One Thousand Buildings of London

by Gill Davies, John Reynolds (Photographer)

Rare book

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, British Literature, Photography

576 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2006

Reviews

[Iris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quantity, not quality: see all of London, from 1660s pubs and 1990s YMCA centers, Georgian mansions and low-income housing high-rises, Victorian government centers and candy-floss skyscrapers. For each building there is one crisp black-and-white photograph, address and location and architecture, and a few paragraphs detailing its uses and experiences over the years.

The ingenious order of the book: arranged by area and postal code and neighborhood, so that the entries follow each other, simulating the sights you'd see on a stroll through London from Shoreditch to South Kensington. You can pinpoint each place in thorough maps for each section.

A simple street map of London will make you daydream, but this book will make that dream dendritically detailed.