A detailed historical study of the buildings of Mayfair and St James'sShort, accessible and informative anecdotes about buildings and monumentsPhotographs accompanied by black-and-white pictures and period art* The book was written during the Lockdown of 2020, and contains a Foreword by Alain de Botton with reflections on the importance of appreciating our immediate surroundings"This is at one level a book about a part of London and its buildings. At another, it's a book about learning to savour our lives" - Alain de BottonTake a walk around a park trodden by many but known by few. From Lancaster House, venue of famous speeches and summits, to 100 Piccadilly, the stage of an ongoing Soviet-themed reality experience, The Buildings of Green Park captures the unseen history of these well-travelled streets.Green Park boasts a plethora of London landmarks, including Bridgewater House and the Canada Gates. The Buildings of Green Park gives each of these sites the attention they deserve, while also celebrating a multitude of overlooked buildings: those that are passed every day without comment from the guides. Local history, old photographs, paintings and floorplans offer a tantalizing peek into the backstory behind these backdrops. Moving through the winter and into the spring, Andrew Jones's crisp photography captures a London shaped by past, present and hopes for the future.
Oak Park and River Forest are a mecca for Wright scholars and enthusiasts. Nowhere else can one visit so many Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and experience the architect's Prairie-style philosophy so fully. Hometown Architect is a thorough chronicle of that experience. Even if you have not had the good fortune to see these houses firsthand, the textual and photographic tours comprising this book will make you feel as though you have. Hometown Architect presents twenty-seven Wright homes, and Unity Temple, documenting one of the architect's most influential periods of his career. The last chapter surveys eight lost, altered, and possibly Wright homes. More than ninety photographs of the buildings' exteriors and interiors are accompanied by descriptive captions, while introductory text to each chapter details the story behind each commission, addressing Wright's relationships with his clients, the importance of each building in Wright's oeuvre, and the characteristics that make each house unique. The endpapers of this book feature a map locating all the sites discussed. By Patrick F. Cannon, introduction by Paul Kruty, photography by James Caulfield. Published in cooperation with the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust.
“Green” buildings—buildings that use fewer resources to build and to sustain—are commonly thought to be too expensive to attract builders and buyers. But are they? The answer to this question has enormous consequences, since residential and commercial buildings together account for nearly 50% of American energy consumption—including at least 75% of electricity usage—according to recent government statistics. This eye-opening book reports the results of a large-scale study based on extensive financial and technical analyses of more than 150 green buildings in the U.S. and ten other countries. It provides detailed findings on the costs and financial benefits of building green. According to the study, green buildings cost roughly 2% more to build than conventional buildings—far less than previously assumed—and provide a wide range of financial, health and social benefits. In addition, green buildings reduce energy use by an average of 33%, resulting in significant cost savings. Greening Our Built World also evaluates the cost effectiveness of “green community development” and presents the results of the first-ever survey of green buildings constructed by faith-based organizations. Throughout the book, leading practitioners in green design—including architects, developers, and property owners—share their own experiences in building green. A compelling combination of rock-solid facts and specific examples, this book proves that green design is both cost-effective and earth-friendly.
For coloring book enthusiasts and architecture students — 44 finely detailed renderings of Wright home and studio, Unity Temple, Guggenheim Museum, Robie House, Imperial Hotel, more.
This revised edition of Buildings of Michigan (first published in 1993) presents the architecture of the Upper and Lower peninsulas of Michigan, which are surrounded by four of the Great Lakes. From the Greek, Gothic, Italianate, Queen Anne, and Richardsonian Romanesque structures of the nineteenth century to the international, renowned modern buildings of the mid-twentieth century and the green and sustainable buildings of the twenty-first century, this book explores Michigan's history and covers the full spectrum of high-style and vernacular architecture and the building materials particular to the state. Surveying the architecture of Detroit and many other cities and villages, this volume examines such structures as early inns and houses along the Sauk Trail, the mine locations of the Copper and Iron ranges, the sandstone architecture of the Lake Superior region, the concrete buildings of Alpena, lighthouses and lifesaving stations of the Upper Great Lakes, the state's numerous bridges, the great houses of automobile industrialists in Grosse Pointe, the factories of Albert Kahn, the mid-twentieth-century buildings of Alden B. Dow and Minoru Yamasaki, and contributions of numerous local architects who have added to Michigan's architectural heritage. This new edition introduces buildings from the recent past and the present; discusses broad, sweeping cultural landscapes, historical parks, greenways, and linear parks; and showcases triumphs in historic preservation. As Detroit transforms itself from a city with a declining population and without the economic stability of the automobile industry, the book looks at how the city is reinventing itself. (Examples include Midtown, where the huge medical, academic, and cultural centers spark residential and retail development; the Detroit riverfront, which connects to open land converted to gardens, parks, and greenways; the viable close-in historic Woodbridge and Corktown neighborhoods, where residents have stayed; and Ford Field, Comerica Park, and the downtown theaters and casinos that entertain visitors.) Linkages of buildings by geography and theme receive attention. Heritage areas, river corridors, and highway routes arrange buildings and natural areas into comprehensible groups, and over 400 illustrations--including photographs, maps, and drawings--enhance the more than 950 entries. A volume in the Buildings of the United States series of the Society of Architectural Historians
How did Central Park become a vibrant gem in the heart of New York City? Follow the visionaries behind the plan as it springs to green life. In 1858, New York City was growing so fast that new roads and tall buildings threatened to swallow up the remaining open space. The people needed a green place to be — a park with ponds to row on and paths for wandering through trees and over bridges. When a citywide contest solicited plans for creating a park out of barren swampland, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted put their heads together to create the winning design, and the hard work of making their plans a reality began. By winter, the lake opened for skating. By the next summer, the waterside woodland known as the Ramble opened for all to enjoy. Meanwhile, sculptors, stone masons, and master gardeners joined in to construct thirty-four unique bridges, along with fountains, pagodas, and band shells, making New York's Central Park a green gift to everyone. Included in the end matter are bios of Vaux and Olmsted, a bibliography, and engaging factual snippets.
Stan Allen is an architect and educator who has won global acclaim, primarily for his work in town planning and his influential 1996 essay "Field Conditions." His new book Situated Objects shows a unique facet of his creative process: a selection of small buildings and projects on rural sites, most of them situated within the landscape of the Hudson Valley, New York. They demonstrate an approach to architecture that engages in a dialogue with this partly wild and wholly non-urban environment that lies just outside the gates of New York City. The projects are presented in drawings and a rich array of images by celebrated photographer Scott Benedict. They are arranged in three thematic categories: Outbuildings, Material Histories, and New Natures, supplemented by the architect's writings and essays contributed by Helen Thomas and Jesús Vassallo. The first book on Stan Allen's buildings, Situated Objects highlights Allen's personal engagement with American material traditions, the conventions of architectural drawing, and the challenge of building with nature.
From the author of House of Outrageous Fortune For seventy-five years, it’s been Manhattan’s richest apartment building, and one of the most lusted-after addresses in the world. One apartment had 37 rooms, 14 bathrooms, 43 closets, 11 working fireplaces, a private elevator, and his-and-hers saunas; another at one time had a live-in service staff of 16. To this day, it is steeped in the purest luxury, the kind most of us could only imagine, until now. The last great building to go up along New York’s Gold Coast, construction on 740 Park finished in 1930. Since then, 740 has been home to an ever-evolving cadre of our wealthiest and most powerful families, some of America’s (and the world’s) oldest money—the kind attached to names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Bouvier, Chrysler, Niarchos, Houghton, and Harkness—and some whose names evoke the excesses of today’s monied elite: Kravis, Koch, Bronfman, Perelman, Steinberg, and Schwarzman. All along, the building has housed titans of industry, political power brokers, international royalty, fabulous scam-artists, and even the lowest scoundrels. The book begins with the tumultuous story of the building’s construction. Conceived in the bubbling financial, artistic, and social cauldron of 1920’s Manhattan, 740 Park rose to its dizzying heights as the stock market plunged in 1929—the building was in dire financial straits before the first apartments were sold. The builders include the architectural genius Rosario Candela, the scheming businessman James T. Lee (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s grandfather), and a raft of financiers, many of whom were little more than white-collar crooks and grand-scale hustlers. Once finished, 740 became a magnet for the richest, oldest families in the country: the Brewsters, descendents of the leader of the Plymouth Colony; the socially-registered Bordens, Hoppins, Scovilles, Thornes, and Schermerhorns; and top executives of the Chase Bank, American Express, and U.S. Rubber. Outside the walls of 740 Park, these were the people shaping America culturally and economically. Within those walls, they were indulging in all of the Seven Deadly Sins. As the social climate evolved throughout the last century, so did 740 Park: after World War II, the building’s rulers eased their more restrictive policies and began allowing Jews (though not to this day African Americans) to reside within their hallowed walls. Nowadays, it is full to bursting with new money, people whose fortunes, though freshly-made, are large enough to buy their way in. At its core this book is a social history of the American rich, and how the locus of power and influence has shifted haltingly from old bloodlines to new money. But it’s also much more than that: filled with meaty, startling, often tragic stories of the people who lived behind 740’s walls, the book gives us an unprecedented access to worlds of wealth, privilege, and extraordinary folly that are usually hidden behind a scrim of money and influence. This is, truly, how the other half—or at least the other one hundredth of one percent—lives.
