Bricks and Brownstone


Book Description

Bricks and Brownstone: The New York Rowhouse 1783?1929 was first published in 1972, and remains the only book ever written on the New York row house. It has been met with impressive critical praise ever since and Rizzoli is proud to publish this revised and updated edition as the introductory volume in the new Rizzoli Classics program, dedicated to keeping in print important architecture titles. Charles Lockwood looks at different architecture styles of the New York row house. The book is comprehensive, examining the history of New York's changing neighborhoods and the history of the various row house architectural styles--the Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, and Second Empire, as well as the eclectic but picturesque styles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The text and illustrations also delve into the architectural details, paying meticulous attention to all features, including doorways, glass, mantels, staircases, ceiling ornaments, and ironwork. Twenty years later, this edition is updated to include specially commissioned new color photographs of interiors and exteriors of some of New York's most impressive homes. Also included is Best of the Brownstones Walking Tours, carefully detailed and illustrated with color photographs.




The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn


Book Description

Considered one of the city's most notorious industrial slums in the 1940s and 1950s, Brownstone Brooklyn by the 1980s had become a post-industrial landscape of hip bars, yoga studios, and beautifully renovated, wildly expensive townhouses. In The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn, Suleiman Osman offers a groundbreaking history of this unexpected transformation. Challenging the conventional wisdom that New York City's renaissance started in the 1990s, Osman locates the origins of gentrification in Brooklyn in the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. Gentrification began as a grassroots movement led by young and idealistic white college graduates searching for "authenticity" and life outside the burgeoning suburbs. Where postwar city leaders championed slum clearance and modern architecture, "brownstoners" (as they called themselves) fought for a new romantic urban ideal that celebrated historic buildings, industrial lofts and traditional ethnic neighborhoods as a refuge from an increasingly technocratic society. Osman examines the emergence of a "slow-growth" progressive coalition as brownstoners joined with poorer residents to battle city planners and local machine politicians. But as brownstoners migrated into poorer areas, race and class tensions emerged, and by the 1980s, as newspapers parodied yuppies and anti-gentrification activists marched through increasingly expensive neighborhoods, brownstoners debated whether their search for authenticity had been a success or failure.




Restoring a House in the City


Book Description

How to turn an old home into a jewel on the block. What do a fashion mogul, a Williams-Sonoma executive, a museum curator, and a design-savvy actress have in common? Good taste, of course, but more than that: a shared passion to "bring back," to carefully restore and artfully embellish, their houses. They are among the twenty-one real-life renovations featured in this essential resource—from stately town houses to brownstone fixer-uppers—to give the true experience of creating an urban oasis on any street. Whether hunting for rare chandeliers, salvaging floorboards for new tabletops, or removing walls to let more light in, all the nuts and bolts of restoration are here. In Boston, a young family's renovation takes three years and includes every modern amenity (a media room, home gym, elevator), but saves most of the original interiors (window shutters and seats, marble fireplaces). A Baltimore couple—both stars of the graphic design world—must reconcile their cutting-edge tastes with their traditional surrounds. From furniture and color to rooftops and terraces, Restoring a House in the City offers a treasury of inspiration and ideas, as well as a lavish illustrated tour of some of the best done renovations in the business.







The Baltimore Rowhouse


Book Description

Perhaps no other American city is so defined by an indigenous architectural style as Baltimore is by the rowhouse, whose brick facades march up and down the gentle hills of the city. Why did the rowhouse thrive in Baltimore? How did it escape destruction here, unlike in many other historic American cities? What were the forces that led to the citywide renovation of Baltimore's rowhouses? The Baltimore Rowhouse tells the fascinating 200-year story of this building type. It chronicles the evolution of the rowhouse from its origins as speculative housing for immigrants, through its reclamation and renovation by young urban pioneers thanks to local government sponsorship, to its current occupation by a new cadre of wealthy professionals.




Private Newport


Book Description

Newport, Rhode Island, blessed with stunning ocean vistas and constant sea breezes, is home to some of the most exceptional private residences in America. Its deeply rooted history makes it a perennial destination, with more than 3.5 million visitors each year. Although it is one of the most high profile towns in the country, Newport is also one of the most cloistered. Private Newport: At Home and in the Garden offers an invitation to venture beyond the privet hedges and massive iron gates. It is the first book to step inside the privately owned mansions to reveal a diverse collection of architectural jewels complemented by spectacular gardens. These homes, created by distinguished architects and landscape designers, are stunning examples of Newport's 375-year "old-world" heritage. Eighteen exquisite and unique homes are prominently featured-from the resilient crescent curve of majestic Seafair, which withstood the Hurricane of '38, to the prizewinning Japanese garden at Wildacre, to the nostalgic working farm of heritage breeds at Swiss Village-each contributing its own part to the "Eden of America."




Get Your House Right


Book Description

Even as oversized McMansions continue to elbow their way into tiny lots nationwide, a much different trend has taken shape. This return to traditional architectural principles venerates qualities that once were taken for granted in home design: structural common sense, aesthetics of form, appropriateness to a neighborhood, and even sustainability. Marianne Cusato, creator of the award-winning Katrina Cottages, has authored and illustrated this definitive guide to what makes houses look and feel right--to the eye and to the soul. She teaches us the language and grammar of classical architecture, revealing how balance, harmony, and detail all contribute to creating a home that will be loved rather than tolerated. And she takes us through the do’s and don’ts of every element of home design, from dormers to doorways to columns. Integral to the book are its hundreds of elegant line drawings--clearly rendering the varieties of lintels and cornices, arches and eaves, and displaying "avoid” and "use” versions of the same elements side by side.




Brooklyn


Book Description

A major new history of Brooklyn, told through its landscapes, buildings, and the people who made them, from the early 17th century to today.




New York Rising


Book Description

New York Rising is an illustrated history of real estate development in Manhattan, a story of speculation and innovation--of the big ideas, big personalities, and big risks that collectively shaped a city like no other. From the first European settlement in the seventeenth century through the skyscrapers and large-scale urban planning schemes of the late twentieth century, this book presents a broad historical survey, illustrated with images drawn largely from the rich archival resources of the Durst Collection at Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. The patriarch of one of New York City's most prominent real estate families, Seymour B. Durst, was a bibliophile and an avid collector of New York memorabilia. His archival holdings--once known as the Old York Library and now the Durst Collection--reflect his fascination with the city's street grid, mass transit, port, parks and open spaces, as well as its monumental buildings and signature skyline. Ten leading scholars--the late Hilary Ballon, Ann Buttenwieser, Andrew Dolkart, David King, Reinhold Martin, Richard Plunz, Lynne B. Sagalyn, Hilary Sample, Russell Shorto, and Carol Willis--delved into the collection to select objects that reflect their own areas of interest and expertise. Using these materials, they have created visual narratives on specific topics, focusing on the Dutch and English governance of Manhattan, the growth of the city according to the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, the emergence of the public transit system, the "race for height," the rise of multi-family and affordable housing, the transformation of Midtown into a commercial center, urban renewal in the Moses era, the revival of Times Square, and the reclaiming of the waterfront as public space. Essays by Kate Ascher and Thomas Mellins provide a framework for exploring these topics. New York Rising is published in association with The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.




The Brownstone


Book Description