Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #754797 in Books
• Published on: 1979
• Format: Import
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 395 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent primer
Those who have panned this book weren't looking for insight into the thought process of architectural design. This book is not a cookbook, but a primarily graphical introductory intended to start the architecture student thinking how architects think.

I'm not technically an architecture student, but rather an architecture design "hobbyist". I found this book very useful as far as helping me to look at the design process in new ways, and to better understand the various historical (and contemporary) methods/techniques used to formulate architectural designs.

This book is a textbook, not a 5 lb. coffee table glossy.

This is a great book
After seeing this book on the shelf of a friend's architecture office, I bought it for my homeschooled children who are genuinely interested in architecture and building...Their dad (who teaches drafting and construction) and I could not put it down! The drawings are clear and so comprehensive. The book covers so much...Architectural styles, drawing types, etc. Mostly in drawings with very little text. So many architecture books are filled with heavy text, that you are lost in it, rather than learning the ideas and concepts. That is not a problem here. It is not to say that in any way this is a simplistic, elementary book...I'm sure it is used at the post-graduate and professional levels. The drawings and captions/info just say so much more than all those words! We are all learning a lot from this book, and are looking forward to buying more of this man's work.

The "I Ching" of Architecture.
An excellent introduction to architecture. However, I liked the old horizontal format better. The new edition has all the same illustrations but its vertical formal isn't as compelling. Ching is the master of free-hand sketching. In this book he covers the basic principles of architecture with copious illustrations and an easy to follow progression of ideas. It is great for first year students and frustrated architects alike. My only word of warning is that once you buy one of his volumes on architecture, it is hard to resist the others.