Victorian House Designs in Authentic Full Color: 75 Plates from the "Scientific American -- Architects and Builders Edition," 1885-1894 (Dover Architecture)

by Blanche Cirker

Exquisitely detailed, exceptionally handsome designs for an enormous variety of attractive city dwellings, spacious suburban and country homes, charming "cottages" and other structures — all accompanied by perspective views and floor plans with measurements. Invaluable to architects, home restorers and preservationists; of immense interest to lovers of Victorian architecture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture, Reference

Paperback

First published January 16, 1997

Reviews

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I freely admit that I am one of those house-geeks whose idea of a good time is staying at home on a cold winter night and looking at floor plans of Victorian houses.....and I loved this book! All of my other Victorian house plan books are printed in black and white, so the color illustrations in this book were much appreciated.

The only disappointment were the colors; putrid green, baby poop yellow, bloodstain, dirt. I can only assume that the paint technology of the day did not allow for any pretty colors, so the Victorians were kind of stuck with what they had to work with. Also, I would have liked to have seen a floor plan for every house illustrated. Many of the houses clearly had third floor living space, and there were no floor plans showing third floor layout.

It is just fun to look at the houses and the floor plans and imagine oneself living in one of them, hanging curtains, arranging furniture, curling up in a bay window seat with a good book, waking up in a fine summer morning and stepping out onto the balcony to greet the day, watching a thunderstorm from the third floor tower. My own home is historic and gracious, but not as grand as these. I hope to someday buy one of the local Victorians and restore it.

[Shawn-Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved that this was in color, but they didn't show all floors of each house, and many were missing kitchens.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much eye candy! Full color plates accompanying floorplans. Quite an easy way to breeze through the afternoon. I would have loved if all of the color plates illustrated both first and second floor plans but only half the homes had all three components. None the less, Dover is a clever publishing company and I appreciate their editors!

[Marisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really love seeing these home in the colors that they were designed to be in. So many people want to make their victorian era homes into painted ladies with carnival colors and it ends up looking so silly.I love the darker earthy tones shown here.Some of these homes are just fabulous.