Customer Reviews

Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of Designs, 1891 (Dover Architecture)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a Victorian Architecture buff, I'm hard pressed to give a distinct verdict on this book. It has great illustrations, offers general plans with dimensions for all of the designs, and gives a down and dirty description of each, but it seems to raise more questions than answers. If you are looking to discover what this type of architecture looked like, both in overall appearance and in selected details, then this is the book for you. If you are looking to discover how these things were built, then you are going to be slightly disappointed.

All in all (in spite of a few frustrating things), it is full of information and will give many hours of pleasure. The first 9 sheets are primarily text (13 pages of text), 13 pages of photos of actual houses (no plans--frustrating), another 10 pages of text, and then finally, 153 pages of floor plans with either elevations or perspectives. If any of the photos of houses at the beginning of the book corresponded to a floor plan later in the book, I was unable to spot it (frustrating). The perspectives and floor plans are in black and white (which is okay) with one house per page (which is good). Frequently a house is given two facing pages; there is a photo of a house on the left and then a perspective drawing of the same house on the facing page (or a perspective drawing on each page, each from a different angle), with the floor plans below (that is fabulous!!!). And, sometimes, there is a perspective (a corner view) on one page and an elevation (straight on view) with a similar floor plan on each page showing two variations on the same house (again, fabulous). Except for showing photos of houses without floor plans, it is an excellent book. Unfortunately, no floor plans for attic rooms were shown, even though it was obvious that there was another floor of bedrooms up there.

The designs in this book range from very small "cottages" to very large, very nice homes. Most of them are quite ornate. As most of the home designs are almost 120 years old, they really don't work very well for today's life-style, but, add a couple of nice bathrooms and update the kitchen, and you would have an extremely nice, attractive home. This book was definitely worth the price!

Another one of the re-published Barber books, it holds similar praise for its high quality home designs. Derived from both Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style, Barber presents works both big and small. It certainly is a well recommended book for those interested in 19th century plan books.

I loved this book for it's pages and pages of authentic Victorian floorplans. This book is basically just like the floorplan books of today: each page is a new house with one and many times two different floorplans for the same footprint. It also give the approximate price to build the house in 1891 dollars. I also includes a few actual photographs of built houses and which city they are located.

I also plan to construct these house in The Sims. Love it!