Synopses & Reviews
The four men who are the subject of this book were all trained in the traditional European mode, but in transferring their ideas from Europe to the American West, they incorporated rustic vernacular precedents and local materials to create the distinct style of the San Francisco Bay area.
Richard W. Longstreth is Director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at George Washington University. On the Edge of the World is included in the Architectural History Foundation American Monograph Series.
Review
"Solidly referenced and photographically engaging, this work reinforces California's architectural 'Mason Dixon Line'."
—Stanley Tigerman
Review
"Before modern architects began coating the earth's surface with a PeptoBismol of homogenous glass, steel, and concrete buildings, their forebears often concocted regional brews mixing local building traditions, European precedents, and indigenous materials with new technologies. Historian Richard Longstreth focuses on the intoxicating contributions of four architects Ernest Coxhead, Willis Polk, A C. Schweinfurth, and Bernard Maybeck."
—Vanity Fair
Review
"Longstreth reveals to us how inventive and important were the contributions of these four architects to American Beaux-Arts classicism."
— David Gebhard, Journal of The Society of Architectural Historians