Customer Reviews

AIA Architectural Guide to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Long Island

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I have read many of these AIA Guides and I normally love them, but this one is a huge disappointment, honestly it is the worst I have come across. The buildings chosen are bewildering, I mean how many hideous 50's style buildings does Long Island have? When I think of Long Island architecture I think of Oheka or Planting Fields or Old Westbury, the grand Gilded Age mansions so beautifully described in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, not some tract home in Levittown. I really would not recommend this book to anyone, the American Institute of Architects should be ashamed of this incomplete, lazy guide, they are so much better at these kind of books, if you want a great AIA guide, look at the one on Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, New York, and Detroit, now those are great guides to be proud of, it really makes you wonder about the quality of architects on Long Island..frankly their idea of what constitutes architecture worthy of being in an AIA guide is just totally perplexing.

This is an attractive and useful book and worth the price.

However, for those hoping to get anything even vaguely approaching the detailed and absorbing AIA Guide to New York, which meticulously notes even fairly minor old buildings, be ready for disappointment. This is more akin to a tourist picture book than the AIA's New York City effort.