Customer Reviews

The AIA Guide to Columbus

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me state right off, I love these AIA guides, but they are wildly diverse in their quality. Some are great, like the guides to Houston, Dallas, and Detroit(yes Detroit) and then some like the guides to Atlanta and Cleveland are good, but not great. This frankly is one of the better guides, it's layed out well and the text and images are presented well. The guide divides the city into different sections and explores each, hitting on what the author feels are the significant structures in that certain area. This sort of layout is standard in these guides, of course. Im not really familiar with Columbus, except to know it's the capitol and largest city in Ohio and home to the Buckeyes, so this guide was enlightening to me. It's not as thorough as say the guide to Houston or Detroit, but it is quality and you do get a feel for Columbus, from an architectural perspective. It's a fitting tribute the the architecture of Ohio's capitol city.

As a Columbus native I am familiar with many of these structures and it was fun to read it while looking up various addresses on the Franklin Co. auditor's website. I deduct a star because there are multiple historical buildings elsewhere in town and the guide scarcely made it out of the general downtown area. I suppose the book would become too unwieldy, though. Also, I disliked the sepia tone to the photos. Color would have made it easier to pick out the design elements mentioned in the text.

This has much interesting info about building we've been passing in Columbus for years but knew little about. It was recommended in a Columbus Architecture class we took for fun. Fast delivery.