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Architecture For Dummies
* Just the essential information for readers on the go who want to understand architecture.
* Covers the highlights of architectural history, from the Great Pyramids to Frank Gehry's Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.
* Explains how to look at a building and appreciate it. Explains when a building's a building and when it's art.
* Part of Tens Ten Great Architectural Masterpieces, Ten Biggest Architectural and Engineering Failures, Ten of the Most Interesting Architects Working Today-and more.
* Covers the highlights of architectural history, from the Great Pyramids to Frank Gehry's Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.
* Explains how to look at a building and appreciate it. Explains when a building's a building and when it's art.
* Part of Tens Ten Great Architectural Masterpieces, Ten Biggest Architectural and Engineering Failures, Ten of the Most Interesting Architects Working Today-and more.
336 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2002
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255 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 26, 2019
Good overall but more of a history than practical
February 10, 2025
Another review here rated it 2-stars because it lacked pictures and diagrams. This lack is a SERIOUS drawback...but I'll give this book at least 3-stars because, other than that drawback, it covers a lot of material and is a good 'anchor' for delving further. (Another lack: glossary; yes, easy enough to look up, e.g. 'pediment' etc, on the computer, but still, a glossary would have been nice).
April 20, 2024
Book lacks pictures
This book has a lot of information about architecture. However, it suffers from a serious lack of pictures, diagrams, or photographs as illustrations of the subjects covered. The reader coming to the subject for the first time will leave the book with no picture (pun intended) of what the author is talking about.
This book has a lot of information about architecture. However, it suffers from a serious lack of pictures, diagrams, or photographs as illustrations of the subjects covered. The reader coming to the subject for the first time will leave the book with no picture (pun intended) of what the author is talking about.
October 2, 2013
The book I read to research this post was Architecture For Dummies by Deborah K Dietsch which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is mostly about appreciating good architecture and there is a little history as well as some biography information on various famous architects. There are various interesting facts like the columns in Ancient Greek times were meant to represent the human body metaphorically with the wide bit at the top representing the head and wide bit at the bottom representing the feet. The Gothic movement in church and cathedral building attracted much scorn at the time particularly among other architects because it did away with the intricate carved detail found in carvings up till then. The name came from the goths who were considered uncivilised invaders who settled in Europe in times past. In Russia after the Revolution a new style emerged where building were made with things like glass and concrete and they were built to be functional. These architects didn't consciously intend to set a new trend but did so nonetheless. The Hagia Sophia built as a great cathedral in Constantinople as it was then called had a dome only 8 feet smaller than St Paul's Cathedral which was built many centuries later. With the former the dome collapsed twice and was built by trial and error and is still one of the greatest domes in the world. I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.
March 23, 2015
Oddly, this author presented some theories as fact as well as distorting historical data. I was mostly interested in vocabulary/lingo, and therefore, it wasn't terribly disappointing. I would not recommend.
April 23, 2017
there is a lot of information in this book - easy to understand - well organized
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews