Book Description

-William E. Poole presents his award-winning interpretation of legendary home styles.

-Romantic cottages and getaways.
-The essence of luxury and grandeur.
-Full color throughout.
-Homes from 1,900 to 5,795 square feet.
-Complete construction drawings available separately. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

We need more Poole homes!
"They don't make 'em like they used to." That adage will never ring true with a Poole home. In his designs, William E. Poole manages to find the perfect balance between nostalgia and up-to-date comfort: Neither is overdone. I wish only that more families and builders will discover this fine architect, and that a new era of tasteful American residential home building will ensue.

Excellent plans!
Mr. Poole has been a longtime advocate of the return of historic accuracy in the building industry. His designs have won many awards and are historically accurate - keeping in mind today's concerns such as indoor plumbing! I have been watching and reviewing Mr. Poole's designs for many years - dating back to his days as an architect in Cary, N.C. My husband and I have chosen one of Mr. Poole's designs for our new home, have had it modified to meet our needs with no problems, and will soon begin construction. The person who wrote the review indicating that we should all beware of Mr. Poole and his staff sounds as though it is a case of sour grapes. If an open contemporary design is what they are looking for, they should go elsewhere. Mr. Poole's designs are for those who desire something unique and tasteful and not the "cookie cutter" homes so frequently found these days in new developments. I would highly recommend any of Mr. Poole's designs and his staff.

Excellent
Like the previous review, I was astonished to read the "Beware of Mr Poole" review. Most readers use a plan catalogue as a starting point when designing a home, and as a source of ideas and classical design this publication is one of the very best you will find!

Rebuttal to "Beware of Mr. Poole"
I came upon the reviews for "The Designs of William E. Poole" when I was searching to see if perchance Mr. Poole had produced any new books since being named an official designer by Colonial Williamsburg. I couldn't let the "Beware of Mr. Poole" review go unchallenged, because it contains a number of inaccuracies. My husband and I have in the past worked with an architectural designer to enlarge and remodel our current home. In addition, we own property in Williamsburg, VA, in a newer planned community that requires us to build in selected historically accurate architectural styles (and which recommends Mr. Poole's home designs). As a result, I have studied a LOT of plans from a wide array of designers and architects. Mr. Poole is one of the best for homes in historic styles. I've seen some of his homes (from the outside) and they look even better in person than they do in the renderings in the book. It is NOT true that you must build Mr. Poole's homes exactly as they are shown. Mr. Poole -- like virtually every other architect whose plans are available in books -- permits you to modify the plans as you please (for your one home only) PROVIDED YOU BUY THE REPRODUCIBLE VELLUM PLANS. They are several hundred dollars more than a single set that can not be altered, but for that money you buy the right to alter the plans to suit you. Information on buying the plans is included in the back of the book and this policy is explained quite clearly there. You are NOT required to use Mr. Poole's firm to make the modifications, either -- you have the right to hire any architect or design firm you choose to have modify the plans. Regarding the "small, dark, rabbit warren" assertion the reviewer makes, I suppose you would have to say that if your idea of a good home design is one in which the living room, dining room, kitchen, and family room are all together in one huge wall-free space, Mr. Poole is not for you. However, in virtually all of his plans, kitchens are open to family rooms and dining rooms and living rooms open to each other, to the foyer, or to the family room. There are also plans where the living rooms and dining rooms are a bit more private, too. No matter how hard I look, I don't see a "warren." As a woman, I particularly appreciate Mr. Poole's attention to closet space and his generally large and wonderful utility rooms, most of which contain areas for drip-drying clothes and even for ironing.

Beware of Mr. Poole
Mr. Poole has an extraordinary grasp of the detailing, scale and character of classic American homes. However, unfortunately, his interior planning is also of classic style. By this I mean the rooms are often small, dark and arranged in a heavy handed manner reminiscent of a gopher warren. He enjoys 'borrowing' stylistic elements from historic houses and rendering his designs to portray a slick and deceiving image. Do not be fooled by the beautiful perspectives he uses. He pays large sums to professional artists to draw these pictures in an effort to market his outdated interior schemes. Most people assume that because Mr. Poole 'designs' houses, he is a registered Architect. He is not. If your new home will be built in a newer, planned community where an Architect's involment is required, forget doing business with Mr. Poole. In dealing with his office, I found his staff to be unsympathetic and downright nasty. In additon, Mr. Poole informed me that unless the homes are built exactly as he drew them, he would pursue legal action against you and your builder. This is not someone with which you want to be involved. Hire an real architect. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Our contact with great architecture tends to be indirect, through representations. Few of us have seen the Taj Mahal, yet we all know exactly what it looks like. The useful act of photographing buildings can be an art, particularly when the photographer's presence seems to recede, and a great architectural shot suggests that you're seeing things as they are rather than through someone else's prism.

Julius Shulman has documented buildings in that seemingly transparent way for more than six decades. This meticulous and prolific craftsman was in the right place, California, at the right time, the golden age of West Coast modern residential architecture that spanned the 1930s to the 1960s. Richard Neutra helped him get his start, and he recorded early modernists such as Wright, Schindler, Soriano, Harris, Frey, Ain, Stone, Gropius, Kahn, and Neutra, as well as younger ones such as Goff, Lautner, Ellwood, Koenig, Drake, Killingsworth, Eames, Greene, Legoretta, and even early Frank Gehry. His view camera captured the glamour of hillside steel-and-glass houses cantilevered above the city lights, the serenity of desert vacation homes at dusk, and the clean-lined ingenuity of young architects working on modest budgets.

Shulman's text is a knotty quasi biography, but some good stories lurk there. This is a physically impressive book: its 300 large-format pages contain 500 superbly reproduced color and black-and-white photos that are worth more than the proverbial thousand words each. --John Pastier ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Buy this book
If one is ever to purchase a book concerning mid-century modernism, purchase this book. The photography is amazing, and inspiring. The text is informative without being verbose. This is definitely one of the top ten favourites in my collection.
Mr. Shulman is absolutely brilliant.

Shulman - A great Photographer of Architecture
A terrific insight into the professional career of Julius Shulman. His work, his thoughts on Architects and their work and a cross section of some of the most beautifully crafted Photographs of Architecture from his files.

precise and remarkable; shape and form is astounding
an amazing book; the photography is superb in capturing the essence of architecture

Stunning design, beautiful photography, entertaining memoir
An extraordinary and rare book. Master architectural photographer Julius Shulman showcases the stunning modern designs of Neutra, Koenig, Eames, and others with extraordinary talent and craft. The photographs literally glow. Many of them bowl you over with their beauty. Others have the camp value of '50s advertising: housewives in modern kitchens, families lounging at poolside, couples entertaining in open living spaces. Shulman adds considerable depth by recalling his relationships with the architects, his encounters with the homeowners, his notes on making the photographs. If you admire modern design, appreciate fine photography, and like a good story, this is a book you will cherish.

Excellent graphic material and a sensitive life story .
By pure chance my son browsed this book in Madrid and found it extremely interesting, so I decided to buy it through Amazon. To my surprise, I found that somehow it belongs to my own life story, because in 1966, in L.A. I met Julius and organized the trip to Uruguay mentioned in pages 211 th 217. In this highly valuable volume, the roots of the modern California architecture and its subsequent development are brightly displayed and wittingly evoked by a man who saw it happen and really played an important role in the process. Shulman's comments on people and places are acute, humorous and, I must say from my own experience, tell the real thing. About the photography. Every architect has a penchant to it, mainly regarding his works, so I strongly advice my colleages through the world to read this book and think how Shulman does it. This simple exercise will undoubtedly help them a lot. In brief, a book to occupy a privileged place in my library, to consult as a permanent reference whenever a new work is finished and needs to be documented. ... Read more

Book Description

Rick Joy builds with remarkable sensitivity, precision, and grace. The allure of his architecture is often quietly and seductively hidden in the sensual qualities of one's experiences: the sounds, smells, tactile qualities, and moods of his work. Granite crunching underfoot, the gentle trickle of water, and the lacy shadow of a mesquite tree all stir the viewers' sensations. "The simplest things can evoke the deepest feelings," Joy says. "The silence in great music is often more profound than the sounds."

The nine buildings shown in thins, the first monograph on Joy's work, express his interest in making places that are transcendent moments of space, light, and matter. In each of the projects the physical landscape, its specific environment, and its rich history are revealed and celebrated. While many of the projects here use sustainable materials like rammed earth, Joy's primary interest is in the quality of the spaces he makes. He shows us how efficient and environmentally sensitive architecture can emerge as a by-product from a quest for the timeless qualities that are always associated with great architecture.

Presented in the form of lush photography, insightful narratives, and revealing descriptions of his highly collaborative process, this book will bring one to a closer understanding of one of the most interesting architects practicing today. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

not recommended
first of all, why would some one go and build a house in the middle of no where and is that by all means practical? second even if you want to enjoy the splender of the desert! then these projects mostly are neither appealing nor logical... i mean how can you create such wide windscreens in a house built in the middle of the desert where the temperature fluctuates between the extremes...! The text doesn't really helps you much and the figures are hopeless...finally the photos are far from showing us exactly what the book is about... i bought the book but i really feel sorry.

Rick Joy
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. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

a wealth of ideas
I got this book from the point of view of graphic design, and found itvery rewarding. The book pays attention to the details of buildings, andthe overall needs of the client, discussing how they arranged structures tofit the landscape, and compliment them, or how they created trafficthru-flow of people, how they encourage people into the buildings andaround them. There are so many ideas in this book, it's well worth gettingyour hands on.

Not what I expected
I expected a book full of pictures of actual buildings.Instead I opened the book to find computer renderings and models of buildings.There were only a couple of pictures of existing architecture.Morphosis is great. They have some of the most brilliant architects working for them, but thebook did not show me the work they are famous for. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Best Book ...
Probably this is the best book I've seen on the works of Herzog & De Meuron. This book provides detailed information on the projects and finished buildings, asweel as project drawings and coments by the architects themselves. Every project is profoundly illustrated and commented (6-7 pages per building). Not very commonly, the plans and sections have reference to their presentation scale. The text by Gerard Mack is satistying (although not the best thing in the book), but having everything you need to judge for yourself (excelent photographs, plans and drawings), you hardly need any explanation. For the ones wanting the whole information, all the volumes of this series come with every project and building by the office, indexed in an appendix with one or two images and a short text. Plus the design is simple and beautiful and the information is right where you need it. If you really like this team of swiss architects' work, this book is a good choice. ... Read more

Book Description

A compendium of work by one of the most exciting and accomplished young architects to emerge on the international scene in many years.

David Adjaye's practice combines material inventiveness, creative clients, and modest budgets to produce a refined and comprehensive body of work. Adjaye was born in Tanzania, and his wide-ranging education, both cultural and formal, has allowed him to respond deftly to wildly differing projects, from urban contexts to elegant pastoral retreats.

The innovation in Adjaye's career is exemplified in his residential works for a wide variety of clients and budgets. Perhaps his best known projects are the houses he has created in a range of settings for people such as artist Chris Ofili and actor Ewan MacGregor, some of which have never been published.

This book is Adjaye's first monograph, and it documents thirteen of his most important projects, presented through descriptions, detailed plans, and photographs. There is also a series of "portfolios," visual essays that highlight the tactile, luminous, and luxurious nature of Adjaye's work, and a reference section. 430 illustrations, 162 in color. ... Read more

Book Description

"I live, practice, teach, and build in northwest Arkansas, in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It's a place considered to be in the middle of nowhere, yet ironically close to everywhere. It is an environment of real natural beauty and, simultaneously, one of real constructed ugliness. Abandonment, exploitation, erasure and nostalgia are all aspects of this place and are conditions as authentic as its natural beauty and local form. This land of disparate conditions in not just a setting for my work -- it is part of the work. By choosing to live and work here -- to call it home -- I've been able to get beyond the surface of things, to turn over the rock and discover the complex and rich underbelly of my place -- its visceral presences and expressive character -- that so informs and sustains my efforts. I am working from the conviction that architecture is larger than the subject of architecture." --Marlon Blackwell Marlon Blackwell is a passionate polemicist. He's also a very gifted architect. The projects in this first monograph on the "radical ruralist," as touted by the Royal Institute of British Architects, offer a new architectural language that at once celebrate the vernacular and transgress the boundaries of the conventional. The results are -- we can't help it, there's no better word -- beautiful. Incisive essays by David Buege, Dan Hoffman, and Juhani Pallasmaa and lush photography by Tim Hursley, Richard Johnson, and Kevin Latady explore Blackwell's projects, including his widely acclaimed Keenan TowerHouse, the award-winning Moore HoneyHouse, 2Square House, and Flynn-Schmitt BarnHouse, studios, and institutional buildings. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A must for young (and not so young) architects and designers
Great book on the work of spanish architect E Miralles hisstyle is very peculiar and not easy to pigeon hole as usually happenswith contemporary architects. Miralles work is very inspiring, free form and aggresive. All projects come with a clear description and lots of photographs and drawings. A down things is that graphics are too small some times. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

A stunning visual record of a great American design team
This is THE book about Charles and Ray Eames. Beautifully printed and designed and with more than 3500 photos to explore the work, year by year, of these two famous designers. The range of work is amazing, furniture (domestic and commercial) films, exhibitions, architecture, books even toys. I have a set of his 1952 House of Cards, a deck of fifty-four playing-card size cards that can be interlocked to create three dimensional structures, a very simple idea beautifully conceived.

I think the book easily reflects the joy and stimulation that Charles and Ray Eames got out of the creative process.

The Definitive Text
An exceptionally comprehensive year-by-year summary of the work of the Eames Office from the early 1940s to the late 1970s. Covers everything equally -- from wartime plywood experiments and herman miller furniture to toys, exhibitions, and, of course, films. A must for anyone interested in Eames design. Full of hard-to-find information and photos of rarely seen items.

Excellent Survey of Eames Studio
This is an excellent survey of the work of the Eames studio. It provides a chronological survey of the furniture, films, exhibits, and other work of the studio. It even provides a listing of the Eames staff at each point and time. Lavishly illustrated, it provides photographs of furniture, exhibits, and stills from the over 100 films produced by the Eames's. Highly recommended as the one book you must have about their work.

Great!
Is the great book on Charles and Ray Eames I 've even read. The best book on my shelf. Even thought I can't afford to buy them all ... Read more

Book Description

The stunning companion volume to America's long-awaited WWII Memorial.

Assuming its rightful place of honor on the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial is an eloquent and moving tribute to "The Greatest Generation." Sixteen million Americans served in the armed forces—more than 400,000 gave their lives—and millions supported the war effort from home, all in the name of protecting that which we, as Americans, hold most dear: freedom.

The World War II Memorial, published in conjunction with the dedication of this long-overdue memorial, commemorates the everyday Americans who in countless ways rose up to defeat one of history's gravest threats to freedom. Veterans—including George H.W. Bush, Sen. Daniel Inouye, former senators Bob Dole and George McGovern, Yogi Berra, and many, many others—contribute their own personal stories while leading historians look at the military campaigns of the war. The memorial's architect and its sculptor provide insights into how it symbolizes the fortitude and perseverance of a generation, and the exclusive photographs present the memorial through all stages of construction. Fittingly, this historic tribute falls in the 60th anniversary year of D-Day, a time when our nation once again reflects on its greatest sacrifice and greatest victory in the name of freedom. 100 color and 125 b/w photographs. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A must have book for fans of Le Corbusier.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading this book. It is well written in a style that is easily understandable. It is direct and to the point, no intellectual abstactions or highly theoretical tangents. I foundit to be a thorough and inspiring history of Corbusier's creative life frombeginning to end. Curtis provides many insights into the very early yearsof Corbusier's development. B&W photos of buildings, drawings andmodels follow the text and illustrate points being made by the author.Also, several unique color photos of projects are included. I find thisbook clear, concise and extremely informative; it will always have a placeon my bookshelf. I wish there was a hardcover version. ... Read more

Book Description

For almost ten years, Samuel Mockbee, a recent MacArthur Grant recipient, and his architecture students at Auburn University have been designing and building striking houses and community buildings for impoverished residents of Alabama's Hale County. Using salvaged lumber and bricks, discarded tires, hay and waste cardboard bales, concrete rubble, colored bottles, and old license plates, they create inexpensive buildings that bear the trademark of Mockbee's work, which he describes as "contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture."

In a time of unexampled prosperity, when architectural attention focuses on big, glossy urban projects, the Rural Studio provides an alternative of substance. In addition to being a social welfare venture, the Rural Studio--"Taliesin South" as Mockbee calls it--is also an educational experiment and a prod to the architectural profession to act on its best instincts. In giving students hands-on experience in designing and building something real, it extends their education beyond paper architecture. And in scavenging and reusing a variety of unusual materials, it is a model of sustainable architecture. The work of Rural Studio has struck such a chord-both architecturally and socially--that it has been featured on Oprah, Nightline, and CBS News, as well as in Time and People magazines.

The Studio has completed more than a dozen projects, including the Bryant "Hay Bale" House, Harris "Butterfly" House, Yancey Chapel, Akron Chapel, Children's Center, H.E.R.O. Playground, Lewis House, Super Sheds and Pods, Spencer House addition, Farmer's Market, Mason's Bend Community Center, Goat House, and Shannon-Dutley House. These buildings, along with the incredible story of the Rural Studio, the people who live there, and Mockbee and his student architects, are detailed in this colorful book, the first on the subject. "I tell my students, it's got to be warm, dry, and noble"--Samuel Mockbee ... Read more

Reviews (15)

Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency
Creative architecture doesn't have to be paved in gold. Mockbee and his students use basic materials in the most interesting ways for creating wonderful living, playing and meeting places for poor people out of former shacks or sometimes starting from scratch. I would love to see actual planned communities for the general public built in this style. I would live there! Very inspiring...

this book is great
i am a student at the rural studio right now and the book represents the rural studio very well. the book introduced me to architecture, and now i am here in architecture school and i am at rural studio.

A beautiful book, but slightly lacking
I have been an admirer of the work of the Rural Studio from the start and couldn't wait to get this book... The photos are beautiful and touching, but the book is lacking in drawings (i.e. plans) and text. I was hoping for more about the thoughts and processes that students put into the designs, the role of Sam Mockbee in it all, and some architectural drawings that would more comprehensively showcase the projects

overrated butt-kissing
This book includes too much butt-kissing and paternalism. Sure, Mockbee and his students are helping these people, but they seem a bit too proud of themselves. I wish there was more technical information about the designs, materials, and techniques.

great book
it's inspiring to see Mockbee's design-built works extended to and enhanced another layer of communities with creative uses of materials. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (4)

mindless nepotism
This book has some nice photographs but adds nothing to already published scholarship on this topic. The author is not a professional architectural historian; he is a descendant of Stanford White. His text is gushy and uncritical, and makes only scant mention of the social and economic forces that contributed to the rise and decline of these grandiose houses.

A minor correction
The point of this review is to correct an error in Steven Goldstein's review of this book. McKim, Mead, & White were not involved in the construction of the Metropolitan Opera, as he states.

This is a wonderful, ravishing book, although I suppose some readers might be disappointed that the author has limited himself to surviving examples of McKim, Mead, & White's work, with current photographs ... all of them gorgeous. Vintage photographs, where available, would have been a nice addition. For example, it would be interesting, if possible, to compare the Pulitzer mansion in New York as originally built with the current photos ... it has been divided into something like 9 condominiums!

Luscious Vision of the Gilded Age
Speaking as a practicing architect and longtime admirer of the works of Stanford White, I found this book was nonetheless a revelation. Gorgeously photographed, it shows a broader spectrum of the residential work of this illustrious firm. McKim Mead and White have a well-deserved reputation for grand public buildings (Penn Station, Madison Square Garden to name two that have sadly been demolished) but are less known for these spectacular houses built for the robber barons of the Gilded Age among whom Stanford White circulated. What is suprising is the facility with which they moved from lavish and elegantly detailed city houses to surprisingly unpretentious inviting summer homes on Long Island and elsewhere. If you love Beaux Arts architecture, skip this book at your peril.

Sumptuous photography and insightful text
This book combines rich visual appeal with a serious analysis of the residential work of McKim, Mead & White. The introduction is particularly valuable for its succinct survey of the firm's development and its discussion of the collaboration of the partners. ... Read more

Book Description

A giant of twentieth century architecture, Paul Rudolph began his career designing beautiful and intimate beach houses on the west coast of Florida. This new book presents Rudolph’s striking renderings and Ezra Stoller’s period photography, along with the authors’ insightful text, conveying the lightness, materiality, and transcendence of these intensely original houses.

Paul Rudolph’s Florida houses, seen all together for the first time in this book, illustrate the ambition, discipline, and inventiveness that led the way to Rudolph’s international prominence in the 1960s. With fifty years distance, we are now able to see the Florida Houses as a distinct body of work, some sixty projects created between 1941 and 1962, that came to represent the possibility of a locally inspired American modernism.

After disappearing from the scene for many years, these outstanding buildings are being discussed again, inspiring a new generation of architects searching for a meaningful architecture for the present. This is the first book to be published based on full access to the primary source material housed in the Paul Rudolph Archive at The Library of Congress. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The modern Florida house
I found myself becoming nostalgic looking through the pages of this book. Having grown up in Florida, I was stunned to see that the house I lived in had been a knock-off of one of Rudolph's houses. His early Florida houses were widely emulated for their clean lines and passive solar designs. It is an impressive collection, and illustrates the lighter side of Rudolph before he became caught up in the monumental forms that dominated the latter part of his career.

You might call him the John Lautner of Florida, creating a lifestyle as much as an architecture. You could see Travis McGee laying back in one of these houses, drinking a beer as he waits for the elusive flash of green. Rudolph really captured the spirit of Florida in the 40's and 50's. Simple, well-thought out designs that are as relavent today as they were then.

Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses
As the Case Study program got under way in southern California, Rudolph launched his own from his office in Sarasota on FloridaÕs Gulf coast. For two decades (with time off for U.S. Navy service) he created (first with Ralph Twitchell and then independently) a succession of airy pavilions that mitigated the steamy heat and filtered the brilliant light. In Ezra StollerÕs crisp period photographs these houses seem almost dreamlikeÑtoo graceful and pure to endure storms and the crass consumerism of waterfront development. And yet, despite the pressure of escalating land prices and the cult of gigantism, most of these houses have survived in their original form, and several have been lovingly restored. Every aficionado of mid-century modern should buy this elegant volume. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.) ... Read more

Book Description

The teachings of Mies van der Rohe have had a great influence on the American architect and artist Gene Summers. Thanks to state-of-the-art technology and Summers' own creative talents, he was able to help transform Mies' visions into built structures. For 16 years Gene Summers was a close colleague of Mies, working with him on many projects including the Seagram Building in New York and the Bacardi's office buildings in Cuba and Mexico. Also working independently, Summers created projects for C.F Murphy Assoc. such as the McCormick Convention Centre and the Malcolm X College in Chicago. Familiar with bronze as a building material, Summers used this knowledge to design furniture and household objects before devoting himself entirely to this area of art. This volume is the first presentation of Gene Summers' oeuvre, surveying the many areas where he was active. Phyllis Lambert, President of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums, provides an enlightening introduction to his work. ... Read more

Book Description

In an industry so often enamored by media-coddled superstars with trendy clients, Eladio Dieste stands out as a refreshing and inspiring figure. Born in Uruguay, Dieste spent most of his long and productive career creating industrial and agrarian works, public infrastructure, commercial buildings, and small churches in his native country. Dieste's unique and innovative method of design, a melding of architecture and engineering, elevated these often humble buildings to masterworks of art.Capitalizing on his revolutionary approach to building with reinforced masonry, Dieste built aesthetically stunning structures economically. If he often worked outside the architectural mainstream, he never lost sight of the modest people for whom his structures were built. Today, those familiar with his work consider him the equal of such structural innovators as Pier Luigi Nervi and Eduardo Terroja. In this, the first comprehensive analysis of his work to be published in English, both the beauty and technical innovation of Dieste's projects are examined in detail. Three essays by Dieste himself convey his thoughts on art, culture, and technology. With Dieste's death in 2000, this book serves as a tribute and a definitive reference to his extraordinary work and its brilliant union of architecture and engineering. ... Read more

Book Description

A beautiful photographic view of more than 1,000 interiors of homes, public buildings, and corporate buildings designed by Wright, matching interior design to architectural elements--comfort, convenience, and spaciousness. This incredible four-color book features his use of tradition, horizontal lines, natural elements, concrete, and three-dimensional space. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Frank Lloyd Wright Revealed
As an architect myself, I am relieved and thankful that this book allows the serious student to unravel Frank Lloyd Wright's creative processes. The eclectic collection of photos (some historical; a few almost 100 years old) and brief but perfectly descriptive observations of each of his works and methods would allow any budding architect or interior designer to get inside the head of FLW and operate with his creative principles. Obviously, the photographs were compiled from the works of many different photographers; most in colour; some in black and white, but thank God the images of FLW's works were preserved and put into this amazing collection of interior design. Of about 400 FLW structures around the world, there are probably less than fifty which are open to public viewing today, so this book, with careful explanations, gives the appreciative student access to the almost secret creative practices of FLW. This book contains a treasure trove of FLW's ideas and aesthetic solutions to different and sometimes demanding building sites and client's personalities. Terrific and valuable reference book for the office library.

You couldn't sell these houses with these pictures
While there is no doubt that Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are spectacular, and I am a big fan, this book does them no justice at all. It is scrappily put together and contains some of the worst photography I have ever seen. A real let down. While it does not cost much, your money will be wasted if you buy this book. ... Read more