Customer Reviews

Architecture in Cincinnati: An Illustrated History of Designing and Building an American City

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I'm sure this book's appeal will mostly be that of a tome of local curiosity, but as a boastful display of one American city's architectural evolution, it should hold some attraction to lovers of design and history everywhere. It might also stand as an example to other cities on how to create a book that to best effect showcases a region's defining structures.

Architecture In Cincinnati is divided into chapters with such titles as (to name only a few):

Frontier City to Regional Capital, 1788-1829

Queen City of the West, 1830-1860

The Depression Era, 1933-1944

Dynamic Mix of New and Old, 1989-2006

The stories here, told by a number of leading figures in the fields of history, design and building, including Dan Hurley (hey, Dan!) Jayne Merkel, and of course Sue Ann Painter, are interesting enough in themselves, but the illustrations of this city past and present are what absolutely elevate this book to greatness. The tale, affectionately told, describes how Cincinnatians have always taken note of the natural beauty of the city's physical setting, nestled as it is on a riverfront and like Rome surrounded (supposedly...) by seven hills, and incorporated the manmade additions with a mind to ecological preservation, long before this was much of a concern elsewhere. Indeed, Cincinnati was the first American city to, in 1925, devise a master plan for land use and progressive administration, in the then-present and in decades to come.

When one has finished Architecture In Cincinnati, the reader emerges with renewed appreciation of all of which this area has to offer. To skim the surface...Cincinnati boasts the world's first concrete skyscraper; an office building which was in part an inspiration for the Empire State Building; a suspension bridge that was the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge; too many lovely places of worship to cover here; Music Hall; the Tyler-Davidson Fountain; an array of parks, riverfront developments, planned and (now-) historical neighborhoods; the first Reform Jewish theological seminary in the world; a nineteenth-century astronomical observatory so fine it is still in use today; and a city hall so grandly "Teutonic-Victorian" that it inspired Hollywood.

This is a great book cover to cover!

Was very disappointed in this book. A lot of the photographs were out of focus or poorly composed. Several shots of trees with buildings hiding behind them. Also, book doesn't include houses even though its supposed to be about Cincy architecture in general. Not written from an architect's perspective.

This book tries to be too many things. Some of those things it does well. Some, not so well.

First, as a narrative history of architecture in Cincinnati, it's quite good. The text is a well-written chronological trip from Cincinnati's founding up to about 2002, told in the context of its buildings. There are plenty of illustrations to support the text.

Then, the book tries to sort-of, kind-of be a catalog of important Cincinnati buildings, but really comes across as incomplete in this regard. Yes, there is a catalog of sorts, of about 100 important landmarks in Cincinnati and its northern Kentucky satellites, but the building selection seems somewhat random. There's no organization by region or neighborhood, or by building function. And there are many, many omissions. The coverage is nothing close to being comprehensive.

Now there's the real disappointment: the photography. There are many color photographs in the book, which is a good thing. Lots of oblique shots and interior shots but... the quality is almost uniformly poor. A book this expensive needs a publisher with a serious photo editor and a skilled photographer. Not sure either hold up the standards well in this book.

So, as a narrative history, to sit down and read, this book works just fine, but arcitecture is a visual art form. Ultimately we are going to look for images, and in that regard this book fails.