Synopses & Reviews
Returning to the subject of their bestselling book Barn (1992), David Larkin, with barn preservationists Elric Endersby and Alexander Greenwood, takes the reader on a tour of barns throughout America. Featuring all-new sites and structures, Barn is a perfect introduction for those not yet initiated into the world of barns as well as a definitive resource for all barn owners and architecture enthusiasts.
The book discusses the form and function of American barns. It gives their complete history--from Colonial times to the present, the old and the new--and illustrates the incredible range of styles of these structures. From rural villages in New England to the farmlands of the Midwest, from the Deep South to the Southwest, and up and down the West Coast, Barn: Preservation & Adaptation fully demonstrates the adaptability and enduring charm of one of the most iconic forms of American vernacular architecture.
Today there is great activity restoring and converting barns. No longer used just for farming, barns have been converted into bookstores, theaters, restaurants, garages, and even houses. Barn explores renovations, interior design options, and structural and cosmetic changes that have kept these traditional farm buildings vital and functional into the twenty-first century.
This highly engaging history and the profound beauty of these handcrafted structures will enchant all barn aficionados interested in their architecture and their historic preservation.
Synopsis
In the vernacular vocabulary of America, the barn stands proud, a hulking icon in the agricultural landscape. Unlike a house, the barn is chaste. For this is a place for work--a space rubbed by livestock and worn by labor. The repeating patterns of the posts and beams, now considered impediments to efficient farming, mask the very intricacy that gives old barns their intrinsic character. Many of these splendid spaces now lie empty, festooned with cobwebs, awaiting collapse, but there is a growing recognition that these honestly framed buildings can lend themselves to transformation and a new purpose.
In the decade-plus time since BARN: The Art of a Working Building was published, there has been a remarkable growth in the different ways that barns can be preserved and reinvigorated. There are many great barns that may not survive, and many problems with others still standing that remain with their integrity intact, but action is being taken.
BARN: Preservation & Adaptation chronicles and expands upon the progress being made, emphasizing the variety of imaginative uses that can revive these beloved structures. With more than 400 exciting photographs, drawings, and plans, and a lively text by the same team of expert barn restoration practitioners who brought you BARN The Art of a Working Building, here are accounts of barns as retreats, studios, shops, meeting places, inns, restaurants, galleries, and museums--even sheltering swimming pools--showing the conversion to domestic use, and barns as barns again. The story, rich in historical detail, covers the problems of reinterpretation and barn culture informatively and critically, yet with great optimism and enthusiasm. The true companion to its highly successful predecessor, this book will delight all those who love and want to explore these grand monuments.
About the Author
David Larkin is an editor, author, and book designer whose books include
American Home, Barn, Shaker Style, The Treehouse Book, and
Mill. Elric Endersby majored in the history of architecture at Trinity College, Hartford, and studied history and American folklife in the Cooperstown Graduate Program. Founder and director of the Princeton History Project, Endersby edited The Princeton Recollector for twelve years.
Alexander Greenwood worked as a restoration carpenter before studying historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts.
Since 1980, Greenwood and Endersby have been partners in the New Jersey Barn Company, a design and restoration firm in Princeton, New Jersey, that specializes in saving and relocating threatened historic structures.