In this comprehensive, highly praised reconstruction of the nation's architectural past, a distinguished teacher and critic of architecture describes and evaluates a wide variety of building styles -- from the primitive dugouts and cabins of the first settlers to the Greek Revival mansions of the early nineteenth century. Moreover, this volume was the first to offer thorough coverage of early architecture throughout the United States, including homes, schools, meeting houses, and commercial buildings in the Northeast; Georgian structures in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, the Middle Colonies, and New England; the French Colonial style in the Mississippi Valley; the baroque architecture of mission churches and ranch homes in the Southwest and California, and the nationwide growth of Neoclassic and Romantic styles. Nearly 500 line drawings and photographs enhance the text, including reconstruction drawings of buildings long demolished or seriously altered, making this a valuable pictorial repository of the nation's early architectural heritage. In addition to carefully chosen and well-integrated illustrations, the book also contains a number of historical documents, contemporary letters, and travelers' comments that enrich the discussion, as well as account of plans, materials, and methods of construction. For the general reader or nonspecialist, Early American Architecture provides an informative and entertaining survey, written with a minimum of technical jargon, and abundantly supplied with clarifying comments, notes, and diagrams. For the scholar, it brings together in one concise volume the research of leading specialists in the regional period architecture. Students, architects, historians, restorers -- anyone interested in American architecture -- will delight in this thoughtful and expertly written book, described by Lewis Mumford as "a milestone in American architectural history."
I picked up this book inexpensively, secondhand, to use as a reference because it has a lot of very good photos and floor plans. But I glanced at the first page and was hooked. It's an incredibly well-written, well-balanced, unbiased, well-organized, and informed view of colonial architecture extant in the U.S. in the mid-20th century, when the book was written. Morrison tells in the introduction that his goal was to write a comprehensive history of the topic. And he's done a stellar job. It's the first such book I've seen that gives significant treatment not only of the Spanish Southwest (with separate chapters on each of those states and what distinguishes each state's architecture from that of the other S.W. states) but also devotes a significant portion of its pages to French Colonial architecture, not just of New Orleans, but also of the entire French Mississippi Valley and parts of the Gulf Coast. A bit about the composition of the book: Morrison devotes entire sections of chapters or entire chapters themselves to the background of a particular style (e.g, Dutch colonial in the New York area), but then gives a major portion of the text over to descriptions of prime examples of the styles he's just described. Several houses and public buildings are discussed in each section, almost always with photos, often with floor plans and interior shots. Morrison's unbiased and comprehensive coverage of a very wide-ranging subject is extremely well done, with the exception of just one rather amusing bit of editorializing: he doesn't seem to like dormers, or at least seems to prefer 17th century gables to dormers. Other than that funny (and seldom-appearing) idiosyncrasy, the book is a wonderful educational tool and reference book for the layperson. The fact that this book was originally published more than 50 years ago and is still in print is an amazing testement to the fact that it's so well written.
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