Product Description

This work is a general introduction to architecture told through a narrative sequence of 21 chapters, each charting a stage in the devlopment of architecture. These chapters divide the text into natural study units covering the entire world and the whole of human architectural history. Without using technical language, Patrick Nuttgens draws on his own architectural experience to enable the reader to enter the mind of the architects - trying always to answer the simple question such as: "Why is it like that ?"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37039 in Books
• Published on: 1997-08-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

A charting history of many influential structures
After reading this book it contains a charting history of the beginnings of architecture, from mud huts, to super-structures of today. It contains many illustrations and at times is a very personal account of architecture by the author. I think it is a good book to read for those interested in the origins of architecture through the ages of evolution.

A Life Less Ordinary
Patrick, always charming and friendly,has always been concerned as an architect about the individual person and the living space he/she has and needs to inhabit.Being a so called disabled person himself he is needful of the access and facilities always required and now thankfull soon to be compulsory by law to all public and hopefully historic buildings too. Of course to say Patrick is disabled is as if one called the late Douglas Bader powerless but be that as it may there is one similarity between them.What Bader sought for in the air as a Royal Air Force Wing Commander was supremacy of skill and tactics.What he planned in the air had to be first created on the ground. The building blocks of Allied Victory in the Second World War were partly made of superb engineering skills in creating the Spitfire for example:the Whittle effect one might say. No less on the ground Patrick finds appreciable skills in the architectural creations of the likes of Rennie Mackintosh,James Gibb,Charles Cameron,all Scots, as well as Corbusier and others. He writes lucidly,clearly,and with authority on all periods and styles and one might say with some panache.This book is a gem,don't build your home till you have devoured its pages.