A great description of historical architecture styles

books:


	• A Field Guide to American Houses Virginia Mcalester, Lee Mcalester Knopf, 1984 - 544 pages average customer review:based on 50 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A must have!!!

I bought this book as reference material on the advice of an architect friend. He told me "If you need help figuring out the style of a house then buy this book" and he showed me his copy. He was right. The book is well organized which helps compare styles quickly and the many black and white pictures of houses that the author uses as examples are great because the b&w contrast helps your eye focus on details. This a great book to have in any architectural office. Its great for novices and experienced alike.

Great Resource

Great book!!! I'm using for my company to get a true representation of many styles for many of the house I'm designing. A great resource for any firm!!!

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great book for the housing history

great at housing history
great describe for the house component
good picture to show handy book to show at real estate

Great resource for writers

As a writer, you need lots of details to keep the reader interested, and this book has details on houses most people wouldn't know. Of course, if you give no details the story is not interesting, and if you give wrong details, some reader will know it and be disapointed. A book like this can be invaluable.

A great description of historical architecture styles

After some introductory chapters on the history and theory of homebuilding, the McAlesters commence with descriptions of the different styles. Each major style is described with a large stylized diagram with its identifying features labeled, a description of the major subtypes, descriptions of the style's unique elements, a paragraph on the frequency and locations of its occurrence, some historical comments, and then dozens of black and white photographs. The styles are ordered roughly chronologically, from native dwellings and colonial houses in 1600 to the neoeclectric houses of the 1970s and 1980s. (Even my 2006 printing ended with the 1980s.)

I read the field guide cover to cover - something I never before done with a field guide. By the end, it seemed repetitive, but overall I was impressed with almost everything about this book from the introductions to the last diagrams. Every time I travel though a historical neighborhood, I am glad that I read this book.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

For the house lover and the curious tourist, for the house buyer and the weekend stroller, for neighborhood preservation groups and for all who want to know more about their community -- here, at last, is a book that makes it both easy and pleasurable to identify the various styles and periods of American domestic architecture.

Concentrating not on rare landmarks but on typical dwellings in ordinary neighborhoods all across the United States -- houses built over the past three hundred years and lived in by Americans of every social and economic background -- the book provides you with the facts (and frame of reference) that will enable you to look in a fresh way at the houses you constantly see around you. It tells you -- and shows you in more than 1,200 illustrations -- what you need to know in order to be able to recognize the several distinct architectural styles and to understand their historical significance. What does that cornice mean? Or that porch? That door? When was this house built? What does its style say about the people who built it? You'll find the answers to such questions here.

This is how the book works: Each of thirty-nine chapters focuses on a particular style (and its variants). Each begins with a large schematic drawing that highlights the style's most important identifying features. Additional drawings and photographs depict the most common shapes and the principal subtypes, allowing you to see at a glance a wide range of examples of each style. Still more drawings offer close-up views of typical small details -- windows, doors, cornices, etc. -- that might be difficult to see in full-house pictures. The accompanying text is rich in information about each style -- describing in detail its identifying features, telling you where (and in what quantity) you're likely to find examples of it, discussing all of its notable variants, and revealing its origin and tracing its history.

In the book's introductory chapters you'll find invaluable general discussions of house-building materials and techniques ("Structure"), house shapes ("Form"), and the many traditions of architectural fashion ("Style") that have influenced American house design through the past three centuries. A pictorial key and glossary help lead you from simple, easily recognized architectural features -- the presence of a tile roof, for example -- to the styles in which that feature is likely to be found.

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