Product Description

The 20th edition of Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture is the first major work of history to include an overview of the architectural achievements of the 20th Century. Banister Fletcher has been the standard one volume architectural history for over 100 years and continues to give a concise and factual account of world architecture from the earliest times.


In this twentieth and centenary edition, edited by Dan Cruickshank with three consultant editors and fourteen new contributors, chapters have been recast and expanded and a third of the text is new.
* There are new chapters on the twentieth-century architecture of the Middle East (including Israel), South-east Asia, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, the Indian subcontinent, Russia and the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America. * The chapter on traditional architecture of India has been rewritten and the section on traditional Chinese architecture has been expanded, both with new specially commissioned drawings
* The architecture of the Americas before 1900 has been enlarged to include, for the first time, detailed coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean
* The book's scope has been widened to include more architecture from outside Europe
* The bibliography has been expanded into a separate section and is a key source of information on every period of world architecture
* The coverage of the 20th century architecture of North America has been divided into two chapters to allow fuller coverage of contemporary works
* 20th century architecture of Western Europe has been radically recast
* For the first time the architecture of the twentieth century is considered as a whole and assessed in an historical perspective
* Coverage has been extended to include buildings completed during the last ten years
* The coverage of Islamic architecture has been increased and re-organised to form a self contained section

This unique reference book places buildings in their social, cultural and historical settings to describe the main patterns of architectural development, from Prehistoric to the International Style. Again in the words of Sir Banister Fletcher, this book shows that 'Architecture ... provides a key to the habits, thoughts and aspirations of the people, and without a knowledge of this art the history of any period lacks that human interest with which it should be invested.'

*Winner of the International Architecture Book Award, The American Institute of Architects Book of the Century.

*THE source book for the historical development of architecture

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #310599 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1696 pages

Review
'..the whole point of Banister Fletcher is that it does cram everything into
a single volume. It will remain one of the most thumbed tomes in Building
Design's office library..above all, gloriously and frustratingly, invaluable.'
Building Design, October 1996

'..clearly a bargain.'
The Architect's Journal, October 1996

'...a revolution has taken place in Banister Fletcher. The timid
modernizing, the anxious realignments of the past fifty years are over;
under Dan Cruickshank's editorship, it has achieved a thoroughness and
flexibility one would never have thought possible within the grandiose
shell of this late Victorian institution. Half the pleasure, as half the volume, of Banister Fletcher is its pictures. The thousands of photographs are, as always in Banister Fletcher, unimprovably fine.'
The Times Educational Supplement, November 1996

is 'a monument in itself'
Book Reviews on the Internet 1996

"A thundering classic appears again with useful additions. As Sir Banister Fletcher said, 'The study of architecture opens up the enjoyment of buildings with an appreciation of their purpose, meaning, and charm.' These words aptly summarise what this book has become for generations of students and architects. No serious fan of architecture should be without it."
American Institute of Architects.

'It is such a remarkable book, containing so much detail and so skilfully illustrated, that it is a must for all architectural and surveying offices at such a reasonable price.'
ASI Journal, Jan 1997

'An easy-to-use reference book with all the world's major architecture
described, explained and, in many cases, fully illustrated.'
B & M Architecture & Design

'Students would be well advised not to waste money on a pile of discounted colourful coffee-table books, but rather to concentrate resources on this single volume... It will continue its usefulness beyond the years of study and become an additional aid to everyday practice.'
Times Higher Educations Supplement

'...the bible of architectural history... Banister Fletcher remains a potted history with remarkably pithy writing.'
Building

'...succinct characterization of individual architects and a liveliness of both criticism and description'
The Times Educational Supplement

Customer Reviews

Travesty
I do not welcome this new edition, as it is a travesty of the original.

Let us not forget the correct full title of this seminal book: "A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method". Bannister Fletcher's achievement was to create a copious reference to thousands of the major architectural works of Western Europe, in scaled drawings, photographs and summary text, thus furnishing a means of comparison - that is the key word - of building with building, style with style, period with period. This is what gives the book its uniqueness. No-one has seriously attempted to emulate it.

The book is huge yet, for the sake of avoiding an ever heavier tome, the author restricted his scope to the architectural inheritance of the West. Even with this limitation the book is astonishing in its range and detail. Its exhaustive and periodic approach, though on the face of it simplistic and by today's standards unsophisticated, has nevertheless served generations of architects and architectural students well.

One has to look at the earliest editions of the book to appreciate this. My father, himself an architect, bought the 11th (1943) edition, published by Batsford, which he purchased in the '50s. Though battered and worn through constant use, the cloth cover still has its gold inlaid design, the airmail-light India paper, drawings and text stencil-clear. There is the "Tree of Architecture' which gives a snap-shot of the author's intentions: Part 1 'Historical Styles' deals with the mainstream of Western Architecture, from Early Christian to Architecture of the United States of America, and occupies 871 pages. Part 2, 'Non-Historical', deals with Architecture of the East - just 46 pages. In Part 1 'Modern English', which includes the 19th century, has a mere 20 pages. In 1943 one does not expect much on the Modern Movement but the fact that the whole Victorian inheritance is despatched in less than 13 pages is remarkable, and is not so much due to a failure to accord due weight as to a judicious decision to leave the task of selection for future generations. The period was deemed too close to the present. Modern editors do well to take note. To take this veritable Architects' Bible and plunder the contents at will, adding whole new sections at the expense of the original, investing it with a new and inappropriate ethos, is an act of barbarism of monstrous proportions. It is rather like that grotsque Gothic implant the mosque at Cordoba or, to quote a well known arbiter of taste, placing a "monstrous carbuncle ...."

My advice to students is not to buy this book. Rather, they should ...go to the library (a neglected art form these days) and look up one of the earlier editions. One I recommend is the 17th, which I own, published by Athlone in 1961 - it cost a mere £5 in 1973, if I remember correctly. A remarkable publication, 1366 pages of high-gloss paper, weighing a ton - expanding the original but retaining the original line drawings, tiny photographs (including those inimitable models of Gothic cathedrals), and condensed text. British nineteenth and twentieth century architecture now occupies 20 pages.

These days there are more than enough 'coffee-table' books, focusing on a single architect or period, with lavish photographs, yet lacking tools for comparison. There are also academic treatises a-plenty, pedalling esoteric viewpoints of an ephemeral and obsolescent kind. I regret that Bannister Fletcher's great work is now finally in danger of joining them, at the end of a long process of the progressive dilution of its contents. A metaphor for the decline of this once-great country, I fear.

This is sad indeed. The book deserves more than that. Like Pevsner's great 'Buildings of England' series, it is a work which stands out of time. The publishers have betrayed a priceless inheritance.

Good but architecture students shouldn't necessarily buy this one...
Whilst Bannister Fletcher's scholarship was undisputed when this book was first published, and thus the book's style and its illustrations of many topics are excellent (notably the plates of the classical world ruins) as the book has expanded over the years it has become a whistle-stop of world architecture. Whilst thus an excellent book to read or browse, there is generally not enough detail on any one topic to suffice for "research" as a student might want, often only one small image per building. There are now many (cheaper) more specific books out there which will suffice for any theoretical history course (e.g. Modern Architecture by Colquhoun). Then spend the saving on some good books filled with photos specifi to the area of your research/interest, be that period or modern - Taschen do a great line which amazon stock, for instance.

A must for every architecture student
Although the writing can be a little boring at times, it's worth getting it for the pictures alone! The price is a little steep for students but it's a good source of information.