No comments about And Guide Shanghai: Architecture And Design (And Guides).

No comments about Mexican Architects New Millennium Homes.

1 comments about The Bridges Of New Jersey: Portraits Of Garden State Crossings.

1. Bought this for a dear friend. He is an engineer and works around bridges all of the time, and lives in New Jersey. when he opened the package he was very excited...like a kid in a candy store!

4 comments about Stanford University: The Campus Guides.

1. This is another volume is the Princeton series on U.S. universities, using a similar format: the campus is divided into "walks," with each chapter covering one walk and commenting on each building. As one reviewer here did not seem to understand, this is not the insider's guide to Stanford, nor even a full history of the University. That said, the reviewer made a telling criticism: in a campus defined by its setting, showing the buildings without showing the surrounding trees and open areas gives a false sense of the appearance of the place.
   
   When compared with other volumes in this series, "Stanford" is a little better than average. The entries are brief and factual, without the rather elliptical architecture speak that characterizes some of the Ivy League volumes. Most buildings are represented by a small photograph. There are a very few full page pictures.
   
   Based on the date of publication, this book was not written for the Princeton series, but was adapted for it. The maps appear to have been added more recently, and the method of presentation is different from the other volumes. Here, the buildings are considered not by location but by period, starting with the original structures (including ones destroyed in the 1906 quake) and proceeding up to the present. This means that adjacent entries are adjacent in date of construction, not location. Building 71 may be half a mile away from building 72. In the original publication, written for a Stanford audience, this was not a problem, but it may be difficult for those who do not know the campus. There are a number of errors in the maps, with some buildings not listed or not marked on the maps. Finally, a few entries seem wrong: Toyon hall is listed a dormitory for 150 men. Hmm... that's what it was when built, and perhaps (I doubt this) it is today. When I lived there 20 years ago, it was a dorm for about 230 men and women. Nice picture though.
   
   In fairness, the chronological approach is more logical, even if it makes it harder to read the maps. It allows the reader to see how building one structure can change the look and the traffic patterns of a large part of the campus.
   On the whole then, I recommend this book as a good way to see Stanford, so long as you understand the limitations of this kind of history. Just don't look for pictures of the tree or LSJUMB!



2. This is the worst book on Stanford that I have ever seen. The pictures are small and faded . . . I have photos taken in 1975 with a cheap camera that look better than what you'll find here. (Ah, but the cover pic looks awfully nice, you might think. Yes, it does. Fine bit of hucksterism from Princeton Architectural Press.)



3. Let's face it. Most of us will never get to study at, or be hired by this prestigious Bay Area institution. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the beauty of its grounds and buildings. Stanford, in addition to being one of the very best universities on earth, is also one of the most beautiful.

   Institutional histories tend to be excessively pedantic affairs. I know of no history of a university yet written that is an exception. They're generally dull, tedious things written for people who want to be sure that THEIR college is the best. And as another reviewer has noted, the style of writing is usually over-refined and staid. This book is no exception to those rules. But that said, it gives us a portrait of a university and its history through the grounds and buildings, bringing it to we who have no other chance to learn about Stanford but with our own eyes. So, the book may be dry and incomplete, but the university itself is gorgeous. That's what saves the entire effort.

   Stanford started out life back in 1885 as an idea not unlike the ideas John D. Rockefeller had for the University of Chicago. And while Chicago became a world-class university directly out of the box, it took some decades for Stanford to catch up. It wasn't for lack of good buildings, as this book will prove. There are really two things that make Stanford exceptional in this regard. First, it transformed itself from a somewhat troubled early design, strapped by the heavy hand of the founder's wife and a devastating earthquake in 1906, into one of the world's great universities in less than 50 years. Second, when the vast majority of colleges and universities in the United States (and the world) were always seeking to make themselves into carbon-copies of Oxford and Cambridge, Stanford and its designers dared to try something new. Look at this book and then go to the university to see for yourself.




4. When I accepted an admission offer from Stanford, I wanted to learn all I could about the environment into which I would be entering. Having read the book, I developed expectations about the culture of Stanford, expectations which, upon arriving on the Stanford campus, I found to be errant.

   This book is quite a disappointment. Suffering both from poor editing and omission of crucial facts, the contents do not flow smoothly. The text is presented in a somewhat offensively over-refined and pretentious manner, the kind one finds in art museum catalogs or as introductions to Penguin Classics. The reader gains little sense of the beauty of the campus, as only a few of the photographs depict the excellent landscaping, the detail of Quad buildings, or the quality of materials and construction of the buildings. The foothills of the Stanford campus, and the trails leading up to the Dish aren't even included -- an omission that reflects poorly on the editors. Equally poor editorial judgment can be found in the photograph of the Hoover Tower appearing in one of the chapters -- this famous landmark is shown in its early construction, as an unsightly steel frame amid a dirt field.

   To the credit of the authors, they give an engaing account of the history of the variously defined Stanford master plans, and of the culture which gave rise to the different stages of the campus' expansion.

   In general, the reader's labors are not rewarded with fresh perspectives, or a sense of the spirit that habituates Stanford. If one toured the Stanford campus before reading the book, one might wonder what drove the editors to present such an excellent environment so vapidly.

2 comments about Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning.

1. A Person who just starts to learn something about Islamic culture should read it. For people who knows a lot the catalogue at the second part of the book would be helpful but it is also not complete.



2. I love this book. It gives you a very good insight to muslim architecture and is at the same time easy to read and entertaining. As an orientalist in a postgrad study program I got to read books on the subject that are much more confusing or that are written in a slightly boring style. This book is a thorough introduction that never just stays on the surface of the matter. It does not give you a chronological account of architecture history, but answers a lot of questions like "Why it was built like it was built?" In the back part of the book you find plans and short descriptions of the most important buildings, in the first part you find a lot of good photographs and even better articles on single subjects like materials or building techniques. But the most important thing: It's NEVER boring.

2 comments about History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics.

1. I fully agree with the above review in all its positive points. This book is superbly researched and superbly written, and it is well worth the very inexpensive price. It is by far the most detailed examination of the architectural history of the U.S. Capitol building that I have come across. However, the actual physical quality of the book leaves a great deal to be desired, which is why I have given this four stars instead of five. The printing job is lousy. Many words are struck out or compressed into the space of one letter. The illustrations look as if they were copied on an old and dirty photocopy machine. This is a particular problem with the photographs, some of which are almost undifferentiated black rectangles. Also, the captions indicate that some of the illustrations were obviously in color, although they are copied in black and white.
   
   I would recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the architecture of the U.S. Capitol, but I also would recommend that it be read with other books on the Capitol that have better quality illustrative material.



2. I used to think that the United States Government Printing Office was responsible for putting out lots and lots of documents only politicians and lawyers might find interesting, as well as pamphlets on home canning, fallout shelter design, and other arts. I was thus delighted to find that this government branch has produced a quite beautiful volume, _History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics_ by William C. Allen. It even has a publication note: "106th Congress, 2d Session / Senate Document 106-29 / Printed pursuant to H. Con. Res. 221," but don't be put off by this. It may be an official US Government publication, but it is a large format book of almost five hundred glossy pages, it is well illustrated, and it is written with no touch of bureaucratese. Cynics alert: the government can do some things very well.

   Of course, that is what the book itself is about. The Capitol is a real triumph, a gorgeous building that does everything architecture can do to inspire hand-over-the-heart patriotic feelings. Underneath that magnificent dome are wings that are beautifully proportioned and decorated, and it comes as a surprise to learn just how much the building consists of additions that were never anticipated when its first stone was laid in 1793. Indeed, the splendid dome we see now was before just a smaller spherical cap without decoration, and the building consists more of additions than it does of the original structure. We may now think of the building as essentially finished; indeed, historic preservation activists have in recent decades prevented any major additions or changes, but for most of its history, the Capitol has been tinkered with and pieced together. In 1827, Representative Charles Wickliffe of Kentucky addressed the house to complain that the building was not yet finished, and that old men from his district who had worked on it were now amazed to find out that the work was incomplete. Almost ever since, elected representatives within the building have criticized the Capitol, bothered its funding, politicized the selection of architects, and in general acted like politicians. The building remains symbolic in this way: a magnificent outcome has arisen despite the arguing and shenanigans.

   The book describes the placement upon Jenkins Hill of the "Congress House" within the famous plan of the city drawn up by Pierre L'Enfant. It was Jefferson who insisted that that it be called a "capitol," with roots deep in the Roman republic, emphasizing ancient principles of citizenship and self-government. There was a competition for the design of the original building, but there is not really one original architect, as it was built by compromise between various plans. George Washington insisted on a dome "for beauty and grandeur," but thought it might be a good place to put a clock or a bell. It was the classicist Jefferson who advised Washington on the final design, and who worked intimately with B. Henry Latrobe to produce the initial structure. Prominent within it was the rotunda, with proportions taken almost directly from the Pantheon in Rome. The Jefferson - Latrobe partnership was enormously productive, but not without some conflict. Latrobe, for instance, was in favor of a "lantern" to be raised upon the dome as a means of covering it and allowing for light to enter, but Jefferson was clearly bound to classical precedent; he knew of no such lantern on classical buildings, terming them "degeneracies of modern architecture." By the time the dome was really to be erected, the British had in 1814 burned much of the original building, and Charles Bullfinch designed a relatively low, spherical dome close to the desires of Washington and Jefferson.

   Latrobe was the first of the architects to deal with the Americanization of classical influence. For instance, the sculptors of the enormous eagle above the Speaker's rostrum produced a weird bird that was distinctly un-American. The Italian sculptor modeled the bird from memory, and it was only after shipments of anatomical parts of a bald eagle to the sculptor that we got an eagle whose inauthenticity would not "be detected by our Western Members." Latrobe also designed novel columns for the inside of the building, capped by magnolias or graceful tobacco leaves rather than the classical acanthus. His most popular feature, however, were the corn columns, the body of which resembled stalks of corn tied together (rather than plain fluting), with a cap of ears of corn. Everyone liked them, and they enabled him to get extra appropriations.

   The architect who has most to do with the appearance of the Capitol as we know it was Thomas U. Walker, who entered the competition for the expansion of the building, once the old Senate and House chambers were acknowledged as too small. His design of wings for new chambers on either side of the old ones, and connected to them by narrow corridors, was approved by Millard Fillmore in 1851. Walker worked on the creation of the new chambers even though for most of his term the building project would be transferred to the War Department. It is not clear who had the idea for a vertical extension of the low dome into the splendid one we now see, but by the time a certain Representative addressed his colleagues about the fire hazard of the mostly wooden Bulfinch dome, Walker was already designing its replacement. Many of Walker's beautiful drawings and plans for the dome are reproduced here. The dome is of fireproof cast iron, painted to look uniform with the stone of the rest of the building. Miraculously, the colossal and ornate dome exceeded in weight the original, much smaller, masonry and wood dome by only twenty percent. It was not without controversy; there were many in architectural circles who insisted that buildings and materials must be honest and iron should not imitate stone, but this was never a controversy entered by the politicians. The dome had been started by the beginning of the Civil War, but the firm with the contract for the cast iron had over a million pounds of it on site, and kept working even though the government admitted that the war would postpone all payments. During the war, the Capitol was used as a bakery, a barracks, and a hospital. With the confusion of war, the grounds became trampled by hogs and goats, and they rubbed against and discolored the ironwork waiting installation. But the great dome was completed by the time the war was over.

   There have been extensions to all four sides of the Capitol, and many changes to the interior. While many of the historic decorations have been deliberately retained, a few (and it seems significantly few) changes have done serious damage to what went before. The author notes that the 1950s update of the Senate and House chambers took out all of the high Victorian decoration and replaced it with "pastiches of vaguely classical designs." He sniffs, "Few connoisseurs today look upon the designs with satisfaction, nor has any student of Federal period architecture discovered either authenticity or wit among the details." However, such dismissals are few in this gorgeous book. Allen is himself the architectural historian in the office of the Architect of the Capitol, and so his enthusiasm for the structure is not only obvious but it is exceedingly well informed. He has included the controversies, personality clashes, funding debates, and political bombast here, but nothing can obscure the success and the beauty of this remarkable building, a superbly American temple.

2 comments about Windows on the Past: Four Centuries of New England Homes.

1. For those of you that like historic New England Homes, this is for you!
   
   Even if you are not an actual historic home buff, this book is an easy read and it is interesting. If that does not tempt you then consider the excellent photography within its pages at a minimum.
   
   This was a 45.00 book new and I was lucky to get if for less than 8.00 new at the Christmas Tree Shops here in Massachusetts. You can get some new copies at the vendors above for a similar price. This book was well worth the retail price when it was new. The book is by Historic New England (formerly The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.)



2. Images that come to mind when one thinks of New England are rough landscapes, Tiny shingled farm houses and patriots fighting for freedom. But New England history does not stop there. In this book you will see a wide varity of styles that span four hundred years of our countries history, from the 1600s, to the 1940s. A great book to own.

No comments about Architectural Variability in the Southeast (Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication).

3 comments about The Alleys and Back Buildings of Galveston: An Architectural and Social History (Sara and John Lindsey Series in the Arts and Humanities).

1. I was very surprised to find a book like this one. Some people may not enjoy this particular book but I did, in large part, because I grew up in Galveston and still spend a lot of time there.
   
   Unlike a previous reviewer, I don't find the book a waste of time and I don't find Galveston eccentric-only someone that doesn't know the history and culture of Galveston would make that statement. However, Galveston is unique.
   The alleys referred to in this book are not the type alleys in big city downtown areas where you put the garbage cans. The alleys of Galveston are more like small streets that are between two bigger streets. I have been in many of the buildings shown in this book. I had friends who lived in some of these very same buildings.
   
   The author did a good job. However, if you do not have an interest in the history or culture of Galveston this book is probably not for you.Ellen Beasley has done other books about Galveston that also very good.



2. Wow! It is very unusual to find history regarding average working people. This book is an easy read yet detailed and well sourced. If one is interested in Galveston or just historical views of the working class this is a great book.



3. Talk about a niche book..i mean who green lights a book about alley's? Im sure there might be three people..somewhere, into the alleys of Galveston, but geez are there not worthier topics? Having said that, this is not a bad book, the images are well presented, the text well researched, I guess..but still...Alleys?! Galveston is an odd town, with eccentric people, maybe this is right up their alley, so to speak, I dont know, as for me, I'll pass, I really dont like alley's of any kind, because, well, there alley's.

No comments about The National Trust Guide to Art Deco in America (Preservation Press).