Houses of Worship: An Identification Guide to the History and Style of American Religious Architecture

by Jeffery Howe

Hardcover, 2003

Status

Available

Call number

726.0973

Publication

Thunder Bay Press (2003), Edition: Complete Numbers Starting with 1, 1st Ed, 448 pages

Description

A guidebook to the architectural styles of American churches and temples, Houses of Worship is highly illustrated with color photographs and explanatory line drawings. A survey of American religious architecture, this book is a history of the development of American religious history, a guidebook to assist in the identification of the style of individual buildings based on historical examples of typical buildings, and a travel guide to regional monuments of interesting architecture.

User reviews

LibraryThing member sweetFrank
This is a chronologically-organized survey of churches, synagogues, temples, and houses of worship of all kinds, including contemporary buildings. The book includes capable definitions of a wide variety of styles and has many plans, schematics, and other line drawings. There are images of recycled
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buildings and mobile houses of worship, but the book is particularly strong in its representation of the modern period. Although there is ample explanation of various architectural styles, there is insufficient attempt to trace influences, or even to identify particularly influential designs. That is perhaps a niggling point for most readers, but an important one for those fascinated by the development of American architecture.
The photographs are almost all in full color, although there are some old black-and-white photos. Most of the images were taken with a 35mm camera, as they exhibit the standard parallax/converging verticals problem endemic to that format. Lots and lots of very nice images, in any case. The book includes a glossary, a decent bibliography, and a nice section on leading architects. As usual, New Jersey is under-represented—I think I counted only 2 or 3 churches from our state in the book—but that seems to be the general consensus regarding the merit of our religious architecture.
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Language

Original language

English

Physical description

448 p.; 12 inches

ISBN

1571459707 / 9781571459701
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