American Architecture: Books

A few, selected examples of subject search terms to use in the Library catalogs. Terms can all be modified by place names, e.g., Architecture California San Francisco Bay Area. You may also search the catalogs by the name of an architect or designer, either as an author or as subject. 

A representative sampling.

• America builds: source documents in American architecture and planning / edited by Leland M. Roth. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, c1983. (Series: Icon editions) 
• America by design / Spiro Kostof. New York : Oxford University Press, 1987. 
  Videos: Part 1, The house; Part 2, The workplace; Part 3, The street; Part 4, Public places and monuments; Part 5, The shape of the land (1986)
• American architectural history: a contemporary reader / edited by Keith L. Eggener. London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. 
• American architecture / David P. Handlin. 2nd edition London : Thames and Hudson, c2004. World of art. 
• American architecture, 1607-1976 / Marcus Whiffen and Frederick Koeper. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1980. 
• American architecture and urbanism / Vincent Scully. New rev. ed. New York : H. Holt, c1988. 
• American building / James Marston Fitch. 2d ed., rev. and enl. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1966-1972. 2 v. v.1: The historical forces that shaped it; v.2: The environmental forces that shaped it. 
• American building: materials and techniques from the first colonial settlements to the present / Carl W. Condit 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Chicago history of American civilization. 
  EnvDesign TH23.C58 1982
• American buildings and their architects [by] William H. Pierson, Jr. and William H. Jordy. [1st ed.] Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1970. [v.1] The colonial and neoclassical styles.--[v.2] Technology and the picturesque.-- [v.3 never published].--[v.4] Progressive and academic ideals at the turn of the twentieth century.--[v. 5].The impact of European modernism in the mid-twentieth century. 
• The American home: architecture and society, 1815-1915 / David P. Handlin. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown, c1979. 
• America's architectural roots: ethnic groups that built America /edited by Dell Upton. Washington, D.C. : Preservation Press, c1986. Building watchers series. 
• Architecture in the United States / Dell Upton. Oxford; NY: Oxford University Press, 1998. Oxford history of art. 
• Architecture in the United States: a survey of architectural styles since 1776 / Ralph W. Hammett. New York : Wiley, c1976. 
• The architecture of America; a social and cultural history. John E. Burchard. Boston, Little, Brown [1966]. 
• Building the nation: Americans write about their architecture, their cities, and their landscape. Philadelphia: University of pennsylvania Press, 2003. Anthology with a wide range of writings from two centuries, including Mark Twain, W. E. B. Du Bois, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Lewis Mumford, E. B. White, and John McPhee, contemplating the American way of building. Also includes little-known writers in American newspapers and magazines. 
• The buildings of main street: a guide to American commercial architecture / Richard Longstreth. Updated ed. Walnut Creek, Calif. : AltaMira Press, c2000. American Association for State and Local History book series. 
• Built in the U.S.A.: American buildings from airports to zoos / ed. Diane Maddex (National Trust for Historic Preservation). Washington, D.C.: Preservation Press, c1985. Building watchers series. 
• A concise history of American architecture / by Leland M. Roth. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Icon editions. 
• A history of American architecture: buildings in their cultural and technological context / Mark Gelernter. Hanover, NH : University Press of New England, c1999. 
• History of public works in the United States, 1776-1976 / by American Public Works Association; editor, Ellis L. Armstrong. Chicago: The Association, c1976. 
• Native American architecture / Peter Nabokov, Robert Easton. New York : Oxford University Press, 1989. 
• Rise of an American architecture. Henry-Russell Hitchcock [et al.]. New York, Published in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Praeger [1970]. 
• The rise of the skyscraper. Carl W. Condit. [Chicago] University of Chicago Press [1952]. 
• Shaping a nation: twentieth-century American architecture and its makers / Carter Wiseman. 1st ed. New York : Norton, c1998. 
• Shingle styles: innovation and tradition in American architecture, 1874 to 1982 / Leland M. Roth. New York : Norfleet Press : Harry N. Abrams, 1999. 
• Sticks and stones; a study of American architecture and civilization. Lewis Mumford. [2d rev. ed.] NY: Dover Publications [1955] 
   

Selected, representative guides and surveys that focus on specific American styles or periods.

• The American house [videorecording] : a guide to architectural styles / Lake Zurich, IL : Learning Seed Company, c1992. How to identify the most common styles of American houses, emphasizing the richness of architectural variety in residential design. Includes Tudor; Neo-Classic (Greek revival); Queen Anne; Bungalow (Craftsman); Ranch/Split level; Prairie School (Frank Lloyd Wright); Colonial Revival (Dutch, Spanish, New England, Georgian); and Neo-Eclectic Contemporary (Internatinal School, Post modern). 
• American house styles: a concise guide / John Milnes Baker. New York: W.W. Norton, c1994. 
• The elements of style: an practical encyclopedia of interior architectural details, from 1485 to the present / Rev. ed. New York : Simon and Schuster, c1996. Organized by period and style with major characteristics of design elements of each style. 
• Identifying American architecture: a pictorial guide to styles and terms, 1600-1945 / James J.-G. Blumenson. 2d ed., rev. and enl. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History ; New York : Norton, 1981. 
• The visual dictionary of American domestic architecture/ by Rachel Carley ; illustrations by Ray Skibinski and Ed Lam. New York : Henry Holt and Co., c1994. Henry Holt reference book. 
• What style is it? a guide to American architecture / John C. Poppeliers, S. Allen Chambers, Jr. Rev. ed. Hoboken, N.J. : John Wiley, c2003. 

Surveys that focus on specific American styles or periods.

• American art deco: architecture and regionalism / Carla Breeze. 1st ed. New York : W.W. Norton, 2003. 
• American gothic: its origins, its trials, its triumphs / text and photos by Wayne Andrews. New York : Vintage Books, 1975. 
• The American skyscraper: cultural histories / Roberta Moudry, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Architecture in colonial America / Marian C. Donnelly; Leland M. Roth, ed.. Eugene: University of Oregon Press, 2003. 
• The Architecture of the Ecole des beaux-arts / edited by Arthur Drexler [et al.]. New York: Museum of Modern Art: Cambridge, Mass.: distributed by MIT Press, c1977. 
• Bauhaus in America [videorecording]. Producer/director, Judith Pearlman. New York : Cliofilm, 1994. VHS. Documentary video, 87 minutes. 
• Craftsman style / Robert Winter. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004.
• The Egyptian revival: its sources, monuments, and meaning, 1808-1858 / Richard G. Carrott. Berkeley : University of California Press, c1978. 
• Googie: fifties coffee shop architecture / Alan Hess. San Francisco, CA : Chronicle Books, 1986. 
• Greek revival architecture in America: being an account of important trends in American architecture and American life prior to the war between the states. Talbot Hamlin; …with a list of articles on architecture in some American periodicals prior to 1850… London, New York [etc]: Oxford university press, 1944. 
• The international style. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson. New York, Norton [1966] The Norton library, N311. 
• Mid-century architecture in America; honor awards of the American Institute of Architects, 1949-1961. American Institute of Architects,Wolf Von Eckardt, ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1961. 
• Modern architecture in America: visions and revisions / edited by Richard Guy Wilson and Sidney K. Robinson. 1st ed. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991. 
• On the rise: architecture and design in a post modern age / Paul Goldberger. New York, N.Y. : Times Books, c1983. 
• Roots of contemporary American architecture; a series of thirty-seven essays dating from the mid-nineteenth century. Lewis Mumford. New York, Reinhold [1952] 
• The shingle style and the stick style: architectural theory and design from Richardson to the origins of Wright / Vincent J. Scully. Rev. ed. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1971. Yale historical publications. History of art; 20. 
• "Symbolic essence" and other writings on modern architecture and American culture / William H. Jordy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
• Victorian America: classical Romanticism to gilded opulence / Wendell Garrett. New York: Rizzoli, 1993. 

A selection of guides. For additional titles, check Library catalogs under: Subject Keywords: Architecture--[name of state--name of city]--Guidebooks, or Architecture--Details, or Architecture--{place]--Handbooks.

• AIA guides. Search Library catalogs under: Title Keyword: AIA guide* for more than 20 architectural guides to individual US cities sponsored by the American Institute of Architects. [Use the * truncation symbol to pick up variations, singular, plural.]
• American architecture: a field guide to the most important examples / William Dudley Hunt, Jr. New York: Harper & Row, c1984. 
• American houses, a field guide to the architecture of the home. Gerald Foster. Boston: New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Well illustrated with plans and photos of vernacular and high-style homes across the U.S. from 1620s to the present. 
• American shelter: an illustrated encyclopedia of the American home / Lester Walker; preface by Charles Moore. Rev. ed. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1997, c1996. Excellent illustrations, with details and characters of different styles and types. Especially good for vernacular designs. 
• The architecture traveler: a guide to 263 key American buildings / Sydney LeBlanc. Rev. ed.New York : W.W. Norton, c2005. 
• The buildings of main street: a guide to American commercial architecture / Richard Longstreth. Updated ed. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, c2000. American Association for State and Local History book series. 
• Buildings of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. 1993- . Search library catalogs in Advanced Search under Series: Buildings of the United States to see complete list. Each volume is devoted to one state and has its own call number.
• Clues to American architecture / Marilyn W. Klein, David P. Fogle. Rev. ed. Washington, DC : Starrhill Press, c1986. 
• Field guide to American architecture / by Carole Rifkind. New York: New American Library, c1980. A Plume book) 
• Field guide to American houses / Virginia and Lee McAlester. New York : Knopf, 1984. 
  EnvDesign NA7205.M35 1984 Reference & circulating
• A field guide to America's historic neighborhoods and museum houses: the western states / Virginia and Lee McAlester. New York: Alfred A. Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1998. 
• Field guide to contemporary American architecture / Carole Rifkind. New York : Dutton, c1998. 
• Guide to U.S. architecture, 1940-1980 / Esther McCoy and Barbara Goldstein. Santa Monica, Calif.: Arts & Architecture Press, 1982. 
• Historic landmarks of Black America / by George Cantor. Detroit : Gale Research, 1991. 
• Houses and house-life of the American aborigines / Lewis Henry Morgan. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, c2003. 
• National Geographic guide to America's great houses: more than 150 outstanding mansions open to the public / by Henry Wiencek and Donna M. Lucey. [Washington, D.C.]: National Geographic Society, 1999. 
• National Geographic guide to America's historic places / prepared by the Book Division, National Geographic Society. Washington, D.C. : National Geographic Society, 1996. 
• National landmarks, America's treasures: the National Park Foundation's complete guide to national historic landmarks / S. Allen Chambers, Jr. New York : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000. 
• The National Trust guide to Art Deco in America / David Gebhard. New York : J. Wiley ; [Washington, D.C.] : Preservation Press, c1996. 
• Source book of American architecture: 500 notable buildings from the 10th century to the present / G.E. Kidder Smith. 1st ed. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, c1996. 
• Treasures of American architecture and their architects / John D. Randall. [S.l.] : J.D. Randall, c1992.