the story of Tibor's life and his achivement phase to phase. I dont want to complete this book or Close this book, because it is full of Wit, Humor and Lots of Sense. A book that showcases the thumbnails, sketches, art-work, approvals and disapproved work.
   You can find lots of lessions, essay and speeches about Tibor and From Tibor that are helpful esp. for Design Students/Teacher and Graphic Designers in the end. It a worth buying book for every student-teacher and designer!
   WELLDONE!



4. I first heard of Tibor Kalman while browsing a copy of "Interview", just to learn that it was a tribute. Sometime later, I found a smiling bookcover looking at me. I bought it. I was waiting for the bus and started to read it... I could not put it down again. I read textes, subtitles, infos, even the small characters of the work reproduced. It was not enough. It made me regain the somehow lost faith in design, showing me how humour, money and a cause could be combined together with surprising results.
   Do not be fooled: this book goes beyond the cult of the author's personality; it shows brief, concept and ways of thinking which are useful to everyone, not only designers and students.
   Although I knew it from the beginning, in the end I had tears in my eyes, because this man was gone and could no longer make our world a better place.



5. Kalman was a fascinating artist, but above all, he was down to earth. He told it like it is. That's why people found his work disturbing and cutting edge at the same time. His images and ideas have the power to change how people think. As an artist, he was vastly underrated, but his art made important comments about popular culture. He fits right in with Warhol, Rauschenberg, et. al. This is a book worth many times its price.

4 comments about Super Potato Design: The Complete Works of Takashi Sugimoto: Japan's Leading Interior Designer.

1. This is the most interesting and valuable book to our design office that we've received in a long time. It's very avante guard and has encouraged us to be more creative in our design.



2. I got this purely based upon the caption that he was Japan's best interior designer. I think for material usage in traditional design sense he is, and this book shows it. Althought it doesnt cover his most interesting interiors( at the back there is a list of his complete works and some seem neglected not to be included in the main part). Restaurants are his main station and in the book it it shows a willingness to experiment and push the boundries as to what or bar, partition or ceiling can be made from. It contains text explaining materiality, overall space photos, detail photos and floor plans. His interiors are a good representation of how modern japanese interiors have developed from the traditonal approach. I would recommend this book to fans of japanese design, desingers looking to use manmade / natural / recycled materials and desingers trying to get their brains past the its all plasterboard dilema



3. Super Potato design work is amazing, exquisitely beautiful, original, inventive and very Japanese. Top photography, excellent text and unusually incisive captions here are icing on the cake. I strongly recommend this wonderful book to anybody interested in beauty and creativity, the level of genius on display transcends the architecture/design field. You will be drawn back to it again and again.



4. Incredible design work. Every interior and industrial design student should own this. Very inspering work

5 comments about Tudor Style: Tudor Revival Houses in America from 1890 to the Present.

1. This book offered plenty of ideas in my restoration and planning process of my tudor home. Great buy for the $$$



2. This is a very good book, the houses chosen are first rate and the text well researched and informative. The images are very well done, they are crisp and well presented. Some of the houses chose are amazing, frankly Tudor is not my favorite of the Eccletic styles, I really prefer Beaux Art and Georgian, but this book made me appreciate the beauty of the Tudor. I highly recommend this book, it made me fan of the style.



3. The photos and houses shown in this book are fantastic, both the old and modern dwellings. I have many books on Manor houses and old english houses but the photos shown in this book are the best I've seen. I was very interested to see the modern tudor style houses that have been built in the USA like the one shown on the cover. I bought this book from Amazon and it was delivered to Australia in top condition. A great buy and people visiting my place have picked it up and had a read because it captures the eye.



4. I caught a glance of the book on my architect's desk, and immediately ordered it the next day. I was not disappointed.
   
   Tudor Style gives an excellent overview of the English Tudor influence on architecture in the United States. I particularly enjoyed the narrative that accompanied the pictures throughout the book - very well written and researched! The picturesque neighborhoods and historic homes featured were inspiring examples of what truly draws people toward this style even today.
   
   An excellent book for anyone who appreciates timeless architecture and european-influenced design.



5. This book is long overdue. There's really no exclusive published works in print on American Tudor Revival architecture, except for this. It is a beautifully photographed and organized book, with nice fonts and well-balanced photographs. There are a few holes, though. Styles and geographic concentrations aren't focused on well enough. The section on Philadelphia Tudor Revival ingores a rich and very diverse Tudor variety in favor of a few French country houses. Also, the 1950s and 1970s mixes of ranches and split-levels with Tudor sensibilities are ignored, either out of distaste or pretension. The modern Tudor section is dominated by one very large McMansion with mock Tudor references. In all, the book is unfit for study but is basically a very pretty coffee table book.