No comments about Shanghai Architecture & Design.

2 comments about California Crazy and Beyond: Roadside Vernacular Architecture.

1. I bought this book when it first came out in 1980 and I recently noticed that a new addition was available. Well worth getting too, more pages, extra subjects (cars for instance) updated bibliography and a sparkling new layout. Author Heimann feels that architectural historian David Gebhard's term 'Programatic' does not quite capture the flavor of these buildings, I propose calling them FUNTECTURE.
   
   A new chapter, not in the original book, is 'Current Condition' which has twenty-two photos, in color, of buildings now standing and they all look very smart and well cared for but wait till you see the photo on page 169, this shows the amazing headquarters of the Longaberger company in Newark, Ohio, famous for making baskets and that is exactly what the building looks like, seven stories high with two carrying handles reaching up to the sky...only in America! You can see and read about this lovely bit of whimsy on their website.
   
   You will really enjoy this book if you are a fan of roadside America, especially if you have lived in California and maybe remember some of the weird buildings that are no longer around.
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.



2. This book is a must-have for those of us who love the lure of the road and all it has to offer. It's sad that a lot of these wonderful icons of Americana are vanishing, but it's great that people like Jim Heimann are preserving it for future generations to see. I highly recommend this book -- lots of great photos and interesting history in a nicely organized book!

No comments about At Home in the Heartland.

5 comments about The Landmarks of New York: An Illustrated Record of the City's Historic Buildings.

1. THIS IS AN IMPRESSIVE AND COMPREHENSIVE WORK,BUT COULD BE MORE READER FRIENDLY.THIS BOOK SHOULD PROBABLY HAVE BEEN DONE IN TWO VOLUMES;ONE COVERING RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS AND ANOTHER FOR COMMERCIAL/PUBLIC BUILDINGS.MY MAIN COMPLAINT HOWEVER IS THAT THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND PRINTING ARE TOO SMALL.AN OLDER PERSON LIKE MYSELF(60ish)HAS DIFFICULTY READING SUCH SMALL PRINT AND DEFINING DETAILS OF THE BUILDINGS IN PHOTOS AS PRESENTED.EVAN WITH THESE FLAWS IT IS STILL AN ENJOYABLE READ.



2. Pound for pound this was the most disappointing of a series of books on New York City architecture that I have read over the past several years. This does not make it a bad book; its 600+ pages are filled with more information on New York City's 1100 designated landmarks than any other single volume, and each is accompanied by a fine black and white photo. Its format, with the buildings ordered by the year they were build allows the reader to thumb through the 1860's for example and see a succession of French Second Empire buildings with their iconic mansard roofs.
   
   Still there are several flaws I have found with this book that weighs nearly seven pounds and has a sticker price of $65.00.
   
   First and most egregious is the apparently careless editing.
   
   One entry, that of the Van Cortlandt Mansion in the Bronx, seems to be lifted word-for-word, without attribution from Goldstone and Dalrymple's wonderfully literate book, "History Preserved". It is possible that Ms. Diamondstein-Spielvogel had permission to do this, perhaps the authors were friends from their days together on the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Maybe "The Landmarks of New York," is a successor to the older book. As there is no bibliography or explanation we will never know.
   
   A second entry, that of Staten Island's Gardiner-Tyler House, the author writes in part, "Mrs. Tyler rarely visited the house before 1868, when as a widow she returned to Staten Island with Tyler's seven children from a previous marriage."
   
   The author is of course referring to President Tyler's second wife Julia, whom he married in 1844, when she was 24 and he 54. By 1868, Tyler's youngest child from his first wife Letitia, Tazewell Tyler was 38, a physician, and living in California; his oldest surviving child Robert Tyler was 52; and only four of his children from Letitia were still alive. It is hardly likely that any of them followed Julia to Staten Island. What the author meant to say was that Julia moved there with her seven children from Tyler.
   
   Another example, more one of carelessness than error is found in her entry on 359 Broadway, a fine Italianette style building found on the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street and best known for housing the studios of the great Civil War photographer, Mathew Brady, for a few years in the 1850's.
   
   The last paragraph stated, "At the end of the century, the Ladies Mile neighborhood changed from a fashionable shopping district to a textile and wholesaling zone."
   
   My first, surprised reaction upon reading this, was how the author could place this building, situated at the edge of today's Tribeca, in the Ladies Mile, which as anyone interested in New York history knows was located further uptown, along Broadway and 6th Avenue from about West 8th Street to West 23rd Street. As it turns out, this area was once called a ladies-mile, about a half-century before its better-known successor. But the entry doesn't explain this subtlety and there lies the confusion.
   
   What this book is really lacking are neighborhood or area maps that locate each of the Landmarks. While a map isn't necessary to conceptualize the location of a building with a typical Manhattan grid address, the Alwyn Court Apartments at 182 West 58th St. for example, it would be nice to be able to quickly see the location of a farmhouse in Brooklyn or an old church in Staten Island, especially when that farmhouse or church is positioned on a page with a townhouse on the Upper East Side, a building it has nothing in common with aside from the year in which it was built. Perhaps in a future edition a map section could be added to the end of the book and an easy key can be developed to clearly cross-reference an entry to its map number or page.
   
   In a book devoted specifically to "designated" New York City landmarks, how does one handle those buildings that are good enough to be landmarks on their own, but have never been designated individually because their inclusion in one of the several dozen Historic Districts before being considered for individual designation obviated the need for such designation? New York's two greatest Historic Districts, Greenwich Village and Brooklyn Height contain many of these worthy buildings. In its" Guide to New York City Landmarks", the Landmarks Committee deftly handled this issue by separately listing and discussing the dozen or so most important buildings in each of those two districts. Ms. Diamondstein-Spielvogel, however, chose to ignore them completely. So there is no mention of the famous Washington Memorial Arch, no mention of the unique teak wood detailing of the façade of the Lockwood deForest House, no mention of the great Jefferson Market Library, that whimsical Victorian Gothic building that has become a symbol of the village and was one of the first and finest examples of use conversion envisioned by the Landmarks Preservation Committee as a way to save old buildings. There is also no discussion of Brooklyn Heights' best buildings including Plymouth Congregational Church, where the fiery abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher preached, or Minard Lafever's Gothic Revival masterpiece First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn.
   
   The book does however have a section that describes each of the Historic Districts so that a reader can get an overall feel for these districts, and ironically, given their nonexistence elsewhere in the book, has fine maps attached to each entry, showing the boundaries of each of these districts.
   
   Any single book with this much information about its subject certainly deserves a recommendation, but for this book to reach its pretensions of being the standard reference of New York City Landmarks there is much that can be improved.



3. If it's one weighty, definitive library reference you need to New York City's landmarks, make it Landmarks Of New York: An Illustrated Record Of The City's Historic Buildings: its scope and format can't be beat. Art and architectural libraries as well as New York City specialty collections will welcome documentation of over 1,100 buildings which have earned landmark status over the past forty years. A chronological arrangement guides readers through a wealth of building styles and types, from farmhouses and churches to mansions, with black and white photos of each accompanying descriptions, comments on style and design, listings of architects involved in the building's construction and redesign over the decades, and style descriptions. A 'must' for any serious architectural or New York history collection.



4. If it's one weighty, definitive library reference you need to New York City's landmarks, make it Landmarks Of New York: An Illustrated Record Of The City's Historic Buildings: its scope and format can't be beat. Art and architectural libraries as well as New York City specialty collections will welcome documentation of over 1,100 buildings which have earned landmark status over the past forty years. A chronological arrangement guides readers through a wealth of building styles and types, from farmhouses and churches to mansions, with black and white photos of each accompanying descriptions, comments on style and design, listings of architects involved in the building's construction and redesign over the decades, and style descriptions. A 'must' for any serious architectural or New York history collection.



5. If it's one weighty, definitive library reference you need to New York City's landmarks, make it Landmarks Of New York: An Illustrated Record Of The City's Historic Buildings: its scope and format can't be beat. Art and architectural libraries as well as New York City specialty collections will welcome documentation of over 1,100 buildings which have earned landmark status over the past forty years. A chronological arrangement guides readers through a wealth of building styles and types, from farmhouses and churches to mansions, with black and white photos of each accompanying descriptions, comments on style and design, listings of architects involved in the building's construction and redesign over the decades, and style descriptions. A 'must' for any serious architectural or New York history collection.

1 comments about The Pursuit of Pleasure: Gender, Space and Architecture in Regency London.

1. The many Regency-era history buffs will be delighted with this look at the buildings where the upper classes entertained themselves and be very grateful to Jane Rendell for pulling this together into a readable volume. This would be a good choice for their reference shelf. I hesitated at first, since this is obviously an academic work which I feared would be too specialized, but I recommend it to the general reader.
   
   Rendell has not limited herself to an examination of the buildings, but also looks at social factors such that affected their design, such as the illegality of some of the pursuits, and also at how people actually used them. The book is illustrated throughout with the wonderful illustrations that the Cruikshanks did for Pierce Egan's Life in London.
   
   I found Chapter 1, wherein Rendell explains how she came to write this book, somewhat off-putting and stiffly academic, but most of the book is extremely readable and absorbing, with occasional, rare intrusions of academese.
   
   Rendell explains that she was "seduced" by two texts: Luce Irigaray's "Women on the Market" and Pierce Egan's Life in London. I was originally going to say that Irigaray could have been left out, for my taste, I find these analyses inadequate. But I rethought that. At 52, I am old enough to remember how history used to be done, when only political events were "real" history and woman were usually counted among the furnishings, so even if such feminist theorizing sometimes seems silly or lacking in nuance, it is one of the things that has broadened and enriched our understanding of the past.
   
   There is an excellent bibliography, and an index. The notes have running titles giving the pages to which they refer, and so are easy to match with the text.
   
   My compliments to the publisher: the book is well-edited and beautifully printed with generous margins, easy to read type-face.

1 comments about A Pride of Place: Rural Residences of Fauquier County, Virginia.

1. This is a must have for any owner of a home built in Fauquier county in the 18th or early 19th century. It is also appealing to general historians and residents of the county and of Virginia.
   
   While I was disappointed that my 150 year old home was not listed or its carpenter discussed (he was after all a Yankee transplant after the war between the states) the historical information was fascinating and is a very good reference for both County history and Architecture.

No comments about Chinese Bridges: Living Architecture from China's Past.

1 comments about Cathedrals of Europe.

1. The great Medieval cathedrals provide one of the most stunning religious and architectural achievements of their times, and Cathedrals of Europe provides new photography of these existing structures, blending in text which focuses on many more obscure cathedrals as well as the most famous. This attention to a well-rounded focus makes for a more comprehensive coverage on the topic than most.

1 comments about The Le Corbusier Guide.

1. A most valuable reference. The descriptions provide insight into both the conceptual and literal origins of each work. Locales are well described. Nearby works by other early modernists are mentioned together with addresses. Though it is well worth reading on it's own, it is an excellent companion to larger books by authors such as Jencks.

No comments about Styles and Types of North American Architecture: Social Function and Cultural Expression.