Historic Architecture in Alabama


Book Description

Capitol Books Local 10-16-2009 $16.99.







From Fort to Port


Book Description

From Fort to Port covers the architectural history of the city of Mobile, Alabama, from the time of the French fort of 1711 to the end of World War I in 1918. The text, with 332 illustrations, traces the history of Mobile's architecture from the town's beginnings as a colonial military outpost o its establishment as a modern commercial port city. Included is a record of the evolution of commercial, civic, religious, and residential buildings as they were affected by the environment, by building practices, and by the historical and social changes brought about through two centuries.




Alabama Architecture


Book Description

This stunning book of photography and commentary celebrates the state's diverse architectural heritage by presenting a wide-ranging view of Alabama's buildings and places.




The University of Alabama


Book Description

The University of Alabama: A Guide to the Campusand Its Architecture is a richly illustrated guidebook to the architecture and development of the University of Alabama’s campus as it has evolved over the last two centuries. In 1988 the University of Alabama Press published Robert Oliver Mellown’s The University of Alabama: A Guide to the Campus, a culmination of a decade’s worth of research into both the facts and the legends surrounding the architecture, history, and traditions of the Capstone. Over twenty years later, this new guide brings to light the numerous additions, expansions, and renovations the university has undergone on its spacious grounds in Tuscaloosa. In addition to updated sections devoted to the university’s historic landmarks—such as Foster Auditorium, where “the stand in the schoolhouse door” occurred; Denny Chimes,where the handprints and footprints of famous Tide athletes are memorialized in concrete; and the Gorgas House, which with stood the destruction of Union troops at the end of the Civil War—new sections account for the acquisition of Bryce Hospital’s campus, the expansions at Bryant-Denny Stadium to accommodate the growing Crimson Tide fan base, and the burgeoning student recreation facilities, playing fields, and residential communities. Chapters are arranged into various campus tours for walking or driving—Antebellum, Victorian, Early Twentieth-Century, East Quad, West Quad, Science and Engineering Corridor, Student Life, Bryce, Medical, Southeast, Athletics, and Off Campus. Alumni, prospective students and their parents, new faculty, out-of-state visitors, and foreign dignitaries will all welcome this useful, compact, and colorful guide to one of the most beautiful campuses in the country.




Visions of the Black Belt


Book Description

Visions of the Black Belt offers a rich cultural overview of the emblematic core of Alabama known for its prairie soils, plantation manors, civil rights history, gothic churches, traditional foodways, and resilient and gracious people.




Historic Architecture in Mississippi


Book Description

A selection of representative historic buildings from various sections within the state of Mississippi.




Historic Plantations of Alabama's Black Belt


Book Description

Once the center of agricultural prosperity in Alabama, the rich soil of the Black Belt still features beautiful homes that stand as a testimony to the regions proud heritage. Join author Jennifer Hale as she explores the history of seventeen of the finest plantation homes in Alabamas Black Belt. This book chronicles the original owners and slaves of the homes, and traces their descendants who continued to call these plantations home throughout the past two centuries. Discover why the families of an Indian chief and a chief justice feuded for over a century about the land on which Belvoir stands. Follow Gaineswoods progress as it grew from a humble log cabin into an opulent mansion. Learn how the original builder and subsequent owners of the Kirkwood Mansion are linked together by a legacy of exceptional and dedicated reservation. Historic Plantations of Alabamas Black Belt recounts the elegant past and hopeful future of a well-loved region of the South.







Landscape of Transformations


Book Description

Landscape of Transformations presents a history of Birmingham's built environment and chronicles the development of the city as it became the dominant industrial powerhouse of the South during the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. This is a work of broad cultural interpretation, integrating industrial and commercial architecture, planned subdivision development, and the housing of the urban poor, while emphasizing the city's many transformations. In an unusual approach, Michael W. Fazio interprets the human constructions and natural landscapes of Birmingham as his text, a medium in which society has not only located and contained itself but also encoded its values for subsequent generations. Fazio allows this landscape to speak openly, sometimes eloquently, and even tragically about historical events. For example, on the civil rights struggle, rather than delving exclusively into political machinations and social structure, the author considers some of the city's most important civil rights developments through their physical contexts--the buildings, streets, and landscapes where they took place--and looks for meaning in them. In addition, Fazio traces the history of Birmingham through the events, circumstances, and personalities that have shaped the city. The book begins with an exploration of the preindustrial landscape, continues with a look at the development of the iron and steel industries, and culminates with an analysis of the planning developments that produced the University of Alabama in Birmingham and its medical center, which replaced declining heavy industry as foundations of the local economy. Richly illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs, maps, and drawings, Landscape of Transformations is one of the few studies to focus on industrial cities of the "heartland." Architectural historians, urban planners, and historic preservationists will be fascinated by this profound story of coal, iron, architecture, and the people behind the emerging personality of a leading southern city. Michael W. Fazio is professor emeritus in the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University. He is coauthor of Buildings Across Time: An Introduction to World Architecture and The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe.