House Styles - good books?

[Kris Krieger]

"3D Peruna" wrote in news:Z%u5f.21$ [e-mail]:

[ snip ]

You'd posted the following as part of an answer to a post about house style/floorplan webistes:

As for styles of houses, there's a great book called "American House > Styles: A Concise Guide" You can get it here: >

I'm looking through Amazon.com but not seeing any sort of International house stle guide. Does such a thing exist or is it just too large a subject to summarize and offer in a "style guide" sort of format?

Thanks in advance!

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 26 Oct 2005, Kris Krieger wrote

The latter, I'd say.

Traditionally, both theory and practice in American architecture has been heavily style-based[1], and the "landscape" of house design in many other countries lends itself to a different set of categories.

[1] I mean this as an analytical rather than critical assertion: there are historical reasons for it.

[3D Peruna]

I'd agree with Harvey's thought... Because of the "melting pot"-ness of America, we have people who have come over with a variety of "styles" from their home country. For instance, you'll find less "style" in the individual countries because of the relative homogeneity of those countries. What I observed in Finland (Ahmed alert) was a vernacular style that had morphed over time, with a sprinkling of "modern" here and there. There wasn't nearly the breadth of styles that you see here. I suspect that it's much the same elsewhere... different styles are related to the people, climate and geography in the rest of the world...unlike the US where we build what we like regardless of the consequences. I do have a book, I'll have to try and dig it up, called "Houses" and it's a view of houses from around the world...but with an emphasis on "modern" which, in some way, makes them all the same "style."

[Kris Krieger]

"3D Peruna" wrote in news:wnT7f.189$ [e-mail]:

Yeah, style is not a very good word. Look? Type of visual and spatial organization? anyhoo:

True, but there is, for example, a manner of wood construction and building design that many of the NorthEastern European peoples had somewhat in common (with variations of course) - samples in Russia were collected onto Kizhij island for instance. And there were Scandinavian variants.

It's sort of the way there was a certain way of putting up half-timber houses in the 1500's and thereabouts. They had certain characteristics, although three were of course variations.

So, for example, when you mention Finnish vernacular style, I don't have a picture of that in my mind. So I was wondering about the existence of a compilation just so that I could have a picture in my mind when I come across mentions of various areas. It'd also be a good idea source-book, I'd think. I have a coupld that sort-of approach that idea, but they're mostly expositions of specific houses rathere than illustrations of local/vernacular characteristics.

Exactly, which is important to know if one is, for example, trying to model a scene or structure with at least reasonable accuracy. So, for example, if I decide to build and try to sell a 3D model of a Swiss farmhouse, I can't just stick a few half-timbers and brown wood onto a cube - there are certain elements, organizational principles, and other characteristics that would need to be included. Or if I want/need to create an illustrative scene of an area or even a story that occurs in a given area.

It's also just a matter of mere curiosity. As above, to have a mental image available if I run across mention of a geographical area. Also because it simply interrests me to see the different solutions people came up with to problems of the environment-dwelling interaction, and the part that those solutions play in a local culture.

Well, on average, yeah, which is a good reason to have one's own place built for a specific site (and climate).

Modern is good but you mentioned vernacular, and yup, that's more what I'm wondering about in terms of a style encyclopedia.

BTW I did try to look up "Houses" but Amazon insists upon dropping the plural and returning 84,832 results (anything with the word "house" in the title)...