Synopses & Reviews
Richly illustrated with houses large and small, old and new, with photographs, plans, and cutaway drawings, this is a book for people who want a house but who may not know what they really need, or what they have a right to expect.
The authors establish the basis for good building by examining houses in the small Massachusetts town of Edgartown; in Santa Barbara, California, where a commitment was made to re-create an imaginary Spanish past; and in Sea Ranch, on the northern California coast, where the authors attempt to create a community. These examples demonstrate how individual houses can express the care, energies, and dreams of the people who live in them, and can contribute to a larger sense of place.
With a new epilogue
Review
"For anyone thinking about building a new house, this is probably the book I'd recommend first... What's so great about The Place of Houses? It's the way it says, with rare eloquence, that houses are not about their architects." Boston Globe
Review
"A wonderful book which is both mythic and poetic....In Moore, Allen and Lyndon's book the ideal architect comes on as a modest and friendly fellow who pays very close attention to his client." Mildred F. Schmertz, Architectural Record
Review
"The Place of Houses is a book of dreams....[It] is a beautiful book beautifully printed, with a clear format, photographs which are excellent in both selection and execution, and superb graphics." Robert Sturgis, Landscape Architecture
About the Author
Charles Moore (1925-94) was Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale, Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles, and O'Neil Ford Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas.
Donlyn Lyndon, Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, has served as Chair of the Departments of Architecture at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Oregon.
Gerald Allen was an editor of Architectural Record when this book was written; he now practices architecture in New York.
All three authors have designed noteworthy houses.