The House Book

This book is absolutley the most amazing book on house architecture I have ever seen. Anyone who is interested in houses and house architecture around the world should have this remarkable work.

Fascinating tour of homes, with most of the really rewarding images revealing the indigenous styles of homes across the globe, including the iglu, the long house, dung hovels, and dozens of other styles that incorporate the folk wisdom of humans across the centuries. The modernist austerities were the least interesting, even more boring than castles from the Hapsburgs. Some of the contemporary puzzle pieces were striking, and each page repaid the time invested pouring over the details captured. I wish that they would double page load, and show a representative interior of each exterior captured here.

In the best tradition of the phaidon culture books, this one explores architectural styles. It covers most periods and is eclectic in terms of style and the cultural heritage of the buildings. It also manages to present a huge time span of works, though the focus is on the boom years of architectural styles and changes (from the Victorian era onwards). Inspires plans for lots of day trips for culture vultures or indeed travels abroad. Very interesting, I imagine there was not quite the struggle to overcome snobberies with this book as there must have been with this books family members, Art, Modern Art, Fashion and Photography.

A great collection of 500 houses, from huts in thirdworld countries, to historic castles and palaces and estates and chateaus, to modern architecture, done by 500 architects. This is a visuals-only book. It does not have much information about the buildings or the architects, but it makes up for the lack of text with the large, vibrant photos, which is what the book is all about. This book is a trade-off - it has more homes and architects than any other book out there, but it also has very little information, since with 500 architects, that only leaves one per page.Fun to look through and mentally design the dream estate of my retirement years...and to learn about a lot of architects I'd never heard of.

If you liked The Art Book you'll love The House Book. An alphabetical listing of the most important 500 houses from all time. This concise visual history of icons covers everything from ancient cave dwellings to the latest in architectural wonders. Everyone one is there - Gehry, Aalto, Eames, Thomas Jefferson, Henry VIII, Palladio. Beautifully photographed and printed, I ordered 10 copies of this coffee table book for holiday gifts.