Essays:

Maybeck on Hillside Building (Hillside Club)
Maybeck on Civic Design (Canberra)
Maybeck on Architecture (Palace of Fine Arts)
A Simple Home by Charles Keeler
Bernard Maybeck: a Gothic man in the 20th Century by Charles Keeler

Part 1: Books on Maybeck

"Bernard Maybeck: Artisan, Architect, Artist"
Kenneth H. Cardwell
Published by Hennessey + Ingalls, Santa Monica

A very good book. Cardwell, as a young architecture student at Berkeley in the 1940s, had the advantage of having had a friendship with Maybeck in Maybeck's later years. He cataloged Maybeck's papers. Soft Cover, black and white illustrations. 255 pages

"Bernard Maybeck; Visionary Architect"
Text by Sally B. Woodbridge, Photography by Richard Barnes.
Abbeville Press

Another well-done book that is also gorgeous. Coffee-table size with beautiful color photos and reproductions of Maybeck's watercolors and charcoal drawings. Both this and Cardwell's book are essential for an understanding of Maybeck. They compliment each other. Cardwell gives a more complete overview, Woodbridge goes into more depth about select major projects. If you are going to try just one, however, it should be this book, due to the color pictures. Maybeck's wood interiors can look dingy in black and white but in color are warm and lovely. 247 pages, hardcover.

"The First Church of Christ Scientist, Berkeley; Architect: Bernard Maybeck."
Edward R Bosely
Phaidon

Coffee-table size, soft cover, color, slim. Sixty pages on one of Maybeck's- and the world's- most beautiful buildings.

Maybeck, The Family View, by Jacomena Maybeck

Tender portrait by Bernard's daughter-in-law. Available from the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association

"Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts and Crafts Architects of California"
Edited by Robert Winter
The University of California Press
A good overview and an attractive book. Short chapters (academic papers, more accurately) on 28 Arts and Crafts architects including Maybeck, his student Julia Morgan and the Greene brothers. Hard Cover, black and white illustrations. 310 pages.

The Cottage Book

Richard Sexton, Sally B. Woodbridge (Introduction)
List Price: $19.95
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Paperback - 120 pages (September 1998)
Dimensions (in inches): 0.41 x 9.65 x 10.13

 A book on the nifty little cottages scattered around the San Francisco area. It is also the least expensive book that introduces Bernard Maybeck- Sexton profiles five of Maybeck's cottages.

We're studying the possibility of building similar cottages as a housing option for single people.

Sexton is perceptive. Also see "Parallel Utopias", below.

Craftsman-Style Houses (Great Houses : Fine Homebuilding)

Includes detailed article on a particularly interesting Maybeck house (The second house for Bernard's son Wallen and daughter-in-law Jocomina ) and a similarly interesting Charles Green house- plus interesting articles on several modern attempts to continue the tradition. From Fine Homebuilding Magazine.

The Arts and Crafts Movement in America 1876-1916

Robert Judson Clark
A catalog to the spectacular exhibit of Arts and Crafts objects Clark organized in 1972. His efforts had much to do with the revival in interest in the style. Clark was a longtime professor at Princeton.

Faculty Club, Berkeley James Steele.

Out of print but often still available used.

Part 2: Indirect Approaches to Maybeck

All of the books that follow are personal recommendations- of the many books we own, those we've found most useful and still find interesting. This isn't a general store of planning and architecture books- just a limited selection-- of what we believe to be the good stuff.

Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages by Umberto Eco.

Years ago, we were struck by an essay by Eco, in The New Yorker, on Post-Modernism. He made the point that a difference between the Post-Modern and the ancient uses of ancient forms was one of faith. The Post-Modernist was using them to demonstrate his or her wit or erudition, while the ancient builder was striving to achieve something he believed was real, and at the core of existence. That in the medieval cathedral, for example, the goal was to find and weave together proportion, light, pattern and detail so that beauty, or the expression in space of humility and upward striving- things difficult to articulate but a real things- were achieved, the center of the creation made manifest.

It turned out that Eco had written this book in 1958. It is helpful in understanding Maybeck. Also see Maybeck: A Gothic Man in the 20th Century-- by Charles Keeler

"If you want to become acquainted with medieval aesthetics you will not find a more scrupulously researched, better written (or better translated), intelligent and illuminating introduction than Eco's short volume."- D.C. Barrett, Art Monthly

"A lucid exposition of alien ways of thinking" - Nicholas Penny, The London Review of Books.

Christopher Alexander

A Pattern Language.: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Christopher Alexander et al

A very useful book. The authors, through interviews and study identify patterns in building and organization of the environment that have repeatedly worked, according to those who live among them. It focuses on the things important to the residents rather than on theories about sculptural form, commentary, etc. We give this book to many of our clients. It helps when thinking through the sort of house in which you want to live.

A feature of Maybecks building is attention to such modest purposes. There might even be a connection-- Alexander lives and works in Berkeley, as did Maybeck. So when Alexander's grad students set out to identify those parts of the built environment that people most loved, the chances were good that they would have been pointed to Maybeck's work. Regardless, Alexander and his colleagues have done great service in trying to articulate the constituent parts of such building.

"The second of three books published by the Center for Environmental Structure to provide a "working alternative to our present ideas about architecture, building, and planning," "A Pattern Language" offers a practical language for building and planning based on natural considerations. The reader is given an overview of some 250 patterns that are the units of this language, each consisting of a design problem, discussion, illustration, and solution. By understanding recurrent design problems in our environment, readers can identify extant patterns in their own design projects and use these patterns to create a language of their own. Extraordinarily thorough, coherent, and accessible, this book has become a bible for homebuilders, contractors, and developers who care about creating healthy, high-level design. "-- Amazon.com

"We need to design the new digital landscapes to be for us, instead of simply adapting to their values. They need to reflect our ways of perceiving and our emotions. This will not be easy to accomplish; it is not the by-default result. THE SECOND CHALLENGE IS TO MAKE THE NEW LANDSCAPES BEAUTIFUL. To do this, we will need great design more than ever. Christopher Alexander's ideas, introduced in his seminal work A Pattern Language, are important and hopeful. Pattern languages emerge from a study of the small elements that work in our built world, and the relationships between them. For example, rooms work better if they have light coming in from two sides, so there is glare-free natural light; spaces with lower ceilings feel more intimate; entering a comfortable building, we proceed through a sequence of spaces, from the most public to the most intimate. Such patterns aren't laws, yet designs that are "beautiful" tend to respect them. Since writing A Pattern Language more than 20 years ago, Alexander has been working to understand what it is that makes things beautiful, to uncover a natural order that underlies beautiful things. I certainly do not believe that all beauty can be captured mathematically, but I do believe there are usually organizing principles shared by the things that we like and find beautiful. For example, beautiful things tend to have a strong center toward which we gravitate, whether it be a warm room at the center of a house, candles in the center of a table, or a central element in a beautiful painting. We can imagine organizing a new kind of design software around this principle and other generative design elements. " -- Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems

Selections from Alexander's other books:

• The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander
• A companion volume to "A Pattern Language"
• The Mary Rose Museum (Center for Environmental Structure, Vol. 8}, Christopher Alexander
• A slim volume on a beautiful building.
• A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art : The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets (Center for Environmental Structure, Christopher Alexander. This book on carpets takes Alexander's ideas on planning and architecture much further than did his previous books. Highly recommended. Excerpt: "In the 20th century a long succession of painters and artists have also struggled with the problem of pure arrangement of color and form. But few of those artists have really yet dealt with the microstructure. The connection between small structure and big structure, hardly exists in their work. The inspiration for an architect, who realizes that the world is made up of tiny elements, must be made up of tiny elements- and that it is the geometry and organization this tiniest scale- this problem, and its solution, has not existed in the work of these arts. That is the problem of architecture to which I have addressed myself. And, in trying to find a teacher, I came to the very earliest Turkish carpets. It is in these carpets, that this problem is most profoundly dealt with."
• Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Christopher Alexander
  

Pattern: A Study of Ornament in Western Europe, 1180-1900 by Joan Evans

Out of print but worth finding

Origins of Architectural Pleasure, Grant Deliberating

New, will become a classic.

"Speculating that nature has 'designed' us to prefer certain conditions and experiences, Deliberating is interested in how the characteristics of our most satisfying built environments mesh with Darwinian selection. In examining the appeal of such survival-based characteristics he cites architectural examples spanning five continents and five millennia. Among those included are the Palace of Minos, the Alhambra, Wells cathedral, the Shinto shrine at Ise, the Piazza San Marco, Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, a Seattle condominium, and recent houses by Eric Owen Moss andArne Bystrom. Just what characteristics bestow evolutionary benefits? 'Refuge and prospect' offer a protective place of concealment close to a foraging and hunting ground. 'Enticement' invites the safe exploration of an information-rich setting where worthwhile discoveries await. 'Peril' elicits an emotion of pleasurable fear and so tests and increases our competence in the face of danger: thus the attraction of a skyscraper or a house poised over a vertiginous ravine. 'Order and complexity' tease our intuitions for sorting complex information into survival-useful categories. "

Part 3: Maybeck's Friends, Influences, and Fellow Travelers

Plan of Chicago, Daniel Burnham

Burnham was a friend of Maybeck's. Maybeck spent much time in his later years refining and warping Burnham's (never built) plans for San Francisco.

"Burnham and Bennett's landmark text--published in 1909-- revolutionized urban design. Adopted by the city of Chicago, the plan had a major impact on its development, particularly that of the Lake Shore, detailing proposals for circulation, transportation facilities, civic buildings, and parks. This reprint reproduces all 143 plates from the original, 48 in color. It also contains a plate of City Hall, rendered in color by Jules Guerin, that was omitted from the original edition. Kristen Schaffer's new introduction examines Burnham's handwritten draft of the book, focusing on those parts that were edited out of the publication, to suggest a reinterpretation of the plan. Exquisitely beautiful and belongs on coffee tables as well as in libraries."

Julia Morgan, Architect by Sara Holmes Boutelle, Richard Barnes (Photographer) (Paperback - October 1995)

America's (and maybe the world's) first woman architect- and Maybeck's student, apprentice and collaborator. Best known for San Simeon (the Hearst Castle). She also collaborated with Maybeck on the Pheobe Hearst Memorial, Principia College and other late-carrear projects. Maybeck apparently provided much undocumented assistance with the Hearst Castile.

Greene & Greene

by Edward R. Bosley. Hardcover (June 2000)

The Arts and Crafts architects Charles and Henry Greene were Maybeck's contemporaries. Their buildings are beautiful, but less varied and much more expensive than Maybeck's. Greene and Greene carried craftsmanship to an extreme, Maybeck did with less, relying on design. We haven't read this book yet, but from conversation with Ted Bosely while we were both researching in the Berkeley archive, we're confident that it will be excellent.

• Greene & Greene : Masterworks by Bruce Smith , Alexander Vertikoff (Photographer), Hardcover (October 1998)
  
  The "Masterworks" are a series of Pasedina mansions. A beautiful volume.
• Greene & Greene : The Passion and the Legacy, Randell L. Makinson
• A new examination of the Greene's work by Makinson, this time with color pictures .
  
• Greene and Greene : Furniture and Related Designs, Randell L. Makinson
• Greene and Greene: Architecture As a Fine Art, Randell L. Makinson, B&W
• Gamble House : Greene and Greene (Architecture in Detail)
• Edward R. Bosley / Paperback / Published 1993
  Our Price: $23.96 ~ You Save: $5.99 (20%)
  
• Another well done slim volume by Edward Boseley.

Designing Utopia : John Ruskin's Urban Vision for Britain and America ,Michael H. Lang

Seven Lamps of Architecture, John Ruskin

"Ruskin's SevenLamps of Architecture (1849) provided a gospel those who believed that sincerity was a cardinal virtue in architecture.... Ruskin cited as deceits "the suggestion of a mode of support other than the true one, the painting of surfaces to resemble some other material, and the use of cast or machine-made ornament of any kind."

"For both Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc, Medieval architecture exemplified architectural truth because it was made by craftsmen who used materials according to their inherent qualities."

"Maybeck explained to Keeler that architects, in the modern sense of the term, had emerged during the Renaissance and were businessmen who did not produce sincere buildings. Keeler wrote in his manuscript that Maybeck, " did not mind how crude a thing was if it was sincere and expressed something personal." --Sally Woodbridge

Note, however, that although Maybeck made some of the most honest buildings-- by Ruskin's definitions-- that have been made, he elsewhere built such a thing as the Palace of Fine Arts, out of cast plaster. His ideas about honesty of materials were not quite Ruskin's.

The Architectural Theory of Viollet-Le-Duc : Readings and Commentary by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc

Good introduction: well-chosen selections from his writings.

Violet-le-Duc had been out of print in English. A reading of his writings shows his influence on Maybeck to be more direct and extensive than has been described.

For the original of Maybeck's table for the first church, see page 211.

The Foundation of Architecture : Selections from the Dictionnaire Raisonne by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc

"I thought [Violette-le-Duc's] Raisonne was the only sensible book on architecture in the world. I later obtained copies for my sons. This book alone enabled us to keep our faith in architecture, in spite of architects." -- Frank Lloyd Wright

"Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) is widely recognized as the most astute and influential architectural theorist of his era. His greatest work is the ten-volume Descriptive dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century (Dictionnaire raisonne de l'architecture francaise du XIeme au XVIeme siecle). For the first time, the four most important essays have been collected and translated into English. These essays treat the history of French architecture, the principles of construction, the relationship between style and architecture, and the art of restoration." -Book News, Inc.

The classicists triumphed and medievalist Viollet-le-Duc was dismissed from the faculty of the Ecole des Beaux Arts before Maybeck was admitted. Maybeck however would describe himself as a medievalist.

• Lectures on Architecture by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc
• Memory and Modernity : Viollet-Le-Duc at Vezelay, Kevin D. Murphy, Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc
• Annals of a Fortress Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc (Due to be published November 2000)
• Book Description: "New introduction by Christopher Duffy, 85 illustrations 5 x 8 The... life story of a fortres.s ...charts the development of fortification and the art of the siege ... one of the greatest and most unusual books ever written on siege warfare andfortifications. In prose, Viollet-le-Duc recreates the life of a French castle from its obscure origins to its fate in the Franco-Prussian War. As an architect and experienced military engineer Viollet-le-Duc was uniquely placed to write on the history of fortifications. In Annals of a Fortress he examines the life of the imaginery castle of La Roche-Pont as it endures numerous protracted and bitter sieges. Viollet-le-Duc was a noted military engineer, serving in the Franco-Prussian War, and architectural historian. "
• The Habitations of Man in All Ages Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc

Gottfried Semper : Architect of the Nineteenth Century Harry Francis Mallgrave

"Living through one of the most tempestuous periods in German history--from the Napoleonic Wars through unification--Gottfried Semper produced some of the monuments of Prussian architecture: the Hoftheater at Dresden, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and the Hofburg Theater in Vienna. He also produced two classic works of art history: The Four Elements of Architecture and Science, Industry, and Art, which influenced contemporaries from Richard Wagner to Louis Sullivan. The tumult of 20th century Germany has more or less overwhelmed Semper's memory and reputation, so this new biography is a welcome addition to the history of 19th century architectural history. Harry Francis Mallgrave is the Willard K. Martin Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Oregon.

"Although Maybeck may have sympathized with Ruskin's and Violet-le-Duc's principles, the man whose ideas may have struck deeper in his psyche was the German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper. ... During his design and construction work on the Crystal Palace, Semper had the opportunity to study the crafts of the 'half-civilized societies,' as they were then called, of Lapps, American Indians, Tibetians, and Africans. He became convinced that these societies produced art that was technically superior to anything in Europe. His major work... advanced the theory... that art originated in techniques that depended on the nature of materials used." -Sally Woodbridge

Gottfried Semper : In Search of Architecture

American Vitruvius : An Architect's Handbook of Civic Art (Reprint Series)

A book full of treasures.

"American Vitruvius, originally published in 1922, is considered the classic encyclopedia of urban design. It contains 1203 plans, elevations, and perspective views of both European and American cities, spanning from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. This facsimile edition includes a preface by Leon Krier as well as texts by Alan Plattus and Christiane Collins"

Craftsman Homes : Architecture and Furnishings of the American Arts and Crafts Movemen

by Gustav Stickley List Price: $12.95
Our Price: $10.36
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Paperback - 205 pages (July 1979)
Dimensions (in inches): 0.56 x 10.90 x 8.11

The Furniture of Gustav Stickley : History, Techniques, Projects by Joseph J. Bavaro, et al (Paperback - January 1997)
Stickly was a turn-of-the century furniture manufacturer and entrepreneur who became the great promotor of what he called the "Craftsman" style. Stickley's furnature is also called "Mission". He also designed one of the first electric chairs.

This book contains excerpts from his magazine "The Craftsman" including much information on furniture, wood finishes, decor and textiles. Stickley credited rustic chairs he found in the Swedenborgen Church in San Francisco with inspiring Mission furniture. It appears that those chairs were probably early designs by Maybeck.

The 1912 And 1915 Gustav Stickley Craftsman Furniture Catalogs by Gustav Stickley. Paperback (May 1991

Stairway Walks in San Francisco

Delightful

by Adah Bakalinsky

Frank Lloyd Wright : Early Visions

Frank Lloyd Wright, Nancy Frazier / Hardcover / Published 1995
$17.99

Wright's early work has much in common with Maybeck's. It doesn't appear that they influenced each other.

Park and Recreation Structures

Landscape Architecture:
"This gorgeously reproduced volume, a reprint of the classic 1938 National Park Service study, offers inspiration through hundreds of drawings and photos of park structures."

A Clearing in the Distance : Frederich Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century

by Witold Rybczynski. Paperback (July 2000)

Olmstead influenced Maybeck. His work also directly influences our plans for The Harbor Hills

"Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) is best remembered today as a landscape designer, well known for his plans for New York's Central Park and Prospect Park, the grounds of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, and the campus of Stanford University, among other noteworthy sites. But, writes urban studies professor and accomplished author Witold Rybczynski, Olmsted was an American original, a 19th-century success story who packed many careers and wide learning and travel into a long life. He spent time in China and Europe, managed a California gold mine, edited The Nation, commanded a medical unit in the Civil War, and crisscrossed the United States many times over, writing long reports and articles all the while. (One series of reports urged, for instance, that the then-remote Yosemite region of California be made a national park.) Olmsted, Rybczynski suggests, changed the face of America: he had a vision of the American landscape as a reflection of the national character, with its broad vistas and open skies, and he was concerned to make America's urban spaces livable, bringing "trees and greenery into the congested grid of streets." At Olmsted's urging, many American and Canadian cities adopted his system of parks, broad avenues, and greenways, which encouraged the appreciation and preservation of nature; his influence is felt today in the so-called urban ecology movement, and in dozens of public spaces across the continent."

"Rybczynski's fine and illuminating biography of Olmsted shows him to have been a man of many parts, an important historical figure whose legacy remains strong nearly a century after his death." --Gregory McNamee --

The New York Times Book Review, Suzanna Lessard:
"...[an] excellent biography.... a straightforward work, thorough and respectful, yet easeful in a way that is reminiscent of Olmsted himself."

The Wall Street Journal, Stanley Weintraub
" [A Clearing in the Distance] goes a long way toward capturing Olmsted the man. It also helps to establish Olmsted's important place in American history.... a biography that communicates, with feeling, the ups and downs of Olmsted's career as well as of the profession he helped to invent."

• Frederick Law Olmsted : Designing the American Landscape by Charles E. Beveridge, et al (Paperback - October 1998)
  Our Price: $20.00
• "Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) designed America's most beloved parks and landscapes of the past century--New York's Central Park, Brooklyn's Prospect Park, the US Capitol grounds, the Biltmore Estate, and many others. From the authors and photographer of the definitive book on Olmsted comes this condensed edition presenting the breadth of Olmsted's work in expansive, beautiful color photographs. The engaging text illuminates Olmsted's role as an indefatigable social resource."
• Civilizing American Cities : Writings on City Landscapes by Frederick Law Olmsted, et al (Paperback - April 1997)
• Creating Central Park 1857-1861 : The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted
• The California Frontier 1863-1865 (The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted)
• Defending the Union : The Civil War and the US Sanitary Commission, 1861-1863 (Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Vol. 4)
• Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted : Supplementary Series : Writings on Public Parks, Parkways, and Park Systems (Supplementary Series, Vol. 1)
• Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove : A Preliminary Report, 1865
• Eden by Design : The 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Regional Plan for Los Angeles
• F.L. Olmsted JR.
• Forty Years of Landscape Architecture : Professional Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted; Central Park by Frederick Law Olmsted
• Flo : A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted Laura Wood Roper,
• Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System by Cynthia Zaitzevsky
• Cotton Kingdom : A Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave State by Frederick Law Olmsted
• Not architecture but "His great book" --Adam Gopnik
• The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted : The Years of Olmsted, Vaux & Company, 1865-1874 by Frederick Law Olmsted
• A Consideration of the Justifying Value of a Public Park (Notable American Authors) by Frederick Law Olmsted

Art of Building Cities : City Building According to Its Artistic Fundamentals Camillio Sitte

The 1889 Classic. Acually worth the $189.50. New link-- now available for $59.50 as a "print on demand" volume from Alibris,

Raymond Unwin : Garden Cities and Town Planning

Mervyn Miller

Tertium Organum (1920), P. D. Ouspensky

Cited by Maybeck when attempting to explain his more mystical thoughts on building.

The Beautiful Necessity : Architecture as Frozen Music, Claude Bragdon

"In this widely read book Bragdon discussed architecture in the mystical context... presenting ideas that h much in common with those expressed by Maybeck in his own writings" Sally Woodbridge

Projective Ornament, Claude Bragdon

Great Camps of the Adirondacks, Harvey Kaiser

Arts & Crafts Houses I : Philip Webb, Red House ; William Richard Lethaby, Melsetter House ; Sir Edwin Lutyens, Goddards (Architecture

Arts & Crafts Houses II : Charles Rennie MacKintosh, Hil l House ; CFA Voysey, the Homestead ; Greene and Greene, Gamble House (Architecture 3S)

Arts & Crafts Masterpieces : Edward Prior, st Andrew's Church, Roker ; Charles Rennie MacKintosh, Glasgow School of Art ; Barnard Maybeck, First church

American Country Building Design : Rediscovered Plans for 19Th-Century Farmhouses, Cottages, Landscapes, Barns, Carriage Houses, Donald J. Berg

American Country Houses of the Gilded Age : Sheldon's 'Artistic Country-Seats' ,Arnold Lewis

The Architecture of Country Houses : Including Designs for Cottages, and Farmhouses, and Villas, With Remarks on Interiors, Andrew Jackson Downing

"This text is a true classic. Originally published in 1850, it is a reprint of the Gothic Revival pattern book of Andrew Jackson Downing who was the authority and champion of this style. Gothic Revival houses dominated the American countryside from the 1830s to the 1860s, and most of the designs for these houses were based on the patterns found in this book."

Part 4: Historic Architectures

While Maybeck was congenitally radical and original, he had a thorough education in- and reverence for- the architecture that had developed over centuries, little of which is taught anymore. These are some of the most important books an architect of his generation, and education, might have had on hand.

Vitruvius : Ten Books on Architecture

Literally the "Ten Scrolls on Architecture". The most significant surviving ancient text on classical architecture, inspiration for those who made the Renaissance.

Italian Gardens of the Renaissance

Many of the more formal landscapes Maybeck built seem directly influenced by these examples.

"The fifth edition of this classic reproduces the text and plates of the first edition (1925, Ernest Benn) without change except for repagination, a slightly smaller format, a brief introduction, and Jellicoe's foreword to the 1986 reprint edition. It remains a testament to the authors' devotion to formal beauty and design, valuable for its india-ink and wash depictions of the most important Italian villas, and relevant to current debate concerning the basic issues of design, the relevance of history, and the role of the garden in contemporary society."( 9x12.5) Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Edifices De Rome Moderne , Letarouilly

"Edifices de Rome Moderne has been hailed as the most beautiful book on Renaissance architecture ever published. Letarouilly devoted 35 years to drawing the plans, sections, elevations, perspectives, and large-scale details of gardens, convents, palaces, and churches of Renaissance Rome. His keen observational ability and immaculate drawing skills make this work an indispensable sourcebook. In many cases his etchings remain the only measured plans or elevations available; he also recorded buildings destroyed by later demolitions. Princeton Architectural Press's reprint contains all 354 plates and Letarouilly's Nolli Map of Rome, a 13 x 35 inch insert that took the artist five years to complete."

New Vitruvius Britannicus, 1715, C. Colin.

Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture : Books I-V of 'Tutte L'Opere D'Architettura Et Prospetiva'

A thorough and beautiful handbook from a contemporary of Michaelangelo.

"Few Renaissance theorists have influenced the development of western architecture as much as Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554). The collection of books which represents his lifetime's work was to become invaluable to the majority of northern European architects who, never having seen Rome, none the less marveled at Italian antiquities. Hence when Christopher Wren designed St Paul's cathedral, and when John Wood designed the streets of Bath, both architects had Serlio's books to hand. On his death Serlio had published the first five volumes of the planned seven-book treatise, and had witnesses their enormous popularity, especially amongst the many patrons and architects eager to emulate the splendours of antiquity and of Italian courts which sought her renaissance."
" Serlio's treatise begins with the rules of geometry and perspective, described in Books One and Two respectively, knowledge of which formed the traditional preserve of the painter. Serlio's beautiful woodcut illustrations in Book Three record the Golden Age of the Roman Empire, her Baths, Temples, Palaces and Arches, whilst his text in Book Four outlines the rules for designing modern elements ranging from fireplaces to façades based on these monuments To the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns which had been discussed by the Roman author Vitruvius and the great Quattrocento philosopher-architect Leon Battista Alberti, Serlio added the Composite and thereby established the canon of five Orders which held authority for over a century. The Fifth Book illustrated the use of these Order in twelve temple designs of his own invention".
"Serlio's treatise represents one of the first attempts to codify the rules of a design language that harnessed tradition whilst facilitating invention. In this he is no different from architects of the twentieth century who have attempted to establish an architectural order through rules governing proportion and form."

On the Art of Building in Ten Books, Leon Battista Alberti

"The first major English translation of Alberti's fifteenth century treatise on the theory and practice of architecture. Alberti set out to replace Vitruvius' authority which had been undisputed for over a thousand years and frames a coherent account of the fragmented knowledge of antique architecture as it had survived through the dark and middle ages. His is the one book that established architecture as an intellectual and professional discipline rather than a craft and gave it a proper theoretical context. It provided a theoretical basis for the architecture of the Renaissance. Sixty-three illustrations. Glossary."

On the Art of Building in Ten Books is an engaging mix of the practical and superstitious. It is like an episode of 'This Old House," in which the foam insulation, metal, and plastic have given way to stone, wood, and advice older than the buildingcode. For example, when Alberti outlines good stair design, detailing the size of the steps and the placement of landings (every seventh or ninth step), he notes that the ancients preferred an odd number of steps to their temples, so they would enter on the right foot. He speaks precisely about the design of colonnades for man and beast, and about bridge building and road drainage, with care taken for the "continual and contracted wear by hooves and wheels." In another section, he passes along the advice to city planners "to inspect the color and conditions of the livers of cattle grazing on the site when founding a city." In smaller matters, he advises the correct form for inscriptions on buildings: brevity. (Plato cautions against more than four verses on a tomb.) And he offers good, sound advice: "Me greatest glory in the art of building is to have a good sense of what is appropriate," (which itself would make a good inscription). There is much advice on the nature of materials, including lime and bricks, and a reverent discussion of wood, recommending juniper for trusses exposed to the sky, elm for hinges (best when used upside down), and cypress for doors (one door he knows has lasted 400 years). Alberti also discusses the best times to fell trees, comparing the advice of Hesiod, Favonius, Pliny, and Cato. This Old House was never like this. The new translation has been rendered to be read aloud, Joseph Rykwert states in the introduction. I field-tested this approach on a room of nonarchitects. Alberti's advice about building pigeon dovecotes particularly caught their attention: "If, under the entrance, you bury the head of a wolf, sprinkled with cumin seed, inside a jar that is cracked so that the smell can escape, it will attract several pigeons away from their previous homes...." The old serviceable edition by Dover kept the book on many shelves; this translation invites reading."

Perhaps the first advocate for the narow twisting road and for the cul-de-sac.

Leon Battista Alberti : Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance

by Anthony Grafton, Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University

"Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) was one of the most original, creative, and exciting figures of the Italian Renaissance. He wrote the first modern treatise on painting, the first modern manual of classical architecture, and a powerful set of "dialogues" about the princely families that dominated his home city of Florence. He rediscovered the forgotten aesthetics of classical architecture and described, in incomparably vivid terms, the artistic revolution in Florence that began what we now call the Renaissance. But Alberti was more than a mere chronicler--he practiced what he preached. He made spectacular advances in the art of painting and in engineering, and as an architect he was responsible for some of the most exciting buildings in Italy. Yet in spite of his central importance, work on Alberti has for the most part been confined to scholarly monographs. Here, one of our greatest Renaissance scholars offers the general book that Alberti has so long deserved. This is a compellingportrait of a mysterious, original, and highly unusual intellectual, and a colorful tableau of the cities and courts in which he lived and worked. "

Leon Battista Alberti's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili : Re-Cognizing the Architectural Body in the Early Italian Renaissance

by Liane Lefaivre

Leon Battista Alberti: Dinner Pieces: A Translation of the "Intercenales" (Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Vol. 45)

On Alberti and the Art of Building, Robert Tavernor.

The Four Books on Architecture by Andrea Palladio, et al (Hardcover - July 1997)
Our Price: $47.96

"Elegantly translated (in the first new English version since 1738) and illustrated with the lyrical, rarely seen woodcuts of Palladio's original, this welcome publication gets us closer to the plain-spoken voice of the master.... The high priest of proportion, he knew that the correct relation of the parts of a structure to the whole is not just an esthetic nicety but a functional necessity."

The American Vignola : A Guide to the Making of Classical Architecture (The Classical America Series in Art and Architecture), William R. Ware

Part 5: Other Recommendations

The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Modern Library Series)

Jane Jacobs

The classic, outraged, and funny book on-- and against-- planning. "Smart Growth" has been called a repackaging of Jacobs' ideas, which is sort of true but it is more accurately a misapplication- she was talking about big cities- and actually asked that people not apply her concepts to suburbs, towns or countryside. An essential book and a great read.

• Edge of Empire : Postcolonialism and the City, Jane Jacobs
• Systems of Survival : A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics, Jane Jacobs

Rural by Design : Maintaining Small Town Character, Randall Arendt

Most American planning is formulated in response to cities and then applied everywhere. Arendt has been working to establish planning actually suited to rural areas.

"The bible on proper planning. I wish more planners would read it. I am an average citizen who wanted to learn more about smarter land use plans and this book really has great ideas. It is expensive, but well worth the price. Shows how poor our current clear-cutting practices are compared to the beauty of an open space subdivision design." --Amazon reviewer

Growing Greener : Putting Conservation into Local Plans & Ordinances, Randall Arendt

Conservation Design for Subdivisions : A Practical Guide to Creating Open Space Networks, Randall Arendt

"If we developed land in the manner the author teaches, America would look so much nicer! A very common sense approach to maintain rural character in an area and stop sprawl from destroying your area. Every developer, planner, new home buyer, builder, conservationist and private citizen should read this and also buy the author's book ,'Rural By Design'." --Amazon reviewer

How Buildings Learn : What Happens After They're Built

by Stewart Brand

"A classic and probably a work of genius"- Jane Jacobs

"Brand founder of The Whole Earth Catalog and CoEvolution Quarterly, launches a populist attack on rarefied architectural conventions. A hippy elder statesman (once one of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters), Brand argues that a building can ``grow'' and should be treated as a ``Darwinian mechanism,'' something that adapts over time to meet certain changing needs. His humanistic insights grew out of a university seminar he taught in 1988. Catchy anti- establishment phrases abound: ``Function reforms form, perpetually,'' or ``Form follows funding.'' Thomas Jefferson, a ``high road'' builder, is shown to have tinkered his Monticello into a masterpiece over a lifetime. Commercial structures, Brand says, are ``forever metamorphic,'' as a garage-turned-boutique demonstrates. Photo spreads with smart and chatty captions trace the evolutions of buildings as they adopt new ``skins.'' Pointedly, architects Sir Richard Rogers (designer of the Pompidou Centre in Paris) and I.M. Pei (the Wiesner Building, aka the Media Lab at MIT) are taken to task for designing monumental flops that deny occupants' needs. Later sections track the social meanings of preservationism and celebrate vernacular traditions worldwide (e.g., the Malay house of Malaysia; pueblo architecture; the 18th- century Cape Cod House). Brand also documents his own unique habitats. He lives with his wife in a converted tugboat and houses his library in a metal self-storage container. Here, as throughout, Brand's self-reliant voice rings true--that of an engaging, intellectual crank. Brand makes a case for letting people shape their own environments. His crunchy-granola insights bristle with an undeniable pragmatism. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved."

Architecture : Choice or Fate
Leon Krier

"Reading this book I could 'physically' feel the poison of classicism slowly and gently invading my veins." -Bernardo Bertolucci

A provocative and sometimes exasperating work. It is possible to agree completely with one paragraph while disagreeing just as completely with the next-- again and again. Krier makes an important critique of the failures of modernism, in particular those resulting from the virtual prohibition on using and learning from classical and vernacular forms (With which it is possible to agree without sharing his hatred for all modernist buildings). He, however, then get just as dogmatic on behalf of his favored forms. (those of european-style cities of medium-high density). He seems to believe that living in other ways brings "barbarism."

Worth reading, however, for the critique, for several great insights, and also for the appreciation of the beauty of simple and modest classical and vernacular buildings. Many drawings that illustrate how easy it is to get a handsome building, if you don't work to hard-- if you avoid pointless complexity and make use of time-tested forms. It would be easy to endorse this book wholeheartedly if Krier had just claimed to be presenting methods for creating one type of community, rather than universal rules.

Krier is frequently cited as an inspiration by American New Urbanists. He is designer, for the Prince of Wales, of the new town of Poundbury, which is attractive, if feudal in pattern- the Prince retains the landscape; the commoners are confined to the least amount of space, as is the feudal tradition. Poundbury is further interesting since it is a new traditional English village, and Maybeck in some of his final projects-- such as the Wallin II house and The Principia-- drew on similar English forms.

The Other Greeks : The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization
Victor Davis Hanson

This is a book by a classics scholar, but is a darkhorse contender for the most important recent book on development patterns. Hanson argues, convincingly, that democracy and many other good things resulted not from the rise of cities but from the rise of small land owners, who were invested in their ten acre plots of grapes or trees and had little use for urban fashions. The Jeffersonian ideal. A intriguing counter to the more extreme claims of some "smart growth" advocates. Krier is sure that not living in cities causes barbarism; Hanson, that not living on the land does. Krier just declares his belief, Hanson makes a good case. Nazism and Bolshevism came from the urban, democracy from the country.

City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History

by Spiro Kostof

Kostof is our current favorite of the many who have tried to provide an introduction to city form.

"A Bible for an Urban Designer" Reviewer: Guy Marriage from London
"Probably the most comprehensive guide to the thoughts, theories and practical aspects of designing a city. Buy it and weep for your boring grid plan cities....:

The City Assembled : The Elements of Urban Form Through History

by Spiro Kostof

"The City Assembled is the companion volume to Spiro Kostof's The City Shaped (reissued in paperback by Bulfinch, spring 1999) and continues Kostof's unique study of urban landscape and process. Moving from the historical and cultural overviews of the city in the first book, Kostof descends into the streets, sidewalks, squares, markets, and waterfronts of the city and presents a detailed urban anatomy. The book is organized thematically around the structural phenomena of the city-the city edge, street, public space, the marketplace, and the realities of cultural and economic segregation-and explores the customs, practicalities, and biases behind the elements of the city. In every instance, Professor Kostof follows a far-ranging story up to the present to illustrate how fresh the discussion remains today. In the past, the various elements of a city evolved in response to a variety of pressures. Today, they are usually the result of planning decisions. In a final chapter, Kostof considers 'urban process' "the effect on cities of natural disasters, wars, and comprehensive redevelopment" compared with incremental growth and change. His book is thus an exercise in architectural and social history, a case study for the present, and a pointer for the future. The story is also told in over three hundred drawings, prints, paintings, and photographs that illustrate not only typical elements of a city, such as a colonnaded street of ancient Palmyra, but also specific uses of particular elements, such as Prague's Wenceslas Square. The City Assembled is a fascinating account of the urban experience, written, like The City Shaped, for general readers and professionals alike."

A History of Architecture : Settings and Rituals

by Spiro Kostof

"One of the best architectural histories ever, written by one of the most respected historians. Spiro Kostof was a Professor in the School of Architecture at UC Berkeley, and was much-admired by students and colleagues. This book is required reading in many schools of architecture." --Amazon reviewer

The Making of Urban America, John Reps

"This excellent book may well be described as the missing link in American town planning history. No book [to date] has comprehensively dealt with American urban development from the earliest colonial settlements to modern times. Reps has filled this gap with his lavishly illustrated work."

The New York Times "An exhaustive research document on the history of city planning in the United States.... A cartographic gem."

The Los Angeles Times "An extraordinarily handsome volume."

Amazon Book Description
"This comprehensive survey of urban growth in America has become a standard work in the field. From the early colonial period to the First World War, John Reps
explores to what extent city planning has been rooted in the nation's tradition, showing the extent of European influence on early communities. Illustrated by over three hundred reproductions of maps, plans, and panoramic views, this book presents hundreds of American cities and the unique factors affecting their development."

Bird's Eye Views : Historic Lithographs of North American Cities, John Reps

Cities of the Mississippi : Nineteenth-Century Images of UrbanDevelopme ,John Reps

Panoramas of Promise : Pacific Northwest Cities and Towns on Nineteenth-Century Lithographs
by John Reps

The Idea of a Town : The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World

by Joseph Rykwert

Great Streets ,Allen B. Jacobs

"Jacobs has been working on this classic -- there's no other word for it --for a decade. Jacobs rightly believes good cities are made of good streets and that we're rapidly losing our talent for creating them. He measures and draws many of the worlds great streets, from Pittsburgh to Beijing. He describes changes in the street pattern of cities like Boston, where a square mile of downtown contains 100 fewer blocks than it did a century ago. . . . A thoughtful, sane, informed and very personal book, aimed primarily at professionals but readable enough for anyone interested in the subject." -- Robert Campbell, Boston Globe

Livable Streets

Donald Appleyard / Paperback / Published 1982

Chinese Lattice Designs

Daniel Sheets Dye 1200 illustrations

Japanese Design Motifs; 4260 Illustrations of Heraldic Crests (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

Design With Nature, Ian McHarg

A classic

To Heal the Earth : Selected Writings of Ian L. McHarg

Good City Form, Kevin Lynch

"...the best marriage I know of between a thoughtful inquiry into the history of urban form and a resultant theory of urban design." - Spiro Kostof

The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch

"This book describes mental maps obtained from residents in several cities such as Boston, Los Angeles and Jersey City. The mental maps were materialized on paper through an interview process and combined with maps from many individuals. And the results are surprising. Each map is a composite image of the city (and hence, the book's title) that reveals not only the character of the place, but gives you a feeling for it. In Boston for example, the streets are very disorganized, so people give directions by using landmarks almost exclusively. On the other hand, in Jersey City, with extremely uniform architecture, directions are given by street number and points of the compass. An unusual discovery concerns very long streets in Boston. They appear on the map with missing sections - these sections are totally invisible to the people interviewed. In many cases individuals were unaware that Washington street in one neighborhood is a continuation of Washington Street in another neighborhood. These blind spots affect how people move around, it affects the directions they give to others and it contributes or reinforces fears they may have about certain neighborhoods. The book moves from these maps and observations and tries to develop rules of thumb for urban design. People feel more comfortable and perhaps more anchored if they know where they are in space and in relation to visible landmarks. Some cities provide this comfort level more effectively than others - this book tries to find root causes. It's no wonder this is a classic."

Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles : A Typological Analysis, Stefanos Polyzoides, et al; Paperbacks

From Book News: "Essays, drawings, plans, and over 200 black-and-white photographs document the courtyard housing in Los Angeles. The style, expressed in both grand and humble dwellings, was at its height in the 1920's and 1930's, but is still around to provide privacy and greenspace in the dense urban area."

Very good book on some most interesting building done buy people who hadn't gone to school, and hadn't learned what was and wasn't acceptable.

French Quarter Manual : An Architectural Guide to New Orleans' Vieux Carre
by Malcolm Heard, Scott Bernhard. Hardcover

Amazon reader:

"Tender in prose, painstaking in research, passionate in creation. A worthy addition to any architectural library."

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, William Weaver (Translator). Paperback (January 1986)

Amazon.com: "Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be," the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting some of the myriad possible forms a city might take."

Gore Vidal, The New York Review of Books : "Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvelous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant."

The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas by Umberto Eco.

The Disappearance of the Outside : A Manifesto for Escape
Andrei Codrescu
Most wouldn't think of this as relevant, but it is, and is great.

Sometimes a Great Notion
Ken Kesey
In the words of a commercial fisherman friend, "the bible of pre-yuppie Oregon socio-economics."

Landscape in Sight : Looking at America
John Brinckerhoff Jackson,

Insightful and unconventional essays on the American Landscape. Jackson can even show beauty in a strip mall

The American Landscape

Reviews
Preservation:
"Christian Zapatka, in 'The American Landscape,' uses maps to show the relationship of built-up areas to green-grass sections. The author's interest in this planned disposition of scenery came from an original question: Why were early high-speed roads called parkways? It was because Americans did not want to make an entire sacrifice of scenery to speed. There is a tension almost comic in the
combination of a park, a place to rest, with restless motion that speeds us away from sites for sedate contemplation. No matter. We want itall-to eat out wilderness and have it, too. Zapatka goes on to study how bits of wilderness were embedded in our cities and how urbaniteswere embedded in green-belt suburbs, by planner like Daniel Burnham and Fredrick Law Olmsted."

Parallel Utopias : The Quest for Community

Richard Sexton, et al

Side-by-side portraits of California's Sea Ranch and Floridia's Seaside; two very different second home developments. In Sea Ranch the emphasis is on the relationship to nature, at Seaside on their relationship to each other. Sexton is sympathetic to both.

Writing in Architectural Record, Peter Katz criticized Sexton for not declaring Seaside better than Sea Ranch. We think that is a strength of the book. Sexton shows the appeal of each, one of which might better suit some people and purposes, and the other of which might better suit others.

American Country Building Design : Rediscovered Plans for 19Th-Century Farmhouses, Cottages, Landscapes, Barns, Carriage Houses, Donald J. Berg

Backroad Home: Simple Country Designs of Cottages, Cabins, Barns, Stables, Garages and Garden Sheds with Sources for Blueprints, Donald J. Berg

"If you're dreaming of moving to the country, retiring to a smaller house or just getting away from big home mortgage and maintenance costs, this is a book that you should take a look at. It's a sourcebook and guide to the best small, simple, inexpensive and easy-to-maintain country homes. Seventeen of America's best country architects and designers contributed 86 plans of vernacular-style cottages, cabins, backyard barns, garages and garden sheds. Home sizes range from just over 2,000 square feet for a traditional New England farmhouse and a gracious Southern cottage with a wrap-around porch, to just 144 square feet for a tiny getaway cabin. Addresses, phone numbers and website information will help you reach any of the designers directly to order construction blueprints or to see additional home designs."

Barns and Backbuildings: Designs for Barns, Carriage Houses, Stables, Garages & Sheds with Sources for Building Plans, Books, Timber, Donald J. Berg

Carriage Barns: Sources of Building Plans, Kits, Products and Services to Help You Create a New Garage, Workshop, Stable, Backyard, Donald J. Berg

How to Build in the Country: Good Advice from the Past on how to Choose a Site, Plan, Design, Build, Decorate & Landscape Your Country House ,Donald J. Berg

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