Architectural Styles: A Visual Guide

I liked the visual aspect. I bought it as a gift for my grandson.

I have the amazing Field Guide to American Houses and am looking for something that can similarly help me identify public buildings. This is not it.First off, it lavishes information on very specific styles (like Venetian Gothic) which are so specific to a time and place that they're really more of interest to a specialist historian than to the general reader. At the same time, widespread styles like Craftsman and Prairie are barely mentioned, lumped together in the Arts & Crafts section.Second (and I realize this is common but it doesn't make it okay)- African, Asian, & Native American styles are ignored completely.Third, and most important to me, the book doesn't accurately describe the differences between styles. Each style is described on one page, then there are a couple pages of key features the style is known for, with a photo for each bullet point. Rococo has virtuosity, assymmetry, foliate decoration, and secular architecture paragraphs. Brutalism has raw concrete, streets in the sky, urban anti-slab, and destruction paragraphs. Understandably for a book this size, the examples of each style tend to be textbook landmark examples that may not have much in common with the scale and use patterns in your neighborhood. This setup is great for feeling like you have a few talking points if a style is mentioned. You can name a couple big examples of the style and some ideas or names associated with it. But if someone points at a building and asks if it was influenced by the German Baroque, this book will leave you at a loss. You only have talking points and not visual cues that you can use to practically assess styles.The best example to me is the back-to-back styles of New Objectivity and International Style. New Objectivity is given the bullet points of rationality; steel, concrete, and glass; planar surfaces; industrial mass production; and continuous blocks. Every one of these can be used to describe the International Style as well. So if you're trying to tell if a building is more New Objectivity or more International Style the book gives you no guidance. Is International Style just a subset of New Objectivity, or vice-versa? Is International Style an outgrowth of New Objectivity? If so, what sets it apart to be given its own style name? Who knows? You can spurt off talking points and examples of each, but you have no clue how they differ from each other, or how to recognize them outside of the few landmark examples you can memorize from this book.I think this book would be great for someone just wanting a beach read on the history of white people's architecture. But it certainly isn't a "guide" to identifying or understanding styles in a practical, useful way.

Great book for a crash course in Architectural styles around the world. This book is direct to the point and is up to date with modern styles. This book is not like the typical huge and unmanageable books on architectural styles, this book is compact. This is a book you can take to a coffee shop and sit and read cover to cover, and feel like you have traveled through history and around the world and witnessed the evolution in architecture form and style.

Bought for my nephew who wants to be an architect.

Good overview of every style. Doesn't go in much detail but worked for me to just get a high level understanding.

great reference book for referenceit spends about half of the book talking about classical to Renaissance building stylesand the other half talking about modern, regional, post modern stylesit is truely a educational and interesting read!

The book arrived as described within the stated timeframe. Impressed!

I was hoping for more explanation of what elements make up the style. This was lacking on those.

As a reference book it is mediocre but great images.

A beautiful book - covers all the important aspects of architectural history and the glossary at the back comes in handy too!

Necessary summary and so well written, a must!

Made a lovely gift

Es una gran guía visual para hacerse una idea de los principales estilos arquitectónicos occidentales. Por cada estilo (clásico, cristiano, gótico, renacentista, barroco, etc.) cuenta brevemente el origen e influencias, y después por cada variante (griego, romano, bizantino, románico...) da 6 características para identificarlo. El libro contiene gran cantidad de fotos de buena calidad mostrando las características de cada estilo. Incluye un pequeño glosario.Las únicas pegas que le encuentro son: le dedica mucho espacio a las distintas variantes del modernismo y posmodernismo; usa el sistema BC/BCE en vez de BC/AD (ridículo especialmente cuando hablas de arquitectura cristiana); las características que da para los estilos más antiguos son elementos visuales, cosas "físicas" que puedes ver e identificar facilmente (forma de columnas y arcos, bóvedas, proporciones...), pero a medida que avanza a estilos más recientes, las características parecen más ambiguas (severidad, harmonía, delicadeza, austeridad, grandeza, orden implícito...), con lo que es más difícil hacerse con una idea clara del estilo y distinguirlo de otros.