Blier illuminates the extraordinary architecture of the Batammaliba people of Western Africa, revealing these buildings as texts through which we can read the beliefs, psychology, traditions, and social concerns of their inhabitants. In doing so, she explores the role of vernacular architecture as an expression of culture.
"A splendid analysis of the centrality of architecture in the daily lives of the Batammaliba and its integral role in articulating social values....The story is beautifully told in the best of anthropological traditions."--Judith R. Blau, "Contemporary Society"
"A remarkable study....Blier's volume carries the study of African architecture to a qualitatively new level of scholarship. It introduces a new dimension whereby the architectural medium can be used to illuminate much of the entire belief system of any culture."--Labelle Prussin, "African Arts"
"In this excellent book Blier provides a richly detailed and searching account of what architecture means to the Batammaliba of northern Togo and Benin....The finest account I have yet read of the relations between systems of beliefs, ritual practices, and African aesthetics and plastic arts....The ethnography and basic insight should be the envy of any social anthropologist."--T.O. Beidelman, "Man"

Designs and plans for constructing country homes with over 130 illustrations depicting interior and exterior designs, perspectives, and more.

Behind the ""Big Houses"" of the antebellum South existed a different world, socially and architecturally, where slaves lived and worked. John Michael Vlach explores the structures and spaces that formed the slaves' environment. Through photographs and the words of former slaves, he portrays the plantation landscape from the slaves' own point of view. The plantation landscape was chiefly the creation of slaveholders, but Vlach argues convincingly that slaves imbued this landscape with their own meanings. Their subtle acts of appropriation constituted one of the more effective strategies of slave resistance and one that provided a locus for the formation of a distinctive African American culture in the South. Vlach has chosen more than 200 photographs and drawings from the Historic American Buildings Survey--an archive that has been mined many times for its images of the planters' residences but rarely for those of slave dwellings. In a dramatic photographic tour, Vlach leads readers through kitchens, smokehouses, dairies, barns and stables, and overseers' houses, finally reaching the slave quarters. To evoke a firsthand sense of what it was like to live and work in these spaces, he includes excerpts from the moving testimonies of former slaves drawn from the Federal Writers' Project collections. |Exploring the structures and spaces used by slaves on antebellum plantations, Vlach shows how slaves subtly appropriated this landscape as their own. These newly claimed spaces fostered a feeling of community that served as a seedbed for further resistance and for the invention and maintenance of a distinctive African American culture. 206 illustrations. A New York Times Notable Book.

From the haunting grandeur of the Etowah Indian Mounds to the futuristic steel and glass of the Atlanta skyline, The Guide to the Architecture of Georgia spans 500 years and numerous miles to reveal the state's rich architectural heritage. Award-winning architect Tom Spector and free-lance photographer Susan Owings-Spector traveled Georgia's backroads and highways to catalog impressive examples of Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Neoclassical, Victorian, and Modern architecture that are open to the public and well worth a visit. The volume supplies all the information necessary to locate, tour, and enjoy these architecturally significant structures. Organized by region and subdivided by county, the guide allows architecture enthusiasts to identify sites of interest quickly. Essays throughout the book describe the rise and fall of architectural styles, and a glossary clarifies more than 100 architectural terms. Whether planning a day trip, a weekend get-away, an extended vacation, or merely a scenic drive through the state, The Guide to the Architecture of Georgia is an ideal companion for touring the state's architectural treasures. The guide features descriptions of more than 300 important structures arranged by region and county; 78 photos and 35 easy-to-follow maps; an entire chapter on the Atlanta area; practical visiting information including addresses, opening times, entrance fees, and handicapped accessibility; a glossary of architectural terms and descriptions of the major architectural periods, from the early American through the Postmodern.

Rare architects' catalog includes dozens of authentic designs. Detailed descriptions of special features, dimensions, costs, etc. 231 b/w illus.

Log construction entered the Ohio territory with the seventeenth-century fur traders and mid-eighteenth-century squatters and then spread throughout most of the area after the opening of the territory in the 1780s. Scottish-Irish and German settlers, using techniques from the eastern states and European homelands, found the abundant timber resources of the Ohio country ideally suited to this simple, durable form of construction. Hutslar documents this early architecture with extensive descriptive materials from local histories, diaries, traveller's accounts, building contracts and many recent site photographs. These descriptions will be interesting for modern craftsmen and other builders involved in historic restoration or log construction generally.
Hutslar's extensive fieldwork is valuable to students of vernacular architecture and preservationists and this abridged paperback edition of his book is a boon to travelling or local history buffs who can refer to this wealth of information at their leisure.

Old-House Dictionary From a One Room Cabin to a Beaux-Arts Mansion… Here’s a concise and easily understandable architectural dictionary for professionals and amateurs alike. More than 450 illustrations, 1500 terms, 750 definitions, and 17 useful cross references guide you smoothly through the oftentimes confusing language of American domestic architecture. Who is This Dictionary For?

• Architects and Architectural Historians
• Preservationists
• Building Trades Professionals
• Interior Designers
• High School and College Students
• Old Home Owners and Lovers

In print since 1948, Dwelling House Construction is a homebuilding classic that covers site inspection, foundations, framing, windows, roofing and flashing, coatings, fireplaces and chimneys, insulation, hardware, plastics, mobile homes, and manufactured housing.This new edition has been substantially revised to take into account the many changes in materials and building technologies that have occurred over the past decade. The chapter on roofing has been completely revised. The chapters on coatings and plastics have been combined, as have those on manufactured and mobile housing. Sections on masonry, wood, steel, steel framing, and concrete have been added; the sections on septic tanks, balloon framing, braced framing, plaster, and standard requirements have been shortened, and specification clauses have been eliminated.Albert G. H. Dietz is Professor Emeritus of Building Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Exploring America's material culture, "Common Places" reveals the history, culture, and social and class relationships that are the backdrop of the everyday structures and environments of ordinary people. Examining America's houses and cityscapes, its rural outbuildings and landscapes from perspectives including cultural geography, decorative arts, architectural history, and folklore, these articles reflect the variety and vibrancy of the growing field of vernacular architecture.

In essays that focus on buildings and spaces unique to the U.S. landscape, Clay Lancaster, Edward T. Price, John Michael Vlach, and Warren E. Roberts reconstruct the social and cultural contexts of the modern bungalow, the small-town courthouse square, the shotgun house of the South, and the log buildings of the Midwest. Surveying the buildings of America's settlement, scholars including Henry Glassie, Norman Morrison Isham, Edward A. Chappell, and Theodore H. M. Prudon trace European ethnic influences in the folk structures of Delaware and the houses of Rhode Island, in Virginia's Renish homes, and in the Dutch barn widely repeated in rural America.

Ethnic, regional, and class differences have flavored the nation's vernacular architecture. Fraser D. Neiman reveals overt changes in houses and outbuildings indicative of the growing social separation and increasingly rigid relations between seventeenth-century Virginia planters and their servants. Fred B. Kniffen and Fred W. Peterson show how, following the westward expansion of the nineteenth century, the structures of the eastern elite were repeated and often rejected by frontier builders. Moving into the twentieth century, James Borchert tracks the transformation of the alley from an urban home for Washington's blacks in the first half of the century to its new status in the gentrified neighborhoods of the last decade, while Barbara Rubin's discussion of the evolution of the commercial strip counterpoints the goals of city planners and more spontaneous forms of urban expression.

The illustrations that accompany each article present the artifacts of America's material past. Photographs of individual buildings, historic maps of the nation's agricultural expanse, and descriptions of the household furnishings of the Victorian middle class, the urban immigrant population, and the rural farmer's homestead complete the volume, rooting vernacular architecture to the American people, their lives, and their everyday creations.

The Robie House in Chicago is one of the world's most famous houses, a masterpiece from the end of Frank Lloyd Wright's early period and a classic example of the Prairie House. This book is intended as a companion for the visitor to the house, but it also probes beneath the surface to see how the design took shape in the mind of the architect. Wright's own writings, rare working drawings from the period, and previously unpublished photographs of the house in construction help the reader look over the shoulder of the architect at work. Beautiful new photographs of the Robie House and related Wright houses have been specially taken to illustrate the author's points, and a bibliography on Wright is provided.

The architects of atelier Arcau are always sensitive to the elements of the contexts where they are called on to work. This could be almost the firm's hallmark, if it were visible, but it is a quality that precedes all visibility. The practice does not produce chameleon architecture, with every project tinged with a local character. Atelier Arcau's architecture is not versatile, but neither does it rest on a hard line which produces a style identifiable at first glance. It not only sets itself firstly and necessarily in the service of its first function, or simply submits to it, but enhances its value. * Xavier Fraud - You can't get away from the contextual reading. On whatever terrain it may be, even if it's really ordinary, our questions will always be the same. How will the project be installed on the site? What will it be able to say? What sense should we give to our intentions? How will the residents and users live in it? All the dimensions of this new arrangement are concerned. Architecture, city planning and landscape are inseparable, and we believe that their combination lead to harmonious places. * Julien Veyron - In the ongoing relationship between things urban and architecture, each way of thinking informs the other. What interests us is getting to know the site and who we're dealing with... The studio approach is first of all anthropological. The logic of projects does not have to do with the form of projects. It has to do with the urbanness you have to reckon with, and the urbanness that we want to develop. Concept is virtual, process is pragmatic. * Xavier Fraud - We've never confined ourselves within a response mode or plan. Does the Arcau studio have a style? I don't think so. It doesn't concern me. The architectural expression which has to come out of it can't be predetermined, so as to preserve always more desire and more freedom.

The Pelican Guide to Old Homes of Mississippi Volume II: Columbus and the North features the following areas: Macon, Columbus, Starkville, Aberdeen, Corinth, Holly Springs, Oxford, Sardis, Como, Carrollton, Grenada, and the Greenville Delta. This volume includes all the essential information that will make the area a sightseer's delight: photographs of famous homes and landmarks, locations, hours open, significant features, notable history, and admission policies. Author Helen Kerr Kempe is a former associate editor of the Louisiana Almanac. She has also written The Pelican Guide to Old Homes of Mississippi Volume I Natchez and the South. Her Mississippi guides are significant contributions to the Pelican Guide Series.

Instant Houses presents in more than 450 photos the wide variety of beautiful prefabricated houses.

In a world that fetishises aesthetic frivolity and iconographic bombast at the expense of substance and nuance, the critically acclaimed work of Johnsen Schmaling Architects stands out for its conceptual rigor, profound simplicity, and quiet repose. Formally restrained and informed by innovative tectonic and material experimentations, Johnsen Schmaling's precisely crafted architecture creates poetic atmospheres of enduring clarity. Johnsen Schmaling: On Rigor is the firm's first monograph and provides an in-depth look at thirteen seminal residential and commercial projects. The book reveals how the architects' unique reading of context and cultural memory translates into an abstract palette of architectural operations that guide the entire design process, from initial concepts to intricate, meticulously detailed material assemblies.The crisply designed book features beautiful photography and delightful graphics that Illustrate how the projects came to life.

Modern Residential Construction Practices provides easy-to-read, comprehensive and highly illustrated coverage of residential building construction practices that conform to industry standards in the United States and Canada. Each chapter provides complete descriptions, real-world practices, realistic examples, three-dimensional (3D) illustrations, and related tests and problems. Chapters cover practices related to every construction phase including: planning, funding, permitting, codes, inspections, site planning, excavation, foundations and flatwork, floors, walls, roofs, finish work and cabinetry; heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC); electrical, and plumbing. The book is organized in a format that is consistent with the process used to take residential construction projects from preliminary concept through all phases of residential building construction. An ideal textbook for secondary and college level construction programs, the book is packed with useful features such as problems that challenge students to identify materials and practices, along with research and document information about construction materials and practices, useful summaries, key notes, a detailed glossary, and online materials for both students and educators.

The region of the Himalayas and the adjoining Tibetan plateau is known for its unique and characteristic vernacular architecture and housing culture which is slowly but surely disappearing. The first part of the book analyses 19 traditional houses in the region that respond in diverse ways to the specifics of their location and local climate. The second part presents a comparative study of the construction elements - walls, roof and facades - using photographs and hand-drawn construction details. The newly produced scale drawings provide an excellent basis for comparative review. Detailed plans, atmospheric photographs and informative texts take the reader on a journey through a fascinating building culture.

The photography of Julius Shulman (1910-2009) transported a West Coast dream around the world. His images of midcentury Southern Californian architecture captured not only the distinctive structural, functional, and design elements of a building but also the context of its surroundings and inhabitants in a holistic, evocative sense of lifestyle. Over time, Shulman's talents would take him around the world, steadily crafting one of the most compelling chronologies of modern architecture. Offering an immense cultural cache for an even lower price, this fresh edition of TASCHEN's Modernism Rediscovered features over 400 architectural treasures from the Shulman archives. Each project and photograph was personally selected from over 260,000 photographs by publisher Benedikt Taschen, who enjoyed a close relationship with Shulman and his work since first publishing Julius Shulman: Architecture and Its Photography (1998). Documenting the reach of modernist aesthetics, the projects span not only the West Coast but also the rest of the United States, as well as Mexico, Israel, and Hong Kong, all captured with Shulman's characteristic understanding of space and situation, as well as his brilliant and intuitive sense of composition. The pictures are contextualized with an introduction by photography critic Owen Edwards, an extensive biography by University of Southern California historian Philip J. Ethington, captions on decorative elements by Los Angeles Modern Auctions founder Peter Loughrey, and biographies of key architects. In addition, the book includes personal reflections from Shulman himself, with an oral history and portrait of the period crafted via months of interviews with arts writer Hunter Drohojowska-Philp.

Text in English & German. Johannes Peter Hoelzinger studied architecture at the Stadelschule in Frankfurt am Main from 1954 to 1957. After a residency fellowship at the Deutsche Akademie Villa Massimo in Rome he founded a "planning association for new forms of the environment" in 1965 together with Zero artist Hermann Goepfert, who has since died. One of the most successful results of his work with Goepfert was a new design for the Schlosspark in Karlsruhe on the occasion of the Bundesgartenschau in 1967, which won a major German architectural prize, the Hugo-Haring-Preis. From 1991 until his retirement in 2002 Hoelzinger directed the art and public-space course at the Akademie der bildenden Kunste in Nuremberg. Individualistic and oppositional in comparison to other post-World War II architectural achievements, the design of Hoelzinger's buildings is very distinctive. The playful elements of Postmodernism are as alien to his work as the functionalism of New Building. Because of his association with Hermann Goepfert, Hoelzinger is much more closely connected with the art scene of his time. The integration of art and architecture is a unique feature of his buildings. If we try to assign a category to this "object architecture" (a term he coined himself), we will find less overlap with architecture than with fine art. From the very beginning Hoelzinger saw architecture as an artistic discipline. Light kinetics offered him important new perspectives. Lighting design and the resulting colour changes of white walls play a vital role in his work.

A reconstruction of the 'Strand palaces', where England's early-modern and post-Reformation elites jostled to build and furnish new, secular cathedrals This book reconstructs the so-called "Strand palaces"-eleven great houses that once stood along the Strand in London. Between 1550 and 1650, this was the capital's "Golden Mile": home to a unique concentration of patrons and artists, and where England's early-modern and post-Reformation elites jostled to establish themselves by building and furnishing new, secular cathedrals. Their inventive, eclectic, and yet carefully-crafted mix of vernacular and continental features not only shaped some of the greatest country houses of the day, but also the image of English power on the world stage. It also gave rise to a distinctly English style, which was to become the symbol of a unique architectural period. The product of almost two decades of research, and benefitting from close archival investigation, this book brings together an incredible array of unpublished sources that sheds new light on one of the most important chapters in London's architectural history, and on English architecture more broadly. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

A stunningly original portrait of one of England's grandest country houses No house embodies the spirit of one dynasty better than Chatsworth. Set in an unspoilt Derbyshire valley, surrounded by wild moorland, and home to the Cavendish family for sixteen generations, this treasure house is filled with works of art and objects - from Nicolas Poussin's The Arcadian Shepherds and Antonio Canova's Endymion to great contemporary paintings by Lucian Freud and David Hockney - which have all, in their time, represented the very best of the new. As Stoker Cavendish, the twelfth Duke of Devonshire, likes to point out: 'Everything was new once.' Following the completion of a decade-long programme of renovations, the exterior of Chatsworth is gleaming, its stone facade newly cleaned and its window frames freshly gilded. Inside, through the inspired juxtaposition of old and modern, its rooms fizz with creative energy. Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now tells the story of this extraordinary place through seven scenes from its life, alongside a stunning photographic portrait of the house and its collections, captured at a moment of high optimism in its long history. With a foreword by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.

Scandinavian design is a movement characterised by simplicity, minimalism and functionality that emerged in the early 20th century, and subsequently flourished in the 1950s throughout the five Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. Scandinavian designers are known especially for household goods including furniture, textiles, ceramics, lamps, and glass, but Scandinavian design has been extended to be an influential movement in architecture and industrial design. High On...Scandinavian Architects presents twenty-eight architects from Scandinavia with their latest projects from the areas of residential, commercial and public buildings. Whether large or small, sharp-edged or soft, coarse or fine, the architecture depicted in this volume is characterised by the iconoclastic flair of Scandinavia.

The life of Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was full of complexity and contradictions. As a young man he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was critical of the church; toward the end of his life he devoted himself completely to the construction of one single spectacular church, La Sagrada Familia. In his youth, he courted a glamorous social life and the demeanor of a dandy. By the time of his death in a tram accident on the streets of Barcelona his clothes were so shabby passersby assumed he was a beggar. Gaudi's incomparable architecture channels much of this multifaceted intricacy. From the shimmering textures and skeletal forms of Casa Batllo to the Hispano-Arabic matrix of Casa Vicens, his work merged the influences of Orientalism, natural forms, new materials, and religious faith into a unique Modernista aesthetic. Today, his unique aesthetic enjoys global popularity and acclaim. His magnum opus, the Sagrada Familia, is the most-visited monument in Spain, and seven of his works are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Through brand-new photography, plans and drawings by Gaudi himself, historical photos, as well as an appendix detailing all his works-from buildings to furniture, decor to unfinished projects-this book presents Gaudi's universe like never before. Like a personal tour through Barcelona, we discover how the "Dante of architecture" was a builder in the truest sense of the word, crafting extraordinary constructions out of minute and mesmerizing details, and transforming fantastical visions into realities on the city streets.

Since the appearance of simplified 3D sketching programs like SketchUp, architects and interior designers have been called on to use both freehand and 3D CAD drawings, often at very earliest stages of design. Since we must often go back and forth between analytical plan views and 3D visual views, it's important that this be a seamless process, requiring little disruptive action or break in the workflow. Integrated Drawing Techniques closes the gap between creativity and geometry, teaching beginner architects and interior designers how to design their residential interiors using freehand sketching and computer-aided design simultaneously. From concept planning to 3D rendering, this book is a comprehensive guide to designing residences by hand and computer.

One House Per Day no.001-365 collects the first 365 drawings from Andrew Bruno’s project One House Per Day, along with a foreword by Keith Krumwiede and essay contributions by Malcolm Rio, Alessandro Orsini & Nick Roseboro, and Clark Thenhaus. The drawings are high quality 1:1 reproductions of the originals, and the 7.5� trim size matches the size of the sketchbooks that the originals were drawn in. The drawings are each given a full page, with a subsequent section including a brief description of each drawing. While the drawings themselves are mute, and their descriptions relatively deadpan, the essays contemplate the place of the detached house in American culture from social, political, and economic perspectives. The book is 392 pages long and is softbound in grey recycled paper. The front cover features 365 debossed circles to represent the 365 houses; these give the book a unique tactile quality.