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Buildings of West Virginia: with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council (Buildings of the United States) [Hardcover]

S. Allen Chambers Jr. (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 20, 2004 0195165489 978-0195165487
Buildings of West Virginia provides a comprehensive guide to the state's built environment, from the prehistoric mounds that are its earliest structures to buildings that have shaped its image--log cabins, elegant spas, and coal company towns--to its everyday commercial, industrial, government, religious, and domestic structures. Buildings and sites are described and interpreted in some 1,000 guidebook entries illustrated with approximately 375 photographs and keyed to 60 maps. Throughout, West Virginia's architecture is related to its distinctive geography, natural resources, early prosperity and later economic decline, and colorful history, first as part of the colony and state of Virginia and then as the Mountain State.

About the Buildings of the United States Series: Buildings of West Virginia is the ninth volume to be published in the monumental Buildings of the United States, a series that Edwin McDowell of the New York Times has called "one of the most ambitious in publishing history." Sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians, the series is modeled on and inspired by the Buildings of England, the classic, multivolume work written by the eminent British architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner.

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About the Author


A native of Lynchburg, Virginia, Allen Chambers has specialized in the study and preservation of historic resources in his native state and in West Virginia. Former chief historian of the Historic American Buildings Survey, Mr. Chambers now resides in Washington, D.C. as an architectural historian.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 688 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 20, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0195165489
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195165487
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,918,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary book on a unique state, April 18, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Buildings of West Virginia: with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council (Buildings of the United States) (Hardcover)
West Virginia was created through political conflict during the Civil War, and many people may think of it only as part of that part of our nation's history, or perhaps as a place of coal mines and Appalachian troubles. What Chambers shows us in this carefully researched, beautifully written book is that West Virginia has a history and an architectural heritage of great distinction and diversity. Chambers looks at the full range of this state's architecture, from the distinguished work of many state and regional as well as national architects in the principal towns and cities to the sagas of the industrial settlements, of which there are many, and the slower changing regional patterns of small town and rural areas. Buy this book, and learn that West Virginia is a state to visit, appreciate, and admire. Chambers's nuanced study takes into consideration the multiple and complex aspects of its history, and gives us all a new appreciation for an American state with a complex heritage. Anyone wanting to understand the South, Appalachia, or indeed America needs this book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating book, December 17, 2011
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This review is from: Buildings of West Virginia: with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council (Buildings of the United States) (Hardcover)
A great overview; the history of the state is particularly well written and worth the price of the book alone. I enjoy browsing this book, along with the W.Va. Encyclopedia edited by Ken Sullivan. I was disappointed this book overlooked the Traveler's Repose in Pocahontas County, however.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Best book in the BUS series, so far. Astonishing!, July 8, 2011
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This review is from: Buildings of West Virginia: with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council (Buildings of the United States) (Hardcover)
Back in 1993, the Society of Architectural Historians and Oxford University Press published the first entries in the immense "Buildings of the United States" series. Eventually, this series is intended to include a book for all 50 states, but has already gone through several publishers and funding crises. The current publisher is the University of Virginia Press.

Before UVA took over with Delaware, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Oxford managed to squeeze out a few thousand copies of this remarkable volume. Not a better architectural survey of West Virginia exists. Not a better narrative history, outright, for the state of West Virginia exists. Not a better volume for the BUS series did Oxford University Press release. They went out with a bang!

This large catalog of historic West Virginia landmarks is a gem, and sets the standard for books of this type. The coverage is absolutely comprehensive. The sites are interesting and varied. The descriptions of the cities and towns place the catalog entries in perfect historical context. The framing essays are scholarly and important, and add intellectual weight to the study. The author, S. Allen Chambers, is the absolute authority on historic West Virginia architecture.

As for the architecture itself, prepare to be amazed. West Virginia includes everything from important colonial sites to astonishing public structures to modern masterpieces. Consider Harewood, in Jefferson County, or the State Capitol, in Kanawha County, to Tamarack, in Raleigh County, for example. From Shepherdstown, to Lewisburg, to Parkersburg, to Wheeling, this book has West Virginia covered like fall colors in October. Few states in the country include such an awesome diversity of historic architecture, and no other book comes close to presenting it as well as this one.

This book is written in a format that will be familiar to readers of other BUS guides, or AIA guides. The book is organized into chapters based on geographic sections. The entries are short, and each includes a small black and white photograph. The larger cities, like Charleston, Huntington and Wheeling get encyclopedic treatment, accompanied by lovely historical essays, while smaller towns and rural sites are included as part of county catalogs.

Your Buildings of the United States collection is incomplete without this entry, and I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in historic architecture or West Virginia history. This one is about as good as they get.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
THIS FOUR-COUNTY AREA LIES IN THE UPPER KANAWHA VALLEY, with West Virginia's capital city, Charleston, at its heart. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
expansive hipped roof, corbeled brick cornice, louvered belfry, period revival houses, chitecture firm, entablature elements, full entablature, dormered mansard roof, coal company towns, stone belt course, shallow hipped roof, naval ordnance plant, southern coalfields, emulate forms, rubble limestone, polygonal bay, hood molds, tral block, rear ell, bracketed cornice, sandstone foundation, angular intersection, foursquare house, railroad traversed, spired tower
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Civil War, Greek Revival, New York, Queen Anne, Berkeley County, Georgian Revival, Jefferson County, New River, Charles Town, Roman Catholic, Northern Panhandle, Eastern Panhandle, Fayette County, Monroe County, George Washington, Old Main, Gothic Revival, Harpers Ferry, National Road, Tudor Revival, Berkeley Springs, Kanawha County, Sweet Springs, United States, Harrison County
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