I got this book, to understand structures, buildings. The book is laid out from Building types and goes into details of towers, chimneys, and ornaments. Roman architecture, palladian stood out the most to me. A lot of new definitions, terms in this discipline, to outsiders.

The Author mentions to find out similarities in styles, and then read buildings.

An excellent introduction to Architectural Styles. I would recommend this to everyone.


Deus Vult,
Gottfried ( )

I got this book, to understand structures, buildings. The book is laid out from Building types and goes into details of towers, chimneys, and ornaments. Roman architecture, palladian stood out the most to me. A lot of new definitions, terms in this discipline, to outsiders.

The Author mentions to find out similarities in styles, and then read buildings.

An excellent introduction to Architectural Styles. I would recommend this to everyone.


Deus Vult,
Gottfried ( )

I didn't find this book very helpful. First I tried to read it, cover-to-cover, to try and get a sense of styles, but the organization didn't but the things related to the same style together. Then I tried to pick out features on buildings and look them up to determine the style, but the styles listed under each feature wasn't comprehensive enough to use for this purpose. I remain unsure of the author's intent. The illustrations, however, are excellent, and the two page "Looking for Clues" at the front was helpful. ( )

I admit I was seduced by the presentation. This is a gorgeous little volume, illustrated with crisply reproduced engravings. I bought it as a Christmas present for myself from my partner (thanks T.!), who never knows what to buy me. I am not supposed to need "A crash course in architecture" because I AM an architect, but there's plenty to learn from here.
I think that the prevailing arrangement of four illustrations per page, with limited explanatory text for each, presented a challenge to the author to get her meaning across succinctly. She doesn't always succeed, and also the order in which one is supposed to follow the illustrations is not clear.
It's wonderful eye candy, though, and an informative "refresher course" too.