Review: John Hill - Understanding Architecture

Notable Books of 2012

Designer:

John Hill

Book:

Review:

The authors of this primer on architecture contend that experience “is the only valid means of evaluating a work of architecture.” Of course, a book’s reliance on photographs means that the visual takes precedence in one’s appreciation of buildings and spaces. To help overcome this predilection, each of the 72 works in this sweeping view of architecture spanning millennia is accompanied by a floor plan that locates the photographs and traces the body’s movement through the spaces. Photos are also keyed within the texts, which are rich in description and analysis, going well beyond the simple formal descriptions in Phaidon’s contemporaneous 20th Century World Architecture atlas.

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