2 comments about AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C..

1. This AIA guide to Washington, DC is a great resource for those interested in learning a little about the many interesting buildings in the nation's capital. It is concise enough to add more interest and depth to a tourist's visit to DC and comprehensive enough to offer enough information to keep an amateur architecture enthusiast informed about DC's architecture. As a student of classical architecture in the nation's capital, I used this book to provide me with some fundamental, perfunctory background about the monuments, federal buildings, and privately-owned buildings of the city. It has served me well and I have no doubt that it will provide most with a more than adequate introduction to the finer points of this nation's city.



2. This is a wonderful book that highlights all the most important buildings in the District. It gives a short synopsis on each buiding highlighted, some like the Capitol and the White House getting a bit more coverage. It was quite comprehensive, and the buildings covered came with pictures. It is not up to the level of the AIA Guide to Detriot or New York, but it is a nice guide none the less. I definitly recommend it to anyone interested in the architecture of the District.

5 comments about Asmara: Africa's Secret Modernist City.

1. Anyone who was in the Peace Corps in or near Asmara or stationed at Kagnew Station would appreciate this lovely book.



2. Edward Denison, Guang Yu Ren and Naigzy Gebremedhin's ASMARA: AFRICA'S SECRET MODERNIST CITY examines the nature and architectural innovations of a city which holds one of the highest concentrations of Modernist architecture in the world. Experts with detailed knowledge of the city survey many of the structures, add notes from previously unpublished archival material, and include original photography not to be seen elsewhere. A 'must' for any college-level collection strong in architecture and modern urban landscapes.



3. A very important work that includes both the Eritrean history and the architectural mystique and prominence of this otherwise unknown city.
   
   I applaud the authors for helping to preserve Eritrea's architectural treasures, which stand as a true gem compared with the rest of the African continent. Outlined in the book are those that were spared from the marauding British and greedy Ethiopian invaders and withstood decades of war.



4. I spent several years living with my family in Asmara as a young boy. Now as an adult I've been searching for a book that would allow my to do some arm chair traveling back to my former home. Mr. Denison's book allowed me to do that in both word and picture. The book is broken up into a general history section followed by detailed photos on the major architecture of Asmara in each of the significant eras, and offers both vintage and current photographs and design plans of the buildings in the city.



5. Terrific "lost history" book! Thank you, Mr. Denison, et al,
   for rediscovering and sharing this fascinating story with the rest of us!

2 comments about Craftsman Style.

1. This book is perfect for the person who wants to know more about the Arts and Crafts Movement from a historical perspective and who also wants to see wonderful examples of this architectural style. It is also particularly helpful in training the eye to select accessories for your own home that follow the Craftsman tradition. The photography is just beautiful.
   
   Billie Weinstein
   La Crescenta, California



2. I'm in the middle of converting my house into a neo-Craftsman style house (http://hillsdalehouse.blogspot.com). I'm trying really hard to recreate all those wonderful details that you can seemingly only find in the circa 1914 originals. So, whenever a new book with Craftsman in the title (especially picture books) comes out, I'm quick to sneak a peek. So, I jumped all over this book (actually, I got it from the library). Here are my thoughts:
   
   If you are looking for a nice coffee table book with very pretty pictures of turn-of-the-century Arts & Craft houses, then look no further. This book has some wonderful stuff from houses featured in other similar books, plus many many houses I have never seen before. But, if you are looking for a book about Craftsman Style houses, you have found the wrong book.
   
   Yes, there are some houses that are what most people would call Craftsman. These include the usual Craftsman Farms house, some Green and Green, and the obligatory Bungalows of Pasadena. But, most of the houses in the book are not Craftsman at all, that is if you subscribe the notion that Craftsman houses are houses that were either featured in Gustav Stickley's original Craftsman magazine, or were obviously inspired by one of them. Instead, you'll find some beautiful pictures with a more William Morris type definition of Arts and Crafts. First off, you'll actually find pictures of William Morris' own house (never seen that before!). You will also find wonderful pictures of very gothic looking houses. You'll see marvelous neo-medieval houses. You'll find terrific Tudor revivals. But, you won't find many Craftsman Style houses, which is fine, except for the title of this book. Yes, Stickley and his followers were very much inspired by Morris, and it is fair to say that all things Craftsman are part of the Arts and Crafts movement. But, it is incorrect to say that all things Arts and Craft are Craftsman.
   
   The pictures are wonderful, the text is insightful, but the title is wrong. Oops.

1 comments about Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture.

1. This collection of essays and articles is essential reading for anyone interested in America's architectural history. Classic articles on ways to examine architecture in relation to cultural geography are featured prominently in this volume. There are also important pieces of work that link architecture to the history of various ethnic groups, and I especially enjoyed articles that deal with contemporary forms of vernacular expression. This is an important book for anyone interested in the study of folklore, history, art history, and architecture. It could also be useful for practicing architects to read the essays for ideas to inspire their own designs.

4 comments about American Homes: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Domestic Architecture - A landmark reference with more than 1,000 illustrations, elevations, and palns.

1. I teach a High School architecture class and I highly recommend this book for several reasons.
   1) The black and white line drawings allow my students to focus on the specific details without being distracted by the colors of photographs.
   2) The drawings are highly descriptive of the elements of style that distinguish one period from another and one region to another.
   3) Walker breaks down the sections first by year and then by region.
   
   You are able to see how the styles changed over a period of years and focus on the phases of development.
   
   I especially liked that he devoted separate chapters to individual architects that made a significant contribution to the development of the distinct styles and Walker does a good job of picking houses that showcase these talented individuals.



2. I am interested in historic architecture -- mostly eastern coast architecture of the colonial period. And this book does a grand job of displaying it in its varied forms and regional and ethnic differences. As you can see I rated it at 4. Why not 5? Because I caught a couple of mistakes in the identification of some of the buildings -- both as to location and to period of history from which they came.
   The first mistake I noticed is the octaginal blockhouse on Davis Island in Edgecome, Maine on page 67. Mr. Walker idenitifies it as a building from the 1650's. It was in fact built in 1805 as the central fortification of an earthwork and palsade gun battery to protect Sheepscot Bay. It is one of a whole string of idential coastal fortifications designed and built by the Army Corp of Engineers the specific engineer for this series of fortifications was Moses Porter -- at that time based at West Point. I have lived most of my life within 40 miles of this building.
   The second building that I believe to be mislocated is found on page 95. It is correctly identified as an early georgian house. Where I disagree with Mr. Walker is it location. It is in fact a house that stands to this day in the city of Portmouth, New Hampshire and was the home of an 18th century merchant of that city. There is also a wooden example of the same house on route 1a just outside of the town of Newberryport, Massachusetts and another one built, 1782, in Saco, Maine.
   With these exceptions I have enjoyed reading and re-reading this book



3. "American Homes" by Lester Walker is a bargain at the price Amazon is charging. It is a lavishly illustrated (albeit in black and white) comprehensive work detailing every style of American home in drawings, sections, and elevations emphasizing the differences that make a certain home or style unique. In this way it is extremely useful for anyone with even a passing interest in architecture to learn about the varying styles of American homes.

   Mr. Walker does not visibly seem to favor any one style over another, and avoids editorializing for the most part. Instead he seems to love all the differing styles for what they are, in different ways, and for different reasons, depending of the particular house in question. In addition to specifics on certain examples and styles, Mr. Walker also gives the reader a historical perspective of housing developments in a developmental time frame, starting with Pueblo and Tipi styles to the Inflatable, Deconstruction, Brutalism, and Neomodern styles that are decidedly more recent. As a fan of creative contemporary architecture, I especially found the coverage of the International Revival movement, the quirky Silo and Yurt homes of the early 1970s, and Fantasy homes from the 1940s in the shapes of an elephant (Margate City, NJ), Mother Goose (Hazard, KY), and a pig (Los Angeles, CA), among others, to be delightful.

   This is a wonderful volume and I highly endorse it to anyone from architectural historian to collectors of Americana.




4. I really love this book - it has given me some useful information on the kinds of houses and buildings I may see all over the country - an historical education that I have wanted. And this book makes it fun & easy to learn. The illustrations are cool and the format is very helpful.

No comments about Leopold Eidlitz: Architecture and Idealism in the Gilded Age.

2 comments about Buckingham Palace: The Official Illustrated History.

1. I found the book to be very informative, good selection of pictures. It was interesting to compare the different rooms as they were changed from Queen Victoria through Queen Elizabeth. It lacks pictures and descriptions of the rooms in the new wing of the palace, the one facing the Victoria Monument. I do recommend this book, though, I wish it had more pictures of other rooms.



2. A nice book on one of the most recognizable if not prettiest palace in the world. The text is highly informative and the images are well presented. Buckingham Palace's exterior style is not exactly aweinspiring, it looks like a government building, like the treasury or department of state, it's really the interiors that make this place special. It's a high Georgian tour de force, the interiors are quite simply spectacular; they are elegant and have elan. If you have any interest in the Windsor's or love Georgian style then i highly recommend this book, if you have never seen the interior of this building, you will be pleasantly surprised.

1 comments about Castles of the Samurai: Power and Beauty.

1. Having bought this book based on the cover and title (with no review or other information posted) I was expecting a coffee table type book with lots of pretty photos and light on the text. It turned out that this book is not your average "jo" (the Japanese suffix used after a castle's name to denote "castle"-Himeji-Jo, Nijo-jo, etc). Happily, while it does have lots of "pretty photos" it also has a solid 42 pages of well written and informative text. The photos are well done, all 50+ full color pages of them. They document all the aspects of the Japanese castle-gates, towers, roofing, gables, outbuildings, doors, stone dropping windows, shooting holes, nail head covers, and of course those impressive sloping stone walls, moats, and keeps with photos of each aspect being grouped for comparison. There are even well done shots of the interiors of various castles, which are somewhat of a rarity. The shots are taken at a nice variety of castles as well, eschewing the easy method of running primarily nothing but shots of the easily accessible castles like Himeji, Osaka, and Matsumoto.
   The text is also well done, with informative, well done diagrams, charts, tables, and terminology. While most English language Japanese castle books focus on the military history of the structures, here they are given their signifigance as works of art and architecture as well. Detailed construction methods are given and illustrated. There are brief sections of the history of the castles and their destruction during the Meiji Restoration and World War II. I found the chart listing Castles, Daimyos, Domains, and Income in the Edo Period particularly valuable along with a table classifying existing castles as to date built, remains, type of keep, original buildings, walls, or keeps, and reconstructions using original materials or concrete. The only place the book comes up short is in the discussion of early castles or yamashiro (mountain castles), but of course there aren't any of these left to photograph. Overall a great job and a welcome addition to the sparse English references on Japanese Castles.

3 comments about Syria: A Historical And Architectural Guide.

1. Judging a book by its cover is usually a dangerous practice. However, Ball and his publisher have created a book that is as attractive within as without. From the standpoint of layout, the most striking feature is that the colorful plates are complemented by text pages of approximately the same weight. This feature avoids the awkwardness often found in softbound texts interspersed with photographic sections.
   The glossary is adequate, if not thorough, allowing for armchair reading by dilletantes in most cases. However, one will occasionally confront within a definition presented an unfamiliar word not elsewhere defined.
   The only other awkwardness encountered in the American edition were the occasional British usages and grammatical anomalies. "Colour" and "spoilt" do not grate on the ear nearly as readily as "awoken." But the presence of "vividest" and "have begin" makes the reader wonder about either the book editor's thoroughness or familiarity with elements of grammar and composition.
   In sum, I found Ball's work a thorough and colorful introduction to the topic with only the occasional flaw.



2. This book is compact in size but filled with descriptions and information. It contains nearly 100 colored photographs and numerous charts and diagrams. It starts out giving a concise historical background of the region then divides Syria into geographical areas. The author has devoted most of his description to the chapters on Damascus, Aleppo and Palmyra but no part of Syria is left untouched. I was particularly fascinated by his account of the Stylite priest St. Simeon. The only thing lacking, in my opinion, is a glossary of the many arabic terms in the book which the average western traveller would not be familiar with. Every summer I travel to Damascus and before I go I always re-read parts of this book to refresh myself with the rich history of Syria.



3. Great information on the chaotic history and exciting past of the "cradle of civilization" Recommend it for all.

2 comments about The British Stable (Studies in British Art).

1. This is an excellently historical perspective by the now late Giles Worsley. Photographs by William Curtis Rolf capture a grand epoch in British architecture that was dedicated to this noble animal.



2. I would have like to have seen photographs of the beautiful west front of the Chatsworth Stable. Also, some of the blueprints did not reproduce well. I think it would have been a more pleasing read if these were clearer. Instead of angles of the rooftops, it would have been nice to see the whole stable.