1 comments about New Orleans Architecture Vol V: The Esplanade Ridge.

1. This is a tremendous series. It is generated not only from the incredible history and architectural richness of New Orleans, but also an especially deep commitment to celebrating and preserving these treasures. This series has methodically chronicalled neighborhood after neighborhood and topic after topic.
   
   I have read 4 or 5 of these volumes so far and they have ranged from well-executed to magnificent. This volume V on Esplande Ridge falls into the latter category.
   
   It has a very narrow and easily defined focus: a single road. Esplande stretched from water to water -- Bayou St John to the river. About 31 blocks (under 3 miles) in all. Its history dates to the earliest days of the city, with development beginning by the 1720s.
   
   The book is roughly the same size and format of the others in the series -- 190 pages, 9 x 12, packed with hundreds of photos. What sets it apart from the others (University section of Uptown; Lower Garden District; Cemeteries; etc.):
   1. It covers almost EVERY structure in its jurisdiction (rather than just most noteworthy and possibly a few typical ones).
   2. It offers frank, constructive recommendations for how to restore and improve current (as of 1977!) structures.
   
   Its format is:
   Dedication
   Foreword
   Intro
   Map
   Military history
   US Mint
   119 pp. of block by block photos and descriptions, from the 400-block at the river to the 3400-block at the bayou.
   City Park (at the terminus of Esplande, after 3400 block)
   Archival drawings
   Photo index (which briefly describes each property with a thumb nail sized photo, referring the reader back to the place in that 119pp. body of the book). NOTE: the index is NOT by page number but by address and so if easy to use once you figure that out.
   Epilogue
   Bibliography
   Index
   
   Very nicely bound, on excellent glossy paper, and printed locally in Gretna by Pelican.
   
   The black and white photos range from historic to 1970s. They are often as much as a full page, and are excellent.
   
   Most interesting are the authors' frank comments about the present structures. They can be hysterical and a tad harsh, but most readers will agree. The flow of an entire block is often interrupted by a cheaply built and poorly designed 20th century monstrosity.
   
   For example, 1341 Esplande (p. 159) is depicted in the index and described in the following way; "Perhaps the side galleries with iron supports and railings and brackets as well as the narrow vertical stripes of bricks alternating with the fenestration panels were an attempt by a planner to adapt modern brick, metal windows, and post-1950 architectural design to the Esplande vocabulary. If so, it failed." !!!
   
   Or the introduction to the photo index (p. 151): "....Photographs illustrate structures that range from the fine to the terrible. Elegant nineteenth-century homes presently in bad condition are recommended for restoration, and ill-designed, unsuitable modern buildings are condemned. Original, attractive features of mutilated buildings are highlighted as are acceptable features of mediocre architecture. Similarly, unacceptable alterations spoiling the integrity of houses are decried. Recommendations for the entire street are presented, and attention given to the despoiling of all important intersections as well as most corner locations....."
   
   The reader will pardon the sometimes elitist tone and condemning attitude because the insights are so rich and the recommendations often seem so wise.
   
   One interesting exercise is to read the 1976 descriptions of these homes, with the recommendations for restoration and then to drive by and see what has happened to them since then.
   
   Famous structures, BTW, include the US Mint, Cabrini High School, Beauregard's statue at City Park, St. Louis No. 3 Cemetery, and a number of major churches and mansions. The human stories of their construction is amazing: enormous and gorgeous mansions built by French, "Americaines," Free Men of Color, Jews, and others. And the more modest homes also have their stories as well, which often appear in this book. Quite a gumbo.
   
   This volume is a must-have.

No comments about Designing the Seaside: Architecture, Society and Nature.

No comments about Three California Houses: Homes of Max Palevsky.

No comments about Church of the Sacred Heart (Architecture in Detail).

No comments about 306090 02: Student Discount.

4 comments about Still Standing: A Century Of Urban Train Station Design (Railroads Past and Present).

1. More than a pictorial shrine to the glorious railroad station, Christopher Brown's book takes us beyond the magnificent stone, brick and mortar to an informed cultural journey. While enjoying the book I experienced a disturbing sense of loss of something wonderful and endearing like learning of a beloved relative two generations removed. I'm on my second read.



2. I was pleased to discover this book, and to find it was really more than just a group of train station photographs - as beautiful as they are. The writer/photographer simply yet eloquently shares his love of these structures - both in his writing and in the loving way the many station photographs are presented and framed. I purchase a lot of design and architecture books. It is not often this type of book delivers so much "heart". A very pleasant surprise!



3. The photos are few and mediocre and the printing is of low quality with poor color saturation and muddy details (perhaps because it is printed in China?). Even the limited details of the stations themselves (the only written information in the book) is lacking in depth. Save your money....



4. It is very seldom one finds a book on a specialized subject such as striking photos of train station architecture that is executed with such passion and commitment. The preface gives a brilliant foundation to this study which, in lesser hands, could have easily become dry and academic. The photos are stunning and the placement of the camera always reveals the design or the detail that distills what the designer of the station intended. The layout is beautifully done with a keen eye for color and layout. I love this book, and it is high on my gift-giving list for Christmas.

2 comments about Country Houses of Majorca (Country Houses).

1. It arrived in time... but the cover was not the way I expected



2. Discover the secret, hidden side to the island, where private houses quietly exist behind thick walls of olive trees, protected from curious gazes of tourists. The island, located near Ibiza off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, is the sort of place dreams are made of. Only a lucky few have turned such a dream into reality, and Country Houses of Majorca is your chance to see the stunning evidence in pictures. This is the side of Majorca only seen by those who live there, enjoying daily the luxury of not only the lush scenery but also the rich Majorcan culture and sumptuous cuisine (which you can test for yourself thanks to the house owners' favorite recipes we've included in the book.) The 260 photographs highlight the island's most impressive homes, including many undiscovered houses not published until now. Among these treasures you'll find Frederic Chopin and George Sand's one-time winter hideaway, a tiny fisherman's cottage miraculously perched on the island's southeast cliffs, and the beautiful, old, antique-filled "fincas" restored by Nona von Haeften and her husband, Wolfgang Siegfried Wagner, great grandson of composer Richard Wagner. Let yourself be seduced by the country houses of Majorca - you won't regret the experience, even if it sends you into fits of envy

No comments about New World Architecture.

No comments about European Church Architecture, 1950-2000 (Architecture).

No comments about L'Architecture (Reprint Series).