America by Design

by Spiro Kostof

What is the pattern of America? How did we mark our land throughout our history with towns and farms, factories and railroad lines? And what does all this activity say about who we are and what we have been? In this book, a beautifully illustrated companion volume to a new PBS series, one
of our most highly acclaimed architectural historians confronts these questions as he takes us on a thoughtful and wonderfully engaging tour of America's built environment.
In preparing the series and the book, Spiro Kostof set out to see America as one design, made from a whole cloth, and to review the enduring themes that determined the main features of its landscape. Each chapter, like each program in the series, focuses on one of these themes: the house,
the workplace, the street, the public realm, the shape of the land. Kostof's curiosity touches on everything from suburban tracts to canal systems, from company towns to office towers. His aim throughout is to help us see America and not to take anything we see for granted. With Kostof as our
guide, such apparent banalities as factory windows and street pavements take on a new significance, as do more obvious monuments, from state capitols to dams and long-span bridges. Embracing a truly democratic view of his subject, Kostof regards all buildings, the standard and the fancy, as worthy
of study, and his consistent emphasis is on their social importance--who uses them and how they are used. From first chapter to last, Kostof brilliantly conveys the processes of designing, building, and using by which we have imprinted the landscape throughout the course of our long tenancy.
"In the ways we use what is designed and built, in the demands we make and the changes we bring about," Kostof writes, "we are all designers of America. On us all falls the blame for what is ugly in our surroundings, what is inhumane and derelict. To us all belongs the credit for the beauty
we fashion and the love, the excitement, the grace we allow it to contain."

Genres: Architecture, History, Reference

388 pages, Hardcover

First published September 24, 1987

About the author

Spiro Konstantine Kostof was a leading architectural historian, and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His books continue to be widely read and some are routinely used in collegiate courses on architectural history.

In 1993, following his death, the Society of Architectural Historians established the "Spiro Kostof Award," to recognize books "in the spirit of Kostof's writings," particularly those that are interdisciplinary and whose content focuses on urban development, the history of urban form, and/or the architecture of the built environment.

Reviews

[David Biagini · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is much more than a book about architecture and design. It provides fascinating insights into the history of the United States, insights that are based on the choices the nation made during its formative years and continues to make to this day. This book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand how we got to where we are - socially, economically, and geographically. Mr. Kostof does a great job of explaining the philosophies behind architectural developments and how they were influenced by the needs and desires of our society.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview; pretty book.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and quite enlightening, although more about form and style than about particular structures. I used to live in the Coeymans House, one of the books listed as an example of a Dutch Colonial (real) farm house. But the author also seems enamored of less then stellar ideas, like the suburban headquarters of General Foods and of Union Carbide, both of which may be interesting buildings but also look like total institutions in the middle of nowhere.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting historical context from the American House, Workplace, Street to the Public Realm and the shape of the land.