ABC of Architecture

My college freshman daughter told me she was thinking about majoring in environmental design. Knowing nothing about environmental design, I decided I needed to know more. Architecture is a part of environmental design, and I feel fortunate to have found this book. It is a fast read at about 120 pages, and it is focused on the three principles of an ancient Roman architect named Vitruvius: Utilitas, Firmitas, and Venustas in Latin, or function, structure, and beauty. The book devotes a chapter to each of these principles, and has additional chapters on architecture as communication and the vocabulary of architecture. The book also stresses the importance of history on architecture. The book has numerous drawings that help illustrate the points in the text. After reading this book I feel like I have a high-level picture of what architects have to consider in their profession.

This is a very informative, short book. While he doesn't ignore periods entirely, O'Gormans approach is to concentrate on key architectural principles, primarily structural, and use buildings, or even simplified sketches, to illustrate them. The book would have been even better if the glossary at the end were expanded, and used some sketches: words are frequently far less useful than pictures in explaining a term. Also, I found O'Gormans introduction a bit forced and wordy. Conversely, the last few pages of the book, in which he hurriedly covers such topics as the importance of history and association in interpreting architectural work, were fascinating, but rushed.

Just as the title implies, this book is about how to read architecture. Reading requires understanding the vocabulary and structure of the language concerned. O'Gorman begins with Vitruvius' notions of function, structure, and beauty, and relates them to a building's plan, section, and elevation drawings respectively. Those, he claims, are the ABC's of architecture. But he also, knowingly or not, emphasizes that the future architect or critic study another, less metaphorical, vocabulary. It is important to know the names of architectural components and activities, and O'Gorman includes a chapter in which he recommends several dictionaries and presents some words, their meanings, and their histories.For an introductory book on architecture, ABC OF ARCHITECTURE is very concise and well structured. His text is accompanied by useful illustrations. While he seems a bit disdainful of "celebrity architects," that is fine for the beginning architect who needs a strong foundation. The main flaw is its emphasis on Western architecture, but that is a characteristic shared by many other books.

This book is a great starter book for the beginning arch. student. It has a quick synopsis of the text in the front and the more lengthy, though still brief, read afterward. This was useful for me to just figure out what the elements of architecture are.

This pleasant little book can be a valuable tool in the education of any amateur interested in architecture. It's of such a convenient size that you can take it with you, on long or short trips, and learn its concepts: ashlar, battered, common bond, dado, exoskeleton, firmitas, groin vault, and so on and so forth, through voussoir and wind bracing and many others.It's a coherent story of architecture, not a glossary or dictionary, but the fresh, new words accumulate.