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New York's 1939?1940 World's Fair (NY) (Postcard History Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)Well over half a century ago now and the greatest Fair of them all still captures the imagination. Everything was just right in 1939 for this wonderful extravaganza of streamline architecture and the promise of new products and processes to make things available for all on every Main Street. This postcard history does its best to capture the optimism of the Fair but unfortunately I don't think it does a very good job.
Most of the cards in the book were originally color illustrations of the various pavilions and sites. This type of graphic product used bright garish colors and frequently created shapes of buildings and outdoor scenes with color only. The cards, as reproduced in the book, just don't work in black and white, while the few postcards that were originally photographs, either in color or black and white look fine. You can see plenty of these bright cards on Fair websites in color or search out Herbert Rolfes 'The 1939 New York World's Fair in Postcards' (ISBN 155562068X) which has fifty-two full color cards and wonderful they look.
Two excellent black and white photobooks are 'The New York World's Fair 1939/1940 (ISBN 0486234940) with 155 photos by Richard Wurts with excellent coverage and detailed captions and a coffee-table book by Paul Van Dort '1939: New York World's Fair Photo Collection' (ISBN 0972646809) 150 pages with 271 photos. This book, amazingly, is priced at $19.95 with Andrew Wood's book list priced at $19.99 for less pages and pictures. Incidentally you can get the Van Dort book from the author, just put his name into Google or A9 and click World's Fair on his website.
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

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The 1939-1940 New York World's Fair promised a new age of global communication, nationwide superhighways, and suburban living-and it delivered. Crafted by designers such as Walter Dorwin Teague, Norman Bel Geddes, and Raymond Loewy, the twelve-hundred-acre fair in Flushing Meadows sold visitors a streamlined world of consumer goods-teardrop cars and smoking robots, electric dishwashers and nylon stockings-manufactured by companies such as Westinghouse, General Motors, and AT&T. In New York's 1939-1940 World's Fair, insightful narrative accompanies dazzling postcards, advertisements, and illustrations of Democracity, Futurama, the Lagoon of Nations, and the famed Trylon and Perisphere, recalling the promise and optimism of a fair that enchanted forty-five million visitors.

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America's Painted Ladies: The Ultimate Celebration of Our Victorians Review

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(More customer reviews)Each picture is more gorgeous than the next! On a more serious note, there is practical information on architecture and authentic Victorian painting techniques. I learned a lot about how to identify the type of building style, and got my fix for Painted Ladies more than satisfied. This is a comprehensive, informative, beautiful book, and I recommend it highly.

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Now, the long-awaited companion to Painted Ladies, Daughters of Painted Ladies, and Painted Ladies Revisited is available in paperback. Presents a dazzling orgy of Victoriana inside and out with more than 400 color photographs of Painted Ladies across the country.

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Coit Tower, San Francisco, Its History and Art Review

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(More customer reviews)Since I first viewed the Coit Tower Murals many years ago, I have been fascinated by them and revisit often. They represent so much of life in San Francisco from a time long ago. I was fortunate enough on that first visit to be with an artist who knew much about the Public Works of Art Project. (The history of that era is a subject for another book.)
When I learned that this book was about to be released, I couldn't wait to get a copy and learn more of the details of the works and artists.
Masha Zakheim shares her keen art historian's perspective which is uniquely combined with insights from her personal relationship with the works and their creators at the very time they were in production.
The pictures in this book are vivid reproductions, each accompanied by just the right amount of detail for a layperson to learn and enjoy this San Francisco jewel.

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Deco by the Bay: 2Art Deco Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area Review

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(More customer reviews)This is my first Art Deco architecture book and I found it to be a perfect introduction to this design movement. The book has multiple color photos on almost every page and is organized nicely. A few of the photos are fuzzy, but this did not detract from my enjoyment. In fact it inspired me (as a novice) to go out, look up, and photograph the architecture around me. And I find myself looking at buildings that I admired prior to reading the book in a new light.
Several local walks are listed in the second half of the book (along with photos to enjoy if you can't make it yourself) as well as a list of Art Deco societies around the country (some sponsor walks and events).

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With lavish color plates and itineraries and maps for nine tours of the Bay Area, this beautiful book is a stunning and authoritative guide to Deco beauty in San Francisco. 150 color plates.

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Coit Tower San Francisco: Its History and Art Review

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(More customer reviews)Coit Tower San Francisco: Its History and ArtThis is a new edition of what started out as a simple guidebook for the frescoes and other art covering the walls at Coit Tower. It has become a great reference book with beautifully designed pages and additional front matter and appendices written by leading experts in the art world that flesh out the history of the controversial project supported by Franklin Roosevelt's PWPA in the 1930s. I was particularly intrigued by the history of the author's father and the other artists who banded together with him to produce the largest collection of frescoes on the west coast.

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San Francisco: Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Area: History and Guide Review

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(More customer reviews)Any book that claims to be a guide to the architecture of the San Francisco Bay Area has to be either thick as a brick (a la White & Willensky's guide to NYC) or carefully (and subjectively) selective. This book is an example of the latter. While I like the color photography, the essays and the broad geographic coverage of the book, I don't particularly like the selected buildings. All the real landmarks are here, but beyond that there's a definite domestic, modernist and arts & crafts favoritism. It's much more like Sutro's AIA guide to San Diego than Gebhard & Winters' guide to Los Angeles. Chances are, if your favorite buildings are landmarks (of any age) or modernist attractions, they'll be in here. If they're older traditional structures that don't quite make landmark status, they probably will NOT be in here. So that begs the question: When are we going to get a really good comprehensive guide to the entire Bay Area? Granted, such a task is enormous, but not impossible. Such guides exist for New York City and the state of North Carolina, for example.
The volume itself is attractively printed and bound.

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National Trust Guide/San Francisco: America's Guide for Architecture and History Travelers (National Trust City Guides) Review

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(More customer reviews)My third day in San Francisco, I left the National Trust Guide to San Francisco in my room. It is not the architectural guide book I expected it to be. Dry and talky, the book is long on background and short on facts about individual buildings. Dozens of intriguing buildings are omitted and there is almost nothing about engineering. Peter Wiley's book may be a decent introduction to the city, but reading it did not heighten my anticipation before flying west, or strengthen my appreciation after arriving.
The weaknesses of this guide stand in contrast to the strengths of the AIA guides to major cities. These architect-written guides are exhaustive. The Boston, Chicago and New York books in particular make excellent travel guides as well as desk references. They mix building descriptions with history, and delightful nuggets of information that deepen your appreciation of the place and its builders. There's nothing dry about these books. When it comes to criticism, the editors can be delightfully bitchy.
Between politics and earthquakes, San Francisco is not an easy place to build. But SF AIA members, please find the time to draft a guide your craft and your city deserve. One that is worth schlepping up and down the hills.

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Early Women Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area: The Lives and Work of Fifty Professionals, 1890-1951 Review

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(More customer reviews)A fundamental work in the history of American architecture, the woman's movement, and American society, this readable history of early women architects provides both professional and personal details that will interest even the casual historian. The bibliographic information will be vital to future researchers. I recommend this book without reservation.

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San Francisco Architecture: The Illustrated Guide to Over 600 of the Best Buildings, Parks, and Public Artworks in the Bay Area Review

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(More customer reviews)San Francisco is a city with a long and unique history. With this history comes a wide variety of interesting and sometimes stunningly beautiful buildings. Wandering the streets of San Francisco, and noticing these buildings, one frequently wants to learn more about them. And that is why I bought this book.
However, I was disappointed by the fact that most of the houses featured in this volume only have the year it was built, who built it, and a very brief description. Often there is only one sentence saying this house was built in Queen Anne style and that it has a tower (self-evident from the picture, or once you actually see the building). The book says very little about the history of each house, why it was built like it was, notable persons that lived there, etc. It also does very little to put the houses in the context of the surrounding neighborhood.
The book features "tours" that you can take to view the described houses, but it doesn't quite pull it off, and the end result is a strange mix of tourist guide and architectural reference that performs mediocre at both.
San Francisco desperately needs a good book to picture, describe and catalog its unique architecture, but alas, this book is not it. It would have been better if the author concentrated the book on San Francisco houses only, instead of the entire Bay Area, and offered fewer houses with a better description of each. Still, it is the best I have been able to find, and it is better than nothing, hence the three stars.

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Theatres of San Francisco (CA) (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)Jack Tillmany, the author, has owned and/or managed several movie houses in the San Francisco Bay Area and is perhaps one of the best sources for photographs of theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area. This book gives at least one photo of every theater that ever operated in San Francisco (except for "storefront" theaters that was the first public outlets to show hard porn--I felt the Screening Room should have been included for historical reasons). All the Market Street houses, neighborhood theaters, "international" houses (art/foreign films have always been popular here), and even the current multiplexes. A small amount of history is included with each photograph, not an in-depth history, but a nugget of knowledge. (I would love to see a McFarland-type book on San Francisco theaters.) Many great photos, my favorite being the showing of the Howard Hughes production "The Outlaw" at the United Artists on Market Street. Highly recommended!

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Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area Review

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(More customer reviews)There is a recent, substantial review of this guidebook by Steven Finacom in the Berkeley Daily Planet, Weekday Edition, Oct.30-Nov.1, 2007. Some excerpts are:
"A long-awaited, much-needed, and up-to-date guide to the great and representative buildings and architectural history of the Bay Area debuts this month."....
"This guide is organized geographically by county, with individual cities, districts, and structures provided. The writers went into the field with notebook and camera as well as consulting an array of historical documents, surveys, and local experts." ....
"Architecturally, the most prominent local communities such as San Francisco and Berkeley have been well covered by previous guides (including two written by Cerny) and published architectural histories. However, many smaller or less visible Bay Area towns, cities and neighborhoods have been overlooked.
"This book, with more than 500 pages of text and over 2,000 individual entries, rectifies the imbalance and provides a regional perspective, addressing not just the older city centers but the suburbs, and profiling their major edifices and representative structures from cattle ranching days to Gold Rush to dot-com boom." ....
"They [Cerny and her co-authors] brought a catholic sensibility to their writing and selection of projects, respectfully showing the whole panorama of Bay Area architectural history and urban development." ....
"If you're at all interested in the architecture and history of the Bay Area, this will be an indispensable reference to own. I may, in fact, get two copies; one for home, and one that stays in the car, so that on trips through the Bay Area, quick answers to "what building is that?" can finally be found."

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An Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area is the definitive guide to the history and architecture of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. This compendium has been written and photographed by Susan Cerny and twelve Bay Area experts and provides a historic record of how the area developed to became what it is today, and discusses transportation systems, city and suburban landscape plans, public parkland, California history, and economic, social, and political influences. Included are San Francisco Victorians, civic buildings, churches, parks, grand Period Revivals, and rustic Arts and Crafts homes, as well as significant vernacular buildings in less publicized neighborhoods and towns.

Features include:

Buildings by all major San Francisco Bay Area architects from the 1860s to the present.

More than 2,000 entries.

Architectural landmarks in every Bay Area county, arranged by chapter: San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Napa, Sonoma, and Marin.

More than 100 cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

A history of architectural styles popular in the Bay Area.

More than 20,000 copies sold of our previous architecture guide to the Bay Area.

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San Francisco Architecture: An Illustrated Guide to the Outstanding Buildings, Public Art Works, and Parks in the Bay Area of California Review

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(More customer reviews)The new edition of San Francisco Architecture is everything a portable guide to the built environment should be: organized, accessible, and with enough detail to expand one's sense of time, place, and people. Fortunately, from this reader's point of view, it was written for a lay, rather than specialist, audience; the result is neither exhaustive nor exhausting, merely highly informative. As with any reference book, it must address specific information needs of a specific audience, and, in my estimation, this guide does so very well for a reader with general interest in buildings around the Bay Area.
San Francisco Architecture is unusually well designed and produced: the photography, layout, information structure, typography and printing (espcially the halftone reproduction) are all exemplary and reinforcing of each other. Visually, it is as satisfying as it is workmanlike -- free of excess or caprice and dedicated to serving information effectively.

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Visitors and residents alike continue to be pleasantly astonished by the rich and varied architectural heritage of the San Francisco Bay Area. This completely revised and updated guide offers a comprehensive catalog of noteworthy and representative sites, including residential and commercial buildings, parks, and public art works, each illustrated by an accompanying photograph. All are located within the major San Francisco neighborhoods as well as outlying areas. Useful maps, descriptive tidbits, and sightseeing hints embellish this densely packed volume. Whether used as the basis for a walking tour or as a reference for students and historians, SAN FRANCISCO ARCHITECTURE is the definitive guide to the natural and urban development of one of the most recognized and visited areas in the world. A completely revised and updated guide to San Francisco Bay Area architecture with new entries, photographs, and maps. Illustrated with more than 600 photographs.Of the many guidebooks on the San Francisco Bay Area, this is the only one to offer a comprehensive catalog of architectural sites.

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Historic Walks in San Francisco: 18 Trails Through the City's Past Review

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(More customer reviews)If Adah Bakalinsky's Stairway Walks in San Francisco (see my review) is like touring the city with your eccentric, but lovable aunt, Rand's book is like a walk with her history professor husband.
Rand's book is very well organized and presented. He provides maps and directions, like Adah, but adds in trip length and degree of difficulty, which are welcome information omitted from Adah's Stairway Walks.There is little of Adah's whimsy here: it is replaced with exhaustive research on the area for each walk and its architecture. This results in a very different walking experience.
The first major difference is that many of these Historic Walks are on flatter ground, meaning they both cover different ground from Stairway Walks and are more accessible to people who have trouble with all of the climbing inherent in Adah's routes.
The second major difference is that, given his focus on history and architecture, not sweeping views, Rand's walks are not as diminished by bad weather as Adah's are.
The last difference is the sheer amount of history. The walks in this book always take me much longer than I think they will because I spend so much time standing around reading. Sometimes this is good, e.g. the Castro walk's extensive information about how Harvey Milk helped shape the area, but sometimes, like when there is an extensive discussion of old maps and how hard it is to trace exactly when a particular nondescript house was converted from a nondescript barn, you just want him to get on with it.
I like this book as a contrast and follow on to Adah's Stairway Walks book but, unless you are a history buff, I'd do Adah's first.

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Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, With a New Preface (California Studies in Critical Human Geography) Review

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(More customer reviews)There are books that change the way you think about things. "Imperial San Francisco" changed the way I look at the city I live in, revealing the machinations behind the development of the Bay Area and its environs.
Brechin's book is part academic treatise, part shrill denouncement, and part insightful tell-all about America's favorite sweet-hart city. Basically, according to Brechin, a moneyed oligarchy destroyed the regional environment, poisoned our streams and wetlands, steered us towards a consumerist society dependant on fossil fuels and highways, provoked war, dumped toxic waste in workers' neighborhoods, and bought and control all significant media, all in order to make a buck. All the problems plaguing our modern society-poverty, crime, pollution, materialism-stem directly from the path of our greedy, imperial, and disgusting past.
Well researched (with occasional holes better filled by other reviewers), with plenty of gruesome anecdote and illustration, the book made my skin crawl, turned my belly aflame, and made me grit my teeth each morning as I read it on the Muni. All the passing sight from the train was just evidence of Man's greed and selfishness. What's worse, it only reminded me that the pace of our development only increases here in California.
But while Brechin was quite skillful in revealing the underbelly of San Francisco's past, his tone is grating and incessant. The book is like that obnoxious friend we all have who's politically savvy and unduly righteous. Reading the book is like being backed into a corner by this friend at a party and having to listen to all the products you should be boycotting.
And what was the alternative, after all? Certainly not the agricultural-philosophical town Brechin rhapsodizes about in the introduction. Jefferson extolled the same type of society, but his model needed slavery to uphold it, as did the Greeks', who Brechin praises as the ideal. So, after putting the book down, we're left with acrid taste in our mouths, yet no refreshing alternative with which to cleanse our palate.

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