How To Date Buildings: An Easy Reference Guide

by Trevor Yorke

From the black and white Tudor cottage with contorted timbers to the colorful Victorian town hall with patterned brickwork, older buildings often inspire investigation and query. Who built them and why, who lived there and what events were witnessed from their windows? Perhaps the first question, before the others can be put into context is 'how old is the building?' A lot of key information about age and date can be gleaned from just observing the exterior. By recognizing dateable features it is not hard to begin piecing together a building's history, and then understand how it developed over the centuries. This illustrated and easy reference guide is packed with hundreds of photos, chosen to highlight these tell tale pieces of information. With its help, the buildings you notice need no longer remain just bricks and mortar; their history can come to life in front of you.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, History

63 pages, Paperback

Published June 5, 2017

Reviews

[Ali Jon Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot stress what a revelation this book has been to me. It's like buildings have been shouting at me my whole life and I now have the knowledge to understand their language.

This book barely wastes a sentence, with information densely given next to helpful photographs. I might have liked a couple of diagrams showing the architectural terms (wtf is an architrave?) but I have google, so it was not hard to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

[Sula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good as an initial starting point to dating buildings. I wish that each image within a figure had an approximate date underneath for quick reference, rather than just having to delve through the paragraph underneath that describes each of the images in the figure.

Some further reading/resources would also have potentially been nice at the end.

[Chris Shepheard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good primer for reading building styles. Trying to remember the associated dates may be difficult though. Not a criticism of the book - just my memory!

[Maria P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful refresher although lacking a lot of detail and explanation.