Customer Reviews

Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts and Crafts Architects of California

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When I began studying architecture, many of my favorite architects were designers in the Arts & Crafts style. They were my favorites before I even heard of the Movement. This book is not only a must have for students of architecture and Arts & Crafts fans, but a valuable resource for history scholars in general who want to learn more about the people who shaped the region and the way we live here. The book is nicely photographed, showing buildings in their early surroundings, as they exist today, a variety of good close-up details, etc. All photos are black and white, some with an authentic sepia tone look. Some color photos would have been nice. I wish that a book like this existed for the architects of each state. Each essay is well written by a variety of different authors, many of which are familiar names to Arts & Crafts enthusiasts.

J. Wheeler

San Francisco Bay Area Arts & Crafts Movement

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Orchard/8642/

This book covers early work by a large group of architects who could be classified as California Arts-and-Crafts designers. Some, like Bernard Maybeck, are well-known to most architects. Others are new to me. The projects selected by the editor are not at all familiar and some are quite lovely, such as the cover project, the Evans House by Louis Christian Mullgardt, built in 1907. My primary interest is in the last quarter of the book titled "The Second Generation." These are architects from the mid-20th century who worked in a contemporary version of the arts-and-crafts style, using a lot of wood and elegant detailing to create buildings with a warm appeal. However, each of these architects is illustrated with only two or three projects and the photographs, in keeping with the historic photos of the earlier work, are all small and printed in sepia tone only. Although it is nice to see these otherwise unfamiliar projects, the brevity of the text and the limited selection of projects was disappointing to me. In summary, this is a handsome book of fairly limited appeal that whets my appetite for a more complete and better-illustrated book on the so-called Second Generation.