Book Description

Covering one thousand years of history and an area stretching from the Atlantic to the borders of India and China, Robert Hillenbrand incorporates all the latest discoveries and interpretations in this authoritative guide to the arts of Islam. From the supreme confidence of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to the scores of exquisite buildings of Ottoman Istanbul; from the extraordinary virtuosity of Persian painting in the fifteenth century to the vivid ceramic tradition of Ottoman Iznik--Hillenbrand does justice to both the highlights and the ongoing evolution of the full range of Islamic arts. Supported by a glossary of Islamic terms, a time line, and maps, this book traces the architecture, calligraphy, book illumination, painting, ceramics, textiles, and metalwork of a vastly accomplished and influential civilization. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Good Indepth Introduction
As a beginner to the world of Islamic Art and architecture, I recently completed reading this book and found it a good introduction. It covers the development and major themes in architecture, ceramics, figure painting and calligraphy (textiles to a smaller extent) of Ummayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Saljuq, Atabegs, Mamluks, Islamic Spain and Morrocco, Ilkhanids/Timurids, Safavids and the Ottomans.

Islamic art and architecture of the Indian Subcontinent (eg Dehli Sultanate or Mughal India) is not covered at all in this book.

It has a good sampling of pictures in colour of especially major architectural monuments. I think the strength of this book is especially strong as an introduction to Islamic architecture. Its coverage of the other areas is not bad either.

Absolutely Divine
This book has an unbilievable combination of detail, broad coverage of various topics, ability to keep attention concentrated due to a great way the book is written. Illustrations were both artistically beautiful and helpful in understanding the topics covered. I am in love with this book and, after library reading it, I am ordering it today!!! ... Read more

Book Description

This monograph is the first to document all of the built work by Morphosis, a Los Angeles-based practice headed by Thom Mayne and one of the most influential architecture firms of the past twenty years. Morphosis's unconventional geometries; beautifully executed, sculptural models; and complex, computer-generated drawings helped to usher in a new era of architectural experimentation in the early 1980s. This book is comprised of bold, documentary-style colour photographs of thirty-five completed buildings presented in an almost cinematic layout, and publishes for the first time together all of Morphosis's completed work, from the early residential and restaurant projects in Los Angeles to the most recent large-scale work beyond California and the United States - in Canada, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Austria.

Thom Mayne founded Morphosis in 1972 in partnership with Michael Rotondi, who now has his own firm. Over the past twenty years, Mayne's academic posts have included teaching positions at Columbia University, Harvard University, Yale University, the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, among other institutions.

Val Warke is an associate professor of architecture at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Morphosis
Mayne has been at the forefront of LA's architectural avant garde for over thirty years, graduating from meticulously detailed houses and commercial spaces, to large-scale public projects that include two LA-area schools, the Cal Trans headquarters, a Federal office building in San Francisco, and a courthouse in Oregon. Morphosis (the firm he established with Michael Rotondi in 1972) has also built in Canada, Austria and Korea. This handsome pictorial survey of its 35 completed buildings and installations offers a thrilling ride through structures that tilt, fold, cantilever and seem to defy gravity. An essay by Mayne is gently deconstructed by Cornell architecture professor Val Warke. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

better that the others
This book unlike other morphosis books is comprehensible for the average reader. it has great pictures and his spectacular use of materials is clearly articulated. Thom Mayne does not only talk the talk but builds the talked about.

Architecture Is Beautiful
This book presents the Morphosis architecture in a series of well-executed photographs, beautifully presented. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

From its trademark row houses to Benjamin Henry Latrobe's landmark Cathedral (now Basilica) of the Assumption, Baltimore architecture can rightly claim to be as eclectic, exciting, and inspiring as that of any American city. Many of its important buildings figure prominently in the oeuvres of leading American architects: Latrobe, Robert Mills, Maximilien Godefroy, Richard Upjohn, Stanford White, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe among them. Yet Baltimore's distinctive urban environment also owes much to the achievements of local talents, including Robert Cary Long Sr. and Jr., John Rudolph Niernsee and James Crawford Neilson, E. Francis Baldwin and Josias Pennington, Laurence Hall Fowler, Alexander Cochran—not to mention generations of skilled craftsmen and builders.

Baltimore's architecture rewards close study, and in The Architecture of Baltimore contributors and editors Mary Ellen Hayward and Frank R. Shivers, Jr., have brought together an impressive group of scholars, writers, and critics to provide a fresh account of the city's architectural history. The narrative begins by looking at eighteenth-century Georgian buildings that reflect the grandeur of the style, goes on to the prosperous port city's Federal-period achievements, including many country houses with their delicate details, then proceeds to Baltimore's monumental contributions to early nineteenth-century American neoclassical design. Romantic stylings follow, with excursions into the Greek and Gothic Revivals, and the popular Italianate-mode for town and country houses, the soaring spires of churches, and the classical dignity of public spaces like the Peabody Library. Later in the nineteenth century a picturesque eclecticism produced such monuments as the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's Mount Royal Station, as well as intriguing changes to the city's versatile row houses. Contributors discuss the evolution of industrial buildings and the growth of the city's architectural profession. The Architecture of Baltimore also addresses the arrival of modernism in Charm City, examines the origins and challenges of historic preservation, and assesses the Baltimore renaissance of the period 1955-2000, which saw the construction of Charles Center, Harborplace, and the sports complex at Camden Yards.

Here at last we have a comprehensive guide to Baltimore's architectural heritage—lost and still-standing alike. Illustrated with nearly 600 photographs, architectural plans, maps, and details, this impressive work of scholarship also offers an engaging narrative of the history of Baltimore itself—its men and women of all stations, its taste and traditional preferences, its good choices and lamentable ones, and its built environment as a social and cultural chronicle. ... Read more

Book Description

Recent U.S. Census Bureau information shows that the southwest holds incredible gravitational pull for a great number of Americans, more and more of whom are moving to live among the deserts, plateaus, distinctive mountains, and glorious red and orange sunsets that only the west can provide.

Americans have been hungering for the wide-open skies of the west since the early days of this country and out of their continuing migration has sprung Santa Fe, which continues to grow in importance, in meaning, and in influence.

Santa Fe's popularity is immense. The "Santa Fe style" can now be found all over the country, manifested in clothes, furniture and furnishings, and interior design. Santa Fe: Houses and Gardens, with its sumptuous photography and lucid prose, makes clear that this popularity is well-founded.

Santa-Fe: Houses and Gardens presents the most significant and influential houses of the region, including Mabel Dodge's house of 1918, with its hand-painted windows by D. H. Lawrence; the house of Randall Davey, an artist who was influential in the movement to revive traditional adobe building techniques; and the Myrtle Stedman house, built following her injunction that it be "stretched out like a lizard in the sun." This book does not limit itself to traditional historic adobe houses, but covers many of the region's most important private homes and museum houses with their gardens.
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Book Description

In this book, the author spent more than 4 years visiting hundreds of Japanese homes and learning as much as possible about their construction, design, furnishings, and relative merits. It is the only authentic record of the traditional Japanese home (mats, lamps, screens, gardens, etc.), from its general plan to the smallest decorative detail. 307 illustrations.
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Reviews (2)

Well worth the money
This is a great book which describes in fine detail theJapanese home in the late 1800s. This book captures a period of timewhen the Japanese house still had its unique cultural style and hadn't been excessively influenced by american or european style architecture. The book is clearly written and there are many detailed drawings which illustrate the text's descriptions. It is an interesting book both for its architectural detail as well as for its historical perspective.

Excellent historical primer of Japanese architectural design
In this excellent primer to the aesthetic of Japanese building design, Edward Morse casts a sympathetic and discerning eye on the constituent principles, parts, and details of traditional Japanese architecture and design. As we are led room by room through Japanese buildings of his time, we acquire an appreciation for the highly imaginitive individual expressions made by artisans of many crafts working within the standardization that gave the style longevity through many generations.

His study ranges from the historical origins of Japanese architecture to covering room floorplans, as has become a staple in introducing Japanese tatami mat rooms since he first wrote this book in the 1886, to lavishing minute attention to the details of various crafts that made the Japanese interior design accessories touchstones of excellence throughout the world. He also provides intimate vignettes of individual design principles, items, materials, and construction utilized throughout Japanese houses, rooms, and tea rooms.

His ability to translate the often fleeting impression of a space into precise identifiable elements makes him a valuable guide to this deceptively simple-looking style of interior design whose rigorous structure and aesthetic guidelines make it one of the great design styles of history. The extensive etchings included in the book provide concise, delightful, and sometimes humorous examples of the principles applied.

Because he covers the essential architectural and design elements thoroughly without becoming bogged down in mundane enumeration of tiny variances, the lively text gives the reader a very good sense of how spaces within a Japanese home are a sum of more than their constituent parts and how principles are applicable across the many disciplines that comprise the Japanese style. That he did it so sympathetically in a timeframe in which nationalistic chauvinism so predominated the world landscape makes it all the more impressive.

As an introductory volume to what makes traditional Japanese architectural design so delightful, this book is hard to beat. It's depth of understanding and comprehensive coverage of the style also make it an excellent reference volume for the more advanced student of Japanese design. That it is a standard item in bibliographies to Japanese design and on "must read" lists for Japanese design is no surprise. ... Read more

Book Description

This book is about how a consistently high standard of excellence was achieved in Charleston architecture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Regardless of what style Charleston's architects used—Greek or Roman, Gothic or Renaissance, Adamesque or Greek Revival—they were in agreement about what constituted excellence. Special emphasis is placed on the knowledge that was required to create Charleston's early architecture. An introduction discusses the writings and buildings of Andrea Palladio, Robert Adam, A. Welby Pugin, and other influential architects. Sources of inspiration for Charleston buildings have included specific buildings in Greece, Italy, England, France and Germany.

Whenever possible, primary sources of information were used to determine how various types of Charleston buildings were designed and constructed. A dozen of the city's best-documented buildings are considered in detail as a basis for comparison:

Houses: a list of all expenses to construct a row of five row houses from 1709–1711; a comprehensive set of building accounts for a double house designed in c. 1745; and a contract for a Charleston Single House designed in 1789

Religious Buildings: accounts of the construction of two Anglican churches built from c. 1721–1723 and from 1752–1761; a Congregational church and a Baptist church designed by the first American architect; the first Reform synagogue in the United States; and Unitarian and Episcopal churches with Gothic fan vaulting

Public Buildings: architectural drawings for an exchange and custom house designed in 1766; complete records for constructing a state administrative building that set a new standard for construction and that introduced the Greek Revival style in Charleston; a federal custom house that was initially designed locally; and a municipal orphan house in the Italianate style.

These buildings are compared with hundreds of others of similar types and styles to reveal what was most characteristic and most distinctive about Charleston architecture.

This book also contains a summary of information available before 1740, an analysis of buildings depicted in the 1740 view of the city, a survey of nearly three thousand surviving Single Houses, a review of the principal buildings that existed in 1826, a study of the origins of the Greek Revival style, a comparison of the influence of Jefferson and Latrobe on Mills, a discussion of how the Greek and Roman orders were adapted, and a section on the characteristics of Adamesque architecture. Appendices included a list of all architecture books known to have been available in Charleston from 1751–1856, data on the number of houses that existed at various times from 1672–1861, and studies of building types such as rice mills and design features such as the piazza.

Over 600 illustrations are included of the best-designed and most typical buildings in Charleston and the most influential sources of design. The illustrations consist of historic photographs, drawings, and views; numerous measured drawings and maps; and more than two hundred recently taken photographs. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

An outstanding and in-depth architectural survey
Kathy Borrus' One Thousand Buildings Of Paris isn't for the casual tourist of Paris, but is designed for the avid enthusiast of both the city and its architectural wonders. Recommended for both the architectural art library and the in-depth travel collection, this volume cover the range of Paris architectural history and style, with photographers Jorg Brockmann and James Driscoll outlining commercial, residential, and public spaces alike. An outstanding and in-depth architectural survey.

Endlessly Fascinating
Kathy Borrus, the author of the wonderful travel tome, "The Fearless Shopper," has done it again. One Thousand Buildings of Paris is an endlessly fascinating romp through the architecture, history, and culture of Paris. A must for all adventurers, artists, architects, and academics, the book is both an art enthusiast's dream and a valuable reference for planning Parisian sightseeing. All in all, One Thousand Buildings of Paris is a one-of-a-kind photographic compendium and a true treat.

Lovely to look at...
The next best thing to being there - great as a souvenir or research before your trip. Every building you know and love and many, many you'd like to know are here. Photographs are in romantic black & white along with a fascinating fact or two about the building, its history or impact on the city. The layout allows for 1000 buildings in less than 1000 pages - the left page has from 2 to 6 photos with their names, addresses and stories on the right. A great gift for any Parisianphile! ... Read more

Book Description

A comprehensive, succinct, wide-ranging, accessible reference to architecture in America. In over 2,500 definitions and nearly 1,000 illustrations, Cyril Harris covers everything to do with the built environment, from construction materials and techniques to decorative terms and practical devices, dogtrot cabin to skyscraper, covered bridge to Crystal Palace (the New York one), greenbelt to gristmill, impost to pilaster--enriched, when relevant, with intriguing historical or biographical nuggets. The rich diversity of American architecture is reflected in the 126 styles identified in these pages, a unique contribution to the field. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

needs more graphics
The book is great, but lots of definitions don't have pictures; Some house types had pictures while others did not. ... Read more

Book Description

New England is as much a feeling as it is a region. It's Cape Cod clambakes in the summer, apple-picking in Maine come fall, snug Vermont inns in the winter, and the colorful, blooming gardens of the spring. Organized by season and anchored by authentic, classic New England houses, this book will show the real New England, capturing the experience of each place: its people, culture, history, and houses.

With more than 200 color photographs of New England's most picturesque homes and getaways, New England Style will be the book that every New Englander worth his salt will proudly display in his living room, inn, or Nantucket cottage. With its homespun personalities and favorite New England activities and recipes, the book is perfect for every New England native-and anyone who just wants to bring a bit of it home with them. A resource section will provide information on New England's great inns, restaurants, activities, and events.
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Reviews (2)

Style over substance
While the photography is stunning (by Kindra Clineff, whose name is misspelled on the cover), the text is wishy-washy and pointless. There is very little specific information on the places mentioned (history, architectural styles, etc) but rather vague inspiration for the home decorator. It's likely I'm the wrong audience for this book, but I came away from it feeling like I didn't learn anything about New England.

Arm Chair Travellers Rejoice! New England at Your Fingertips
"I love New England's historic homes and villages, the seasons and traditions, and to share that passion with Tommy Hilfiger, was a special opportunity." Anna Kasabian author quote

Popular Boston author Anna Kasabian explores the nooks and crannies of New England in New England Style, published by Rizzoli, USA with a foreword written by Tommy Hilfiger. Anna Kasabian, shares the people, culture, history, and especially the houses of New England with the reader through essays, stories, and observations. Arranged according to the seasons and anchored with profiles of timeless New England Houses, New England Style transports the reader onto the little traveled back roads and provides a memorable journey. ... Read more

Book Description

Japan is becoming a popular travel destination for more and more architects today With its wide variety of architecture, it is both a source of fascination and inspiration. Over a number of years, the review Detail has been consistently documenting the construction activities which have taken place in Japan, and this book draws on the best of their experience and connections to present and analyse with plans and details the most interesting buildings from various architectural trends in contemporary Japan, including Ando's Museum for Contemporary Art in Naoshima, Toyo Ito's Mediathek, a residential building by Kazuyo Sejima, and a temple gallery in Kyoto by Takashi Yamaguchi.

Introductory essays discuss the developments in Japanese architecture, and together with portraits of not only well-known Japanese architects and offices, but also young offices such as Atelier Bow Wow, this volume provides a stimulating discussion of current Japanese building in the context of traditional architecture. ... Read more

Amazon.com

If you thought Alpine style was all cow shed and ski lodge, think again. Beate Wedekind, who assembled this huge addition to Taschen's Interiors series, would have you remember that Europe's most aesthetically inclined nations rub shoulders in these awe-inspiring surroundings. Adapting to each other and to the often harsh demands of the climate, Alpine style is a strange mixture of the primitive and the sophisticated.

The stunning photographs by the likes of Gert von Bassewitz and Peter Moody Meyer are the ultimate in good-taste escapism. We get to peek into the kitchen of Thaddeus Ropac's baroque manor house, in which he "has installed sophisticated technology which remains invisible," and eye the 18th-century chalet of the magic realist painter Balthus.

Some may think this is really a resource for ambitious Russian millionaires, fantasists with degrees in art history, and--let's face it--burglars, but there's a little more to it than that. For covetous readers keen to press their snow-blinded faces ever harder up against the windows of the glitterati, a list of recommended museums points deeper into this incredible territory. --Simon Ings, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Another great book from "Interiors"
As well as ALL the other books from TASCHEN's "Interiors" series, this book is simply magical. It offers a great trip in the Alpes and simply gives you the opportunity to visit the most beautiful houses -- from simple chalets to deluxe houses -- of the mountains. The printing is fabulous and the pictures are of pure quality. Beautiful! ... Read more

Book Description

It's an unfortunate reality that architects practicing in the great expanse between the East and West coasts all too often find themselves beyond the radar of the profession's so-called "tastemakers." And it's especially a shame in the case of Julie Snow, a Minneapolis-based architect who has, over the past decade, developed one of the most inventive practices anywhere in the United States. Snow's meticulously constructed work has the structural opacity and formal integrity that characterized Mies van der Rohe's architecture, but with a sense of humanity and a sensitivity to the environment that seems borrowed from her Midwestern progenitor, Frank Lloyd Wright. This, the first monograph on Snow's work, provides in depthdocumentation of 14 of her residential, institutional, corporate, and public projects, including the Koehler Residence in New Brunswick, Canada, a series of Minneapolis Light Rail Stations, the Minnesota Children's Museum, and the University of South Dakota School of Business. Julie Snow, Architect is produced in collaboration with award-winning designer Andrew Blauvelt, and features an introductory essay by Jan Abrams, director of the Minnesota Design Institute. ... Read more

Book Description

An ideal commingling of exquisite and often rare materials, perfection in craftsmanship and exceptional purity of line are what place Ming design, particularly in furniture, at the zenith of Chinese art. MING FURNITURE IN THE LIGHT OFCHINESE ARCHITECTURE is the first book to show the essential kinship between Ming furniture and the buildings they were designed to be placed and used within. Sarah Handler’s special perspective sheds a luminous glow on the concepts of interior and exterior form, function, placement, and purpose and reveals the inextricably intertwined relationship of Ming furniture to Chinesearchitecture. Decoration, construction, and function come together into a harmonious and indivisible whole, just as the Chinese artisans envisioned. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (3)

Your basic [money amount]sales brochure
This book does provide a fairly interesting, if basic, overview of the modern Japanese home but ... it is also an expensive sales brochure for Misawa system built homes. Misawa provided photos for pages 1, 2, 3, 6-10, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 56, 57, 60-63, 68, 69, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 88, 89, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110-118, 120-129. And Misawa is used as an example in the text on 12 pages.

Utterly wonderful and so informative
Because we are in the process of designing and building a Zen Danish (as we call it) new home I purchased this wonderful book in order to get some specific ideas. Of special interest are the Danish and Japanese choices in light hardwood floors, tatami mat floor coverings and window coverings like shoji screens which can be opened for full light during the day and closed for more privacy.

And the book does an excellent job in showing the value in smaller appliances like dishwashers for small families and the front loading or combo washer-dryer units which also take up less space and use less water. And the beautifully designed skylights.

The photography is wonderful and there are so many, along with informative texts on why certain elements work well, and what the future holds for design. The homes are so open and airy that they can be smaller and more environmentally friendly, and better than what I call the average American tract home that has so much wasted space.

I also like the whole sections on furniture and how the outside garden areas when designed well, become rooms that make the interior of the home look bigger as well. There is so much to be said about the way the Japanese blend style, high tech and spiritual into their home design.

If you are seriously interested in ideas for that one of a kind, high quality home that doesn't have to break the bank then this book may be of great value to you. It is not a book for the person who likes "average."

A GOOD STORY OF JAPANESE HOUSE
This book is very interesting for the people who want to know the evolution of house style after II world war:
The evolution of styles from american style to tecnological style. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Good for people who start
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.

A very comprehensive introduction to muslim architecture
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. ... Read more