American Shelter : An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Homes

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Altogether 103 styles of American housing are featured in this book, spanning the earth lodge (circa 300) to the projected space unit (circa 2000). There are full diagrams, history, and a description for each of the Native American and settler homes, including the pueblo, longhouse, and wigwam; the log cabin, garrison house, and saltbox; and on through the Georgian, Greek Revival, false front, Queen Anne, and neomodern. Whether you're a student of architecture, a dabbler in design, a house-history buff or a novice home-buyer attempting to decipher your realtor's descriptions, Lester Walker's American Shelter has a lot to offer.

Customer Reviews:

The Best Field Guide to American Domestic Architecture.......2005-08-17

In the world of architectural field guides, there is a division between the guides that rely heavily on photographs and those that use line drawings to represent buildings. Photographic field guides are good in that you can see actual historic homes. This is a valuable thing for people who like me live very far away from historic areas and rarely see a building over a hundred years old.

However, the great problem with photographic field guides is that it is often times difficult to understand a building style by looking at one or two representative photographs. What's worse is that often times the eye is drawn to details like electric lines or automobiles. One can spend more time trying to identify the decade the photo was taken than on concentrating on the image. For this reason, I prefer field guides that use line drawings to represent buildings. In my opinion, line drawings are a better tool for teaching the different architectural elements that come together to form a style.

Of the field guides that use line drawings, Lester Walker's "American Shelter" is the very best. It is the best for two reasons. First because of the sheer number of styles he identifies. In this book he details 103 styles whereas a typical field guide will usually identifies 20-30 unique styles. Second and foremost, Lester Walker is a very talented artist. His drawings are not hyper technical like the Historical American Building Survey (HABS) drawings which one finds in some field guides. They have a lot of personality which seperates them from what I call the illustrator school of architectural drawings.

I have been collecting field guides for a number of years and this is my favorite guide. That is not to say that there are not other very high quality guides. However, if you need to purchase just one field guide, this is the one. Hopefully, this book will inspire you to start collecting architectural field guides which in my opinion is a most worthy hobby.

Excellent Reference for Planners and Designers.......2004-04-15

I purchased this book while I was an undergraduate studying city planning. This book has been on my shelf since it was published and I still use it quite frequently today. This is a fantastic reference for anyone interested in housing, architecture and urban design. In fact, I highly recommend this book to any planning students with a housing or preservation focus. You will not regret having made the investment!

No historian should be without it.......2003-08-14

If you ever have reason to write (fictionally or otherwise) about American architecture (chiefly domestic), you shouldn't miss a chance to add this volume to your shelves. (It's included in the file I always send to Old-West mavens wanting to know what they should read.) Chapters range from two to eight pages in length and cover everything from the earth lodge of the Southeastern Plains Indians to the projected space station now three years past due. Typically, each includes the time and region in which the original style was most abundant, a few paragraphs explaining its history and salient features, and a number of finely detailed pen-and-ink sketches portraying exterior details and often cutaways and floor plans. The book can also be used as a field guide to help you decide what kind of house you happen to be looking at. From log cabins to Frank Lloyd Wright, Mount Vernon to the humble Quonset hut, every major kind of American house is here. This is an item that cries to be brought back into print. Until it is, don't miss a chance to pick up a used copy if you're afforded one.

American Shelter.......2002-08-13

I own the poster American Shelter by the same author, and wanted to see the explanations behind the dates and titles. As an architectural historian, I've studied many of these styles, but there are some new variations of house styles that are not part of any other reference book. This book has fun graphics and easy to follow descriptions. For the trained historians, architects, etc., this book is an amusing addition to your collections. To the architectural housing enthusiasts, this could be a helpful resource.

American Shelter: a definite "keeper".......2001-04-08

If your bookshelf only has room for one book on American architecture, this should be that book. Most of the books on architecture seem like a lot of style, but not much substance: many pages of pictures, often quite enticing, but leaving the reader with little knowledge of just what constitutes the various architecture styles so illustrated, or how styles relate to one another.

Lester Walker spent hundreds of hours researching various American architectural styles, going to such sources as the 1900's editions of Ladies Home Journal, which published plans for "A Small House With Lots of Room in it" by a young upstart named Frank Lloyd Wright. Walker gives us the first-floor house plans, along with a birds-eye view of Wright's "Small House." In this illustration Walker uses captions and arrows to innumerate the salient features of "Wrightian" architecture.

So it goes throughout American Shelter. Walker starts with the dwellings of American Indians and takes us through over 100 different styles that were popular at one time or another in our diverse history. A read through this book is a stroll through our history. The author not only points out the defining features of each style, but also tells why and how it came into vogue.

Color photos are not the only "must have" features conspicuously absent. Missing is also judgmental, cavalier, snobbery. No architectural style is treated as inferior, common, or "tiresome." Quonset Hut, Converted Train Car, and Prefabricated are given just as much respect as Victorian, International, and Prairie.

Examples of houses of various architects that typify or characterize each style are shown in line drawings with accompanying floor plans and often with illustrations on house building styles or techniques. For example, on page 71 a "method for making cedar clapboards" is illustrated. Balloon, Platform, and Post and Beam framing methods are explained with accompanying illustrations.

The book is about individual dwelling units, not apartment houses, and not commercial or industrial buildings. For what it is, and does, it is the definitive work. I have had many hours of enjoyable reading and learning from this book. My only complaint is with the bookbinder, not the author. Some of the pages of my copy are upside down! Perhaps, like the famous upside-down airplane stamp, my copy is rare and valuable? Then again: perhaps not, but right side up, or upside down, it has been well worth the purchase price.

Book Description

A comprehensive, richly illustrated encyclopedia of American architectural history.

Since the Spanish established their first settlement in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565, America has been an architectural melting pot, reflecting the contributions of every immigrant group that brought its traditions across the sea and adapted them to the places where they settled. The rich diversity of this country's architecture is reflected in the nearly 200 styles, types, and modes of American architecture that are identified in these pages—more than can be found in any other book. Over 2,500 definitions and nearly 1,000 illustrations describe construction materials and techniques, landscape elements, decorative terms, and practical devices, from precolonial times to the present, and from indigenous dwellings to deconstructivist structures. This wide-ranging book is enriched with intriguing historical and biographical treasures. Students of architecture, architectural historians, preservationists, curators, and general readers will find it pleasurable, informative, and sometimes surprising. Over 1,000 b/w illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Simple and Concise.......2007-08-06

If you are looking for a quick, easy intro to architectural styles, this is a good guide.

The Next Step in Architectural Field Identification.......2005-07-25

For numerous years, I have been collecting field guides to American Architecture. These guides do a great job of pointing out most of the important architectural features that make up a particular style. However, often times the smaller details of the buildings are not described. This is where Cyril Harris' "American Architecture: An Illustrated Encyclopedia" comes to fill this gap.

Most people know what a gable is. But if you want to know the difference between a bell gable, clipped gable, corbiestep gable or cross gable, this is the book for you. To further add value to the book, Harris uses numerous line drawn illustrations to add texture to his definitions. This is a highly recommended book for people who like to read buildings.

needs more graphics.......2000-05-05

The book is great, but lots of definitions don't have pictures; Some house types had pictures while others did not.

American Homes: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Domestic Architecture - A landmark reference with more than 1,000 illustrations, elevations, and palns

Average customer rating:

A very good book -- but
A Splendid Architectural Overview
A Great History

American Homes: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Domestic Architecture - A landmark reference with more than 1,000 illustrations, elevations, and palns
Lester Walker
Manufacturer: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1579122523

Book Description

A landmark of architectural history, AMERICAN HOMES surveys over 100 American housing styles and illustrates them through nearly 1000 line drawings. Using his own unique combination of "exploded" diagrams and floor plans and easy-to-follow text, award-winning architect and author Lester Walker has created the definitive bible of home design, fully practical but wonderful, too, for armchair browsing and dreaming.

Walker describes each style's signature features, and how, where, when, and why the style developed in response to the landscape. The full evolution of American residential architecture is represented, including Dutch Colonials, Log cabins, Southern plantation mansions, Carpenter Gothics, Neo-modern styles, and more.

For anyone who has ever designed or owned a home--or just lived in one--AMERICAN HOMES is the quintessential reference to our country's dwellings, past, present, and future.

Customer Reviews:

A very good book -- but.......2005-05-12

I am interested in historic architecture -- mostly eastern coast architecture of the colonial period. And this book does a grand job of displaying it in its varied forms and regional and ethnic differences. As you can see I rated it at 4. Why not 5? Because I caught a couple of mistakes in the identification of some of the buildings -- both as to location and to period of history from which they came.
The first mistake I noticed is the octaginal blockhouse on Davis Island in Edgecome, Maine on page 67. Mr. Walker idenitifies it as a building from the 1650's. It was in fact built in 1805 as the central fortification of an earthwork and palsade gun battery to protect Sheepscot Bay. It is one of a whole string of idential coastal fortifications designed and built by the Army Corp of Engineers the specific engineer for this series of fortifications was Moses Porter -- at that time based at West Point. I have lived most of my life within 40 miles of this building.
The second building that I believe to be mislocated is found on page 95. It is correctly identified as an early georgian house. Where I disagree with Mr. Walker is it location. It is in fact a house that stands to this day in the city of Portmouth, New Hampshire and was the home of an 18th century merchant of that city. There is also a wooden example of the same house on route 1a just outside of the town of Newberryport, Massachusetts and another one built, 1782, in Saco, Maine.
With these exceptions I have enjoyed reading and re-reading this book

A Splendid Architectural Overview.......2004-04-23

"American Homes" by Lester Walker is a bargain at the price Amazon is charging. It is a lavishly illustrated (albeit in black and white) comprehensive work detailing every style of American home in drawings, sections, and elevations emphasizing the differences that make a certain home or style unique. In this way it is extremely useful for anyone with even a passing interest in architecture to learn about the varying styles of American homes.

Mr. Walker does not visibly seem to favor any one style over another, and avoids editorializing for the most part. Instead he seems to love all the differing styles for what they are, in different ways, and for different reasons, depending of the particular house in question. In addition to specifics on certain examples and styles, Mr. Walker also gives the reader a historical perspective of housing developments in a developmental time frame, starting with Pueblo and Tipi styles to the Inflatable, Deconstruction, Brutalism, and Neomodern styles that are decidedly more recent. As a fan of creative contemporary architecture, I especially found the coverage of the International Revival movement, the quirky Silo and Yurt homes of the early 1970s, and Fantasy homes from the 1940s in the shapes of an elephant (Margate City, NJ), Mother Goose (Hazard, KY), and a pig (Los Angeles, CA), among others, to be delightful.

This is a wonderful volume and I highly endorse it to anyone from architectural historian to collectors of Americana.

A Great History.......2003-01-05

I really love this book - it has given me some useful information on the kinds of houses and buildings I may see all over the country - an historical education that I have wanted. And this book makes it fun & easy to learn. The illustrations are cool and the format is very helpful.

The Art & Architecture of the Aztec & Maya: An illustrated encyclopedia of the buildings, sculptures and art of the peoples of Mesoamerica, with over 220 ... of ancient Mexico and central America

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The Art & Architecture of the Aztec & Maya: An illustrated encyclopedia of the buildings, sculptures and art of the peoples of Mesoamerica, with over 220 ... of ancient Mexico and central America
Charles Phillips
Manufacturer: Southwater
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1844763684

Book Description

The book goes on to discuss and illustrate the beauty of the colossal stone sculptures of the Toltec, and the magnificent jade carvings of the Olmec, and the turquoise mosaics of the Aztec. The book has a highly visual approach, with over 230 supe

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For the first time in paperback, David Easton shows how to master the medium of watercolor from the first brush stroke to the finished painting.

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From the street photographs of the 1950s and 1960s to the postmodern imagery of the 1980s, from photography that addressed identity politics in the early 1990s to the new imaging technologies of the last decade, photography has been at the forefront of artistic innovation in America. As this volume demonstrates, its capacity for personal expression, for telling stories, and for documenting facts, makes it a medium of eloquence, relevance, and lasting power.

The Whitney Museum of American Art, which possesses the single most comprehensive collection of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American art, has in recent years concentrated on expanding its photography collection. Representing the work of more than forty artists, this volume of over 160 photographs highlights the Whitney's collection and provides photographic visions made by artists living and working in the United States from 1940 to 2000. Accompanying a major exhibition at the Whitney, this catalogue offers portraits, landscapes, streetscapes, and genre subjects from both emerging and well-known photographers, including Diane Arbus, Harry Callahan, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, Cindy Sherman, Joel Sternfeld, Brett Weston, and Garry Winogrand.

Customer Reviews:

excellent selection of contemporary photographers.......2006-08-03

This book is an excellent source for an introduction to contemporary photography in the US. With only one photograph from each photographer, it allows for a large variety of subject matter and shooting styles, giving you just a taste of The print job is excellent as well.

Beautiful scenery, but RECKLESS NUDITY.......2006-01-21

This book is a lovely book in many ways. Many of the pictures are breathtakingly beautiful. This collection presents many everyday objects in new and interesting ways. One of my favorite pictures features the regression of time from the present day office environment to the Garden of Eden.

I offer one major disclaimer about this book: It features outright nudity in several pictures. I found a few photographs distasteful and unwanted. I had wished to give this book as a present, but upon seeing these pieces, knew that it would be inappropriate for many of my friends. I was sorely dissappointed that nudity was not mentioned anywhere in the book's description!

If you enjoy abstract/daring pieces of artwork, then you might appreciate this book. However, if you seek wholesome and clean art, please do not buy this book!!

Book Description

This story relates the painful and embarrassing aftermath of name-calling and bullying from the perspective of the bully. J. J. Jax has been tormenting an overweight boy named Patrick, calling him Pig-Pen and Porky, to the point that Patrick is now afraid to go to school. Learning of his son's behavior, J. J.'s father lectures him to stop bullying Patrick. When that approach fails, Mr. Jax tries another tack and shares an experience he had as a youthful bully and the consequences he recently faced as a result of his actions. Touched by his father's words, J.J. reaches out to Patrick in a school arm-wrestling contest and experiences the "alley oops" moment of empowerment and self-esteem that comes from doing the right thing. Snappy dialogue highlights the harmful, lasting effects of bullying and the importance of finding common ground toward conflict resolution. Believable contemporary illustrations bring the story to life with expressive body language.

Customer Reviews:

Demonstrates the negative consequences of bullying, and offers a positive alternative through self-empowerment and esteem.......2005-09-14

The subject of dealing with bullies is the focus of Alley Oops, an entertaining and superbly written picturebook written by Janice Levy and illustrated by Cynthai Decker for young readers ages 5 to 9. The story follows young Patrick as he repeatedly encounters a name-calling bully at school - J.J. Jax, who labels him "Pig-Pen" and "Porky". When Mr. Jax learns of this, he tells J.J. a story about the days long ago when he was once a bully. Mr. Jax explains that everyone has two dogs inside - one bad and one good - and whichever dog we feed the most will win the battle. Ally Oops demonstrates the negative consequences of bullying, and offers a positive alternative through self-empowerment and esteem, which can be used to build lasting connections of true friendship. Very highly recommended.

a bully can change.......2005-05-22

Rebeccasreads highly recommends ALLEY OOPS as a funny & emotional read about how JJ so torments Patrick that he stays away from school. You kind of get the picture of a ferocious little terrier dog, barking at an elephant's heels.

Then JJ's father tells him a story about how he too was a bully & what happened to the boy he tormented. Impressed, JJ goes off to Patrick's home to sort things out, only to discover how alike they are, especially in their passion for arm wrestling.

Pretty soon, they come up with a way to win friends & influence everyone at school, JJ is going to be Patrick's, the "Hammer Hand", manager.

Average customer rating:

Alley Oop
V. T. Hamlin
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Binding: Paperback

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Alley Oop and Dinny in the Jungles of Moo

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Alley Oop and Dinny in the Jungles of Moo
(Based on characters created by V.T. Hamlin)
Manufacturer: Whitman Publishing Co.
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Binding: Hardcover
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Alley Oop Daily Strips from June 21, 1947 to August 30, 1948: The Sphinx and Alley Oop

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Alley Oop Daily Strips from June 21, 1947 to August 30, 1948: The Sphinx and Alley Oop
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The Alley Oop Fun Book

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ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0394847857

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Alley Oop The Magazine No. 1
Frank (editor) Stack
Manufacturer: SPEC Productions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SP6KL0

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Alley Oop!
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Manufacturer: Henry Holth & Co (J)
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Alley Oop: Mystery of the Sphinx, Daily Strips from June 21, 1947 to August 30, 1948

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Alley Oop: Mystery of the Sphinx, Daily Strips from June 21, 1947 to August 30, 1948
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Alley Oop; Volume 3: First Trip to the Moon

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Alley Oop; Volume 3: First Trip to the Moon
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Grand Slams, Hat Tricks and Alley-Oops: A Sports Fan's Book of Words

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Grand Slams, Hat Tricks and Alley-Oops: A Sports Fan's Book of Words
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