Product Description

Shingle Style homes began in New England in the late 1800s. They were the vacation "cottages" for the wealthy who summered in resorts along the Atlantic coastline. The style lasted only a short time during the late 1800s, but its impact on the future course of architectural history was significant. In the mid-20th century, interest in these comfortable homes was renewed and continues today as many people are recognizing their casual elegance. Their rough wooden shingles, irregular roof lines, and wide, shady porches encourage lazy afternoons in rocking chairs. Within the house, one room flows freely into another. Over 50 homes in the continental United States are presented in over 500 color photographs, including multi-million-dollar residences, smaller mansions, cottages, and renovated shingle houses. Their sites are as varied as their designs. Some are on the coastline, surveying the crashing waves; others peer through trees on city streets; still others occupy an island or rest in the middle of a vineyard. The Shingle Style homes of today are compared to some of the famous "shingles" from the past, including Naumkeag, the Folly , and Stonehurst all in Massachusetts. One chapter looks at Shingle Style renovations. The foreword, by John C. McConnell AIA, an architect and professor of American architectural history at Boston College, looks role the style played in American architecture-from the early 1870s to the late 1880s-and its influence on future architecture. A chapter by architect Turner Brooks, an Associate Professor at Yale University School of Architecture, investigates at Shingle Style descendants.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #414941 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 255 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780764325540
• Condition: USED - GOOD
• Notes:
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Customer Reviews

Disappointing
I was disappointed by this book. When I saw the announcement for the book, I was excited because there is a limited number of books on Shingle Style houses.

However, this book does not measure up. As mentionned above, the pictures are of poor quality. Some are blurry and others are overexposed. I expected better production quality for a $40 book.

The organization of the book is odd. It highlights a few older homes that are very interesting. These homes are interspersed with pictures of new homes of uneven architectural interest. The selection of homes included in the book could have benefitted from weeding.

Nothing that can be found in books with better photos
Like my title says, there isn't really anything new here. The "Present" section of the book is a far cry from any thing of the Shingle Style. Many of the photos can be found in other books on the same topic. The worst part of the book is the photos. Easily half of them are either blurry, poorly scanned, or over/under exposed. The photos are also cluttered with very badly written captions. With books of this type, the photos are the most important thing and this book falls short.

Not a Book
This is not a book. It has hard covers, but in between is a series of what appear to be home design magazine features - and bad ones at that. Such a collection might make pleasant coffee table book; however, that would require excellent photgraphic reproduction. A large number of the photos are embarassingly over saturated. Some have woefully low resolution for the printed image size. Others are placed against background colors that are distracting or just plain ugly. The blame cannot rest with the photographers - I have seen some of these images on-line, and the originals are fine.

There is a pretense of linking period Shingle Style homes with recent examples. The author offers precious little information on the old houses and then makes no connection between old and new. Oddly, the author gives one chapter over to a professor/architect who claims his home designs are legitimate descendents of the Shingle Style. No DNA anaylsis is needed to deny paternity: he designed wooden boxes which share only a seaside location with genuine examples of the style.

The true purpose of this publication can be inferred from an appendix listing names and contact information for architects whose designs are featured. This is a puff piece for these firms. I hope they did not pay much, as it does an injustice to some good Shingle Style architecture. The number of "books" this author churns out per year makes the low quality unsurprising. The surprise is that anyone would pay to publish such work.