Master Builders: A Guide to Famous American Architects (Building Watchers Series)

Master Builders answers scores of questions about more than 100 architects and builders who have left indelible marks on American architecture. This unique guide puts faces with America's most well-known and loved buildings from the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument through the first skyscrapers and landmarks of the Post-Modern movement. "
350 photographs and illustrations

"The Architect Builds Visible History."
—Vincent Scully

Which architect designed the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty? Who put a Chippendale pediment atop a skyscraper and quickly created a landmark of contemporary architecture? Who was the only American architect to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery during the Civil War? Which architect designed a castle in California for William Randolph Hearst?

Master Builders answers these and scores of other questions about more than 100 architects and builders who have left indelible marks on American architecture. This unique guide puts faces with America's most well-known and loved buildings—from the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument through the first skyscrapers and landmarks of the Post-Modern movement. "Why should you want to know more about these architects?" asks Roger K. Lewis in his introduction. "The reason is simple. You are undeniably connected to the built environment that you inhabit, use, see and respond to. You affect building design, and building design affects you."

Can you pair these master builders with their works?

Frank Lloyd Wright - U.S. Capitol
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill - Central Park
Adler and Sullivan - University of Virginia
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - Glass House
William Thornton - Home Insurance Building
Orson Squire Fowler - Fallingwater
H. H. Richardson - CBS Building
Frederick Law Olmsted - San Simeon
James Renwick - Seagram Building
Robert Mills - Trinity Church, Boston
I. M. Pei - Salk Institute
Julia Morgan - Sears Tower
Eero Saarinen - Smithsonian "Castle"
Cass Gilbert - John E. Kennedy Library
McKim, Mead and White - U.S. Supreme Court
Louis I. Kahn - Chicago Stock Exchange
Thomas Jefferson - Octagonal Houses
Philip Johnson - Pennsylvania Station
William Le Baron Jenney - Washington Monument