American Houses: A Field Guide to the Architecture of the Home - Softcover

Foster, Gerald L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0618387994 ISBN 13: 9780618387991

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2004

Synopsis

A definitive overview of American domestic architecture ranges from the domiciles of Native American cultures and early colonial structures to the present day, analyzing the cultural, geographical, and historical origins of each style; describing the construction methods involved and the link between form and functions; and examining both interior floor plans and exterior views. Simultaneous.

About this title

About the Author

Formerly vice president and partner of the Architects Collaborative, the famous firm founded by Walter Gropius, Gerald Foster has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Boston Architectural Center as well as the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited at the DeCordova Museum and at various galleries. His books include A Field Guide to Airplanes, A Field Guide to Trains, and American Houses: A Field Guide.

From Publishers Weekly

While the U.S. boasts many great public buildings, designed by architects both homegrown and imported, Foster's operating premise is that most of America's vital and expressive architectural tradition has been a domestic one. The great breadth of this tradition—from Monticello through "Early Louisiana Shotgun" to Frank Lloyd Wright—is immaculately and exhaustively described by Foster, a teacher and former partner of Walter Gropius's Architects Collaborative. The book's three extensive sections ("Colonial Traditions," "19th-Century Styles" and "20th-Century Revivals and Innovations") offer not only a visual primer on virtually every important strain of American home building but also extensive and useful annotation on their social and aesthetic backgrounds. The author's numerous drawings are models of clarity. It is useful to have the characteristics of such familiar styles as Gothic Revival and Mission so clearly delineated, and less well-known styles are amply explored. The author of two previous Field Guides, on trains and airplanes, Foster clearly intends this book to be used rather than consulted, to be thrown in the car or jammed in a shoulder bag rather than put on a shelf. While Foster is no Tom Wolfe–style polemicist, he is not afraid to be critical when it aids understanding. And more through implication than direct statement, Foster considers the vernacular tradition he describes as belonging to a quickly receding past, one that this book will do much to help preserve.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0618387994
• ISBN 13: 9780618387991
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384