16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Predictable text, nice pictures, March 5, 2006
The color pictures are all new and the subjects very well chosen, and paging through this book is enjoyable. The concise text reviews the usual classifications in the usual ways, its academic tone partly redeemed by occasional wit.
He renames Richardson Romanesque as Richardsonian, Federal as Late Georgian, and says Queen Anne originated from Arts and Crafts rather than medieval styles, although I think there's a little of each. Like most authors, he discusses the white flat-roofed Modern examples as though they were the next in line to follow the Tudors and Colonial Revivals, despite the fact that they never amounted to more than an insignificant fraction of houses built, then continues with the Post Modern and Deconstructivist styles, pure "magazine architecture", marking an era in which architects begin to serve a new and powerful patron of the arts, the media.
But the countless postwar ranches and split-levels are never mentioned. Trying to keep it highbrow, I guess.
He returns to ordinary houses at the very end, to jump on the mock-the-McMansions bandwagon, using as examples, ironically, some of the prettiest houses in the book.
A few nits to pick:
* Medieval homes had steep roofs because they used thatch, not due to the narrow London streets.
* Le Corbusier's "machines for living" quote actually was intended to extoll creature comforts, not stark Modernism.
* The Arts and Crafts post-and-beam masterpiece, the Gamble House, is ordinary stud construction where it doesn't show.
* Beams are always horizontal, as are clapboards.
* It was Louis Sullivan who said architecture was set back 50 years by a late 19th Century exhibition, not some academic.
Still like the James C. Massey book, available used. But you may like this one for its pictures.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
RE: "A Very Poor Effort"---An unjust criticism, September 15, 2005
Despite the unfavorable comments in "A VERY POOR EFFORT," I decided to buy this book and try it for myself. I'm so glad I did. This reviewer seems to be confused about this book. Of all the books on the subject, this is the only one that's written by a Pulitzer-nominated architectural historian, comprised of all-color photos, inclusive of the late-20th and 21st cent styles, designed like an art book, and packaged in a compact/portable format for taking it on the road. These 5 features are completely NEW to this genre! The unhappy reviewer's other point of criticism (that there are too many trees on the property of some of the photographed houses) is simply absurd. How can a photographer remove trees and foliage from a house's property before photographing the house? These houses are important examples, not slouches. The book states clearly that each picture was taken from public property. Should the photographer have given each house a fresh coat of paint, too, before he photographed it? Such a criticism is illogical. For my dollar, this is the best book in the genre and thus should be given a fair evaluation. I'm glad I bought it. As a realtor, I need this kind of book, and this one's the easiest to use of all of them.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Definitive Book On the Subject, January 22, 2005
I've always wondered how people came up with all the different names for house designs: Georgian, victorian, georgian and all the rest. I have periodically looked at a house and proclaimed it to be something, and been patiently corrected by people somewhat of a superior attitude telling me: "No, (with an implied You Fool), that's not a __________ it's a _________."
In this book Pulitzer candidate William Morgan definitively describes the fifteen house styles. Each style is presented in a short historical summary text along with a bulletid list of its distinguishing characteristics. Within each broac style, there are variations. Within Victorian, for instance he discusses stick style, queen anne, richardsonian and shingle style.
There are about 350 houses illustrated from more than 40 states so that region-specific details can be identified. Well over 400 pages, most with multiple photographs illustrate the details of the various styles.
Very enjoyable book.
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