Shelter [Paperback]

Lloyd Kahn (Editor), Bob Easton (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2000

Shelter is many things - a visually dynamic, oversized compendium of organic architecture past and present; a how-to book that includes over 1,250 illustrations; and a Whole Earth Catalog-type sourcebook for living in harmony with the earth by using every conceivable material. First published in 1973, Shelter remains a source of inspiration and invention. Including the nuts-and-bolts aspects of building, the book covers such topics as dwellings from Iron Age huts to Bedouin tents to Togo's tin-and-thatch houses; nomadic shelters from tipis to "housecars"; and domes, dome cities, sod iglus, and even treehouses.
The authors recount personal stories about alternative dwellings that illustrate sensible solutions to problems associated with using materials found in the environment - with fascinating, often surprising results.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lloyd Kahn has managed to pull together a stunning catalog of the phenomenon of human shelter through history, across cultures and climates from around the world. Yurts and huts and tree houses and cathedrals of stone. This is an eye-opener for anyone considering building their own home, or anyone just interested in human inventiveness and creativity. With over 1000 photos and drawings of cave houses, communal huts, wooden shacks, tents, domes, towers and holes in the ground, you'll be amazed at all the different ways people have tried to keep the rain off their heads and the wolves outside! --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"It's an inspiring celebration of indigenous, handmade, personal-statement building. Oughta be the first book a freshman architecture student sees."
-J. Baldwin, Whole Earth Review

"How very fine it is to leaf through a 176 page book on architecture - from baliwicks to zomes - and find no palaces, no pyramids, or temples, no cathedrals, skyscrapers, Kremlins, or Pentagons in sight... Instead, a book of homes, habitations for human beings in all their infinite variety."
-Edward Abbey

"Shelter is a must not only for those actively engaged in house building, but for everyone who understands that lifestyle begins at home - that we are, after all, where we live."
-Rolling Stone

"It's time to educate the architects. To that extent this book on shakes and wattle and daub is the most revolutionary architecture book around..."
-Architecture in Australia

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Shelter Publications; 2nd edition (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0936070110
• ISBN-13: 978-0936070117
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 0.4 x 14.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #47 in Books > Professional & Technical > Architecture > Drafting & Presentation
  • #99 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Home Improvement & Design > Home Decorating & Design > Design & Construction

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars ! Very inspiring, a must-have reference. I never get tired of this book. October 1, 2005

By SteveCedarman

Format:Paperback

Shelters is a must-own classic. I treasure my copy, and I am actually came to the amazon site today to buy 3 copies of this book, one to donate to my Church library, one for a Christmas gift for a carpenter friend, and one to complement my first edition of this book. This book was first released in 1973 by Shelter Press. If this book is of interest, check out the other books from them.

This is a big, oversize paperback the size of a road atlas. Every page packed with great drawings, photos or diagrams. I never get tired of browsing through the pictures, reading some of the stories, and getting inspiration to go out and build a shelter, a home, for a planned or unplanned need to build a place to live; this book covers expedient shelters of many types.

I have yet to see a better book on this subject, it is simply a fantastic reference and a joy to read. This is not a book simply on construction methodology, this is a book about people building shelter to reflect available materials, tools, budget, and most of all culture.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars HANDBUILT HOUSES, BY FREE THINKING PEOPLE. WAY COOL YES. May 14, 2006

By A. Lawrence

Format:Paperback

I studied architecture in Australia and dragged my feet through the course. That is until a mate suggested I check out this book.
It liberated me.

Here was a bunch of common folk who met one of the most basic needs of all humanity - shelter.

So much of what we encounter in our 'western' enlightened age is alien and regulated. The materials that we commonly use in buildings & infrastruture is devoid of any life or connection with the earth. They are not in or close to their natural state. And even if they are, there is so much regulation and stipulation on how we are to use them.

But this book gives you hope, a chance to dream. It shows buildings as art forms, useful & practical but completely expressive of the owners they serve. They are not bound by regulations and conventions. This is craftsmanship not industrialisation. They are made from from natural unrefined materials which in essence connects us to the earth, which we all belong to. From dust we came, to dust we will all return. The beauty of nature is your own home.

This book is filled with ideas and ways in which people have often 'escaped' from the life draining cities to a more peacuful and harmonious way of life. It's superb photo's, hand illustrations and even the way the book is laid out are a freedom in itself. This is one book you will not regret owning and will always find pleasure returning again and again to.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Interesting September 24, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I believe this book was out of print for a while so it is nice to have it back. Architecture students or anyone with an interest in architecture would appreciate this book. It is a good look at how humans have satisfied one of our basic needs. It is an exhaustive collection of human habitats, written in a clever and unprentious way (unlike most architecture books!). If you like this book, you may also enjoy books by Witold Rybczynski such as Home, and Looking Around.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Introduction you Can't get... Start Building September 26, 2005

By Thought2Action

Format:Paperback

The approach to building, to space, to light and to atmosphere which Kahn & Easton have gathered in this book demonstrate a profound interest and concern, if not love, for exploring mind-space & life in its fullest. This book --full of examples, considerations and ideas-- ignites the smarts and hands of anybody with the will to make his house and his home his own.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars THE Book. December 14, 2002

By Scott Knudsen

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is THE Book to own if you have any interest in building construction, architecture, and lifestyle. The pictures are many, and great, and the reading is also just as interesting. I bought some as gifts, and for each of my carpenter friends.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very cool January 11, 2007

By Mike Smith VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Throughout the 1960s and `70s, hundreds of unwashed, longhaired youth from around the world descended on the open foothills around Placitas, New Mexico, and established multiple communal hippie settlements. These youth had read of the Placitas scene in national magazines and counterculture books, or heard about it from other hippies; they were idealistic types from all around the world, and they came to the area to try to raise their own food, escape The Man, indulge in free love and mind-altering drugs, and live communally in tents, geodesic domes, adobe shacks, and experimental homes they built themselves out of plastic and scrap metal.

This book, "Shelter" documents their bizarre housing experiments in wild detail. It also documents curvaceous mud homes in Africa, riverside huts in Yugoslavia, thatched huts in Ireland, homes in busses, homes in caves, dome homes, homes made of car parts, homes carved into mountainsides, homes made of hay, tipis, barns, gypsy tents, and more.

If there's a strange kind of housing, you'll probably find it in here, and you'll probably be inspired by it.

"Building this house was more of like feeling where you went as you started working with it, you know, the material and just playing it from there," said one Placitas hippie interviewed in this book. "...It's like three dimensional sculpturing, you know, we just got into building a house out here that's like jewelry. ......OK, let me put it this way, the inspiration like as we move along through it, like I found it in [Stanley Kubrick's film] 2001, where the dude had finally split out of the satellite and was heading towards Jupiter, just as he was coming in, what they had done was they had used different types of film, infrared for one, and just taken a plane and flown over Grand Canyon at a high speed, low, what is created you know, is in some respects synonymous to what the house is, you know, and certainly our cell structure in our body is synonymous with that...."

As you can probably tell, this is not "Better Homes and Gardens" or even "MTV Cribs." It's "Shelter," and it's a trip. Read more ›