New Book
Now in paperback: the fully expanded, updated, and freshly designed second edition of the most comprehensive and widely acclaimed guide to domestic architecture: in print since its original publication in 1984, and acknowledged everywhere as the unmatched, essential guide to American houses. This revised edition includes a section on neighborhoods; expanded and completely new categories of house styles with photos and descriptions of each; an appendix on “Approaches to Construction in the 20th and 21st Centuries”; an expanded bibliography; and 600 new photographs and line drawings.
A rap about the National Register of Historic Places. Written and preformed by Historic Preservation students at the University of Mary Washington.
A Field Guide to American Houses by Virginia Savage McAlester Reviews:
“The most authoritative dictionary of the language spoken by the built environment . . . McAlester’s book is excellent for the layperson who wants to wander about the neighborhood with a bit more authority, or perhaps for the homeowner who can’t decide what kind of windows might look best. It’s also useful to those of us who study preservation professionally, to bring our insistence that buildings are just as alive as plants—and just as worthy of careful, affectionate attention—into the broader cultural conversation about urban spaces. That conversation, in which the most mundane elements of building design are cast as characters in the story of a city, turns the streetscape into something greater than the brick and limestone it’s made of. It’s alive, noisy—and demands our close attention.”
—Angela Serratore, The New York Times Magazine
“Once you’ve pored through Virginia McAlester’s photo-packed bible of American home design, you’ll be able to identify the saltboxes, Dutch colonials, and brownstones lining your own street, and you’ll understand the historical significance of each one.” —Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly
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