Best Residential Architecture
With their idyllic settings, unique architecture and cozy interiors, the Cabin Porn photographs, are an invitation to slow down, take a deep breath, and feel the beauty and serenity that nature and simple construction can create. Photographer Noah Kalina 's editorial work has been featured in New York Magazine , Esquire , and, Food & Wine .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Remember that time you read Walden your sophomore year and vowed you'd stop wearing deodorant and live a life closer to nature only to get sucked into that marketing internship because Uncle Bob owed your mom and favor and now you're an account executive at a nameless corporation that you secretly hate and every now and then you look wistfully out the window and dream of what it would be like to live (you know like really live, man) out in the forest where you chop wood and catch fish and make moonshine and wear clothes that last forever never go out of style and you wake up at dawn and howl at the moon at night and your house is this beautiful cabin that you built yourself with a pot of strong coffee on the stove and dried elk meat in the storehouse and you have everything you ever wanted as you puff your pipe on the porch during a warm summer night and you breath the cool air and the fireflies illuminate the dusk and you pause and you remember the exact instant when you decided to press reset on your old life and start over again."
"The book is stunning."
"Gave as a gift to a family member who was building his own cottage."
"Great book drafted up from a great website!"
"Great book with tons of good information and pictures!"
"I love the idea, and the title, but as others have said, the printing quality is poor, as was the choice of size."
In these pages, the beloved Bill Bryson gives us a fascinating history of the modern home, taking us on a room-by-room tour through his own house and using each room to explore the vast history of the domestic artifacts we take for granted. With waggish humor and a knack for unearthing the extraordinary stories behind the seemingly commonplace, he examines how everyday items--things like ice, cookbooks, glass windows, and salt and pepper--transformed the way people lived, and how houses evolved around these new commodities.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Information about our homes that is very interesting and mostly unknown in today's world."
"Bill Bryson is incredible."
"Likewise, despite some eyebrow-lifting statements and the work's lack of citations, Bryson's genuine, almost boyish, delight in his stories and his exceptional gifts as a writer make it easy to forgive the book its literary transgressions."
"Another great book from Bill Bryson!"
"I like Bryson a lot and have read most of his works."
"Using the rooms of his house as a jumping off point, you will go on a merry chase through the history of that room in general, the history of that room in his particular house, and how we use that room now."
"Liked his history...but was lost in his stories about various parts of the house."
"I'm reading the book again, just for the heck of it."
Kirk Henckels and Anne Walker, real estate and architectural insiders, chronicle the fortunes and features of 15 outstanding apartment houses with a wealth of vintage and new photography and architectural plans, and show off select apartments as they look today, designed by top interior designers. “ Life at the Top may not be a 37-room duplex penthouse in a limestone Art Deco tower on Park Avenue, but it unlocks the doors of nineteen of the extravagant, extraordinary homes in New York and lets you put them on your coffee table.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The residences which are featured are described in lush details.... history and facts about the rarefied society leaders who live or have lived in the residence."
"I just received this luscious beautiful coffee table book, which is photographed so exquisitely, I love being transported into another space and at times through the pages of this book to another architectural time."
"Well worth the money - beautifully presented and loved the floor plans!"
"Incredibly well researched with thorough historical information and fascinating details giving a clear picture of the evolution of the apartment building in NYC."
"Superb book with excellent photographs."
Best Religious Building Architecture
He engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone, built ingenious hoists and cranes (among some of the most renowned machines of the Renaissance) to carry an estimated 70 million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction--all the while defying those who said the dome would surely collapse and his own personal obstacles that at times threatened to overwhelm him. King also offers a wealth of fascinating detail that opens windows onto fifteenth-century life: the celebrated traditions of the brickmaker's art, the daily routine of the artisans laboring hundreds of feet above the ground as the dome grew ever higher, the problems of transportation, the power of the guilds. Ross King is the highly praised author of Leonardo and The Last Supper, Brunelleschi's Dom e (the Book Sense Nonfiction Book of the Year in 2000), Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling , The Judgment of Paris , Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power , and two novels, Ex Libris and Domino .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Mr. Ross a couple weeks ago and it was so interesting that I purchased this book a couple days later."
"The prize was designing what would become the signature architectural landmark of Florence, Italy--the octagonal Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. To put it into perspective, the dome would rise from an opening 18 stories above the street, and top out at the equivalent of a 38-story building. Filippo Brunelleschi won the contest by challenging the other competing architects to make an egg stand on its end. The inner dome was built first and like the frame of an automobile contained a series of horizontal and vertical supports that held everything together. The horizontal supports consisted of a series of sandstone and wood beams and iron chains that circled the dome like the hoops of a barrel, to keep the structure from spreading outward. Couple with the circular horizontal supports, the entire structure was a lattice work of cross members embedded within the brick-and-mortar walls. Brunelleschi did not have this luxury, as there were not enough trees in all of Tuscany to build the necessary scaffolding to reach the heights that were presented. With no visible means of support (and not understanding the law of compression), they believed the entire structure would collapse from its own weight and they would fall to their death. The reversible gear allowed loads to ascend and descend without the need of turning around the oxen team each time the direction was changed. Brunelleschi created a unique external covering system that consisted of tiles designed specially for easy assembly and maintenance. They are not well drawn, and in some cases not clear, such as the brick herringbone pattern used to build the dome: the illustration is small and difficult to figure out."
"This book was Amazing, especially for Engineers!"
"My main critique is that, while the prose was lucid and explanatory, I would have appreciated more photographs and -- especially -- diagrams and schematics depicting the architectural innovations employed (as well as rejected) in the building of the Santa Maria del Fiore's magnificent dome."
"Perhaps because I love Florence, have stood spellbound looking up at the dome of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore or perhaps because the story of how a man's dream of building a dome without buttresses or wooden centering (wooden support posts) actually came to pass."
"We are off to Florence tomorrow for two months, and this was the perfect primer...Ross discourses on the Times, people, customs, etc."
Best Landmarks & Monuments
Now, broken and ruined, these places are documented in Christopher's book, Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences . Exploring sites like the charred remains of the Hotel Do De, the rusted cells of the Essex County Jail Annex, the sublime majesty of the Church of the Transfiguration, or the eerie and dilapidated remnants of the New Castle Elks Lodge, the work spans architectural treasures left to the elements and then all too often lost forever.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Unfortunately, when I opened the book from the cardboard mailer, it is damaged quite well near the spine."
"As a fan of Matthew Christopher's work, I've been waiting a long time for this book."
"Not only is the hard back cover thick and give you a sense of the detail and concern that only quality things of the past adhere to but inside you get a rich display of Matthew Christopher's mind blowing ability to capture the rustic in all venues before they finally are put to rest forever. Within this book you NEVER get the sensation of images being distorted with photoshop."
"A number of the places photographed were either razed or gutted shortly after the photos were taken, so the photographs themselves have taken on a life as the last reminder of these sometimes hallowed and desperately neglected places."
"There are books and there are books that tell a real story. Consequences, what happens should matter and the pictures in this book paint a picture of what happens when people turn a blind eye to the buildings falling apart around them."
"Paying homage, even as these places fall into disrepair from neglect he manages to honor the paths once chosen and seemingly, easily discarded."
"I read the whole thing in one sitting because the content is THAT great!!"