Architectural Styles: A Visual Guide

by Margaret Fletcher, Robbie Polley

A hand-drawn guide to architectural styles throughout history

Architectural Styles is an incomparable guide to architectural styles across the centuries and around the world. Modeled after an architect's plein air sketchbook, the volume features hundreds of detailed drawings by esteemed architectural illustrator Robbie Polley alongside incisive and informative descriptions. This unique guidebook takes readers from Europe and the Americas to Egypt, China, and India. It covers a host of historical and contemporary architectural styles, from ancient and classical to Pre-Columbian, Romanesque, Renaissance, Palladian, art nouveau, Brutalist, and biomorphic. It describes the histories and characteristics of the building traditions of each era and region of the world, and looks at key architectural elements such as buttresses, spandrels, curtain walls, and oculi. The book also includes a section on building parts―from domes and columns to towers, arches, roofs, and vaulting―along with a detailed glossary and bibliography.

Comprehensive and authoritative, Architectural Styles is an essential resource for architects and designers and a must-have illustrated guide for anyone interested in architecture or drawing.

Genres: Architecture, Art, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 2020

Reviews

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I think architects just make up words for fun. You’re telling me SQUINCH is a real life English word? Nah, man. That’s a word my best friend and I made up on the playground in third grade. Ain’t no way.

WIL
1) Sketches! The angles of the sketches are helpful at depicting just what they need to depict and no more or less. Shoutout to the artist for being an expert in illustrative literacy!!

2) periods covered. It’s notoriously difficult to break down architecture into cohesive periods while still remaining comprehensive AND brief. This author did a decent job of hitting all those contradictory ideals.

WIDL
1) Eco-arch. Only THREE?? Only T H R E E CASE STUDIES IN ECO-ARCH? DEVASTATING. I AM DEVASTATED.

2) language. I think some sections could have been written with more consideration for the audience. I mean, this book isn’t for professionals (I don’t think?) but it was bogged down with a LOT of jargon that proved intimidating and difficult to work through. Being an inherently visual field of study, it’s also difficult to use context clues on new architectural jargon. The new words referenced SOMETHING that was generally left unlabeled in photographs and that the reader had to deduce without much assistance. That’s fine, whatever, puzzles are fun, but for the purposes of this book, I think more articulation could’ve been helpful and more effective.

[Yong Huang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tens of architectural styles are described clearly and in a way easy to follow and remember. One minor problem is the illustrations and the coordination between them and the text. Why do we need architectural drawings instead of photographs? Because with your own drawings, you can bring readers' focus to the key points in the architecture and keep the rest in a faded background, you can easily annotate in your drawings, and more importantly, you can present the cross-section or the inner view along with the outer look of the building at the same time. But if none of these are done, hand drawings should be replaced with photographs, which offer the advantage of greater details and trustworthy authenticity. All illustrations in the first four chapters of this book are of this kind, some of which are simply a quick sketch with very cursory lines. Hand drawings would be fine, as long as the authors, not the illustrator or the text author alone, but they together, provide ample legends, arrows, and explanatory words inside the drawings, occasionally with smaller inlet drawings, and these texts are closely coordinated with the main text. In fact, this would be the ideal solution, better than throwing a bunch of photographs un-annotated, which in turn are better than un-annotated quick sketches as this book is doing (except in Chapter 5).

[Henry Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ausalt, ma ei ole (veel) arhitekt, kuid, see raamat (või noh koomiks kuna siin oli ikkagi palju pilte, aga teksti oli mõne võrra rohkem) on ikka väga hea kui on igav. See raamat on kolm ühes! Esimeseks, arhitektuur, palju huvitavaid stiile, pluss lisa info. Teiseks, kunsti oskus, see raamat võib isegi sind aidata kunsti aladel, kui sind muidugi huvitavad majad... Ning kolmandaks, joonistamis raamat. Tegelt selle jaoks pead olema 5 aastane või lihtsalt loll, et seda teha kuid kõik on võimalik, mina sind ei keela, ise maksad 20€ kinni.
See raamat tegelikult oli üks põhjuseid miks mind arhitektuur ja kõik sellega seotu (ennem oli ka linnaplaanerimine). Hea alustus koht ning juhul kui sa või su laps(ed) mängivad näiteks minecrafti siis siit on kah hea leida inspiratsiooni majade ehituste jaoks. Nii et lihtsamalt öeldes, kui sulle meeldib midagi ehitusega seotut, siis see on hea algus sulle.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fletcher's Architectural Styles: A Visual Guide is an excellent book for someone like me. I don't know much about architecture except that I just think it's neat. And the book offers nifty illustrations of a variety of famous buildings in addition to a brief overview of each style. When I was a child, I used to read a book about castles. It had lots of illustrations and even some pictures of sieges. It was fantastic. Fletcher has achieved something almost as charming for a much older me.

[BruineLeffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative

[K1c · Rating 2 out of 5]

grateful for the explanations, but i found the glaring absence of structure disconcerting in an architecture primer

[Kaaaaris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading it for funsies all the time

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully illustrated book about architecture. As well, as opposed to some architecture books, it was not too wordy for the casual read I desired.
Looking at all these structures inspired me to create many sketches of my own in different styles from all over the world.

[Nene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is exactly what it promises to be - exact guide on different architectural styles. Includes short descriptions, main details and sketches. Absolutely love it. Must have on every trip.