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Rating: 
Summary: Scholarly text and incredibly detailed drawings
Review: A review of famous modern architects' buildings, starting with H.H. Richardson and ending with Wright's Usonian houses. Shows how each's ideals regarding architectural honesty are revealed and often compromised in their buildings. The theme is really not important, as long as it provides a framework for discussion of construction methods, which is the real heart of the book. (For the sequel, another theme, the influence of industrialization, is added to the discussion.) You'll learn interesting facts: Greene & Greene's Gamble House is post and beam only where it shows; FLW's Martin house owes its distinctive style to framing with structural steel and brick piers. Combine this with the second volume, and you'll be familiar with all the important Modern buildings and architects.
Rating: 
Summary: The missing details
Review: I received the books (both the earlier publication and the follow up vol 2) today after a long wait. I must say that I have high expectation of the books and reckon that they could make an important contribution to the study of architecture. In an age where students are learning only from glossy mags and have no idea how buildings are put together and how the tactile quality of construction works, I think it is right that somebody should revisit the art and craft of architecture.However, I am greatly disappointed with the books. Whilst the text is general reasonable, insightful and critical, the same cannot be said to the drawings. In a nutshell, they are badly drawn and poorly finished. For example, the style of the drawings does not reflect the quality of the material used. And who is going to believe that when materials of different qualities are joined together, there is no tolerance? Fixing methods are not illustrated and I have a suspicion that some of the details are guesswork. This is evident by noting the impossibility of construction sequence based on the drawings. The most unforgivable sin of the drawings is that lines are missing, or are wrongly drawn. Like my teachers used to say to us, students of architecture, the guy who did the drawings simply has no idea of construction and detailing. As far as trying to teach my students the art and craft of architecture, I will definitely give the books a miss. The books are only useful to show how they should not be done.
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Summary: Source book for construction and theory of selected projects
Review: It is an excellent way to know how the masters made their buildings. The book is full of drawings showing every detail. Excellent BOOK!
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Summary: Just like the first one
Review: Like the first volume, excellent book. Be prepared, however, for sentences like this, on page 127: "Perhaps because this methodology required the juxtaposition of opposites seemingly incapable of reconciliation, the irrational combination of radically different techniques, and the simultaneous consideration of multiple variables, it was one at which Aalto excelled". Both books are pretty much like that. It's interesting to read these elaborate sentences, but often they're the umpteenth re-statement of a point. After reading these volumes you'll have an overview of the important buildings and architects of the Twentieth century, complete with detailed drawings describing exactly how they were built, and a sense that architects will always agonize over the deceptions they are forced to perpetuate.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor drawings
Review: This book could be the greatest book in my bookshelf, but the detail drawings are so basic and naive that it's valuable almost only for the essays. I mean... I bought a book where I expected to find good and useful details, and got a book with excelent essays about construction according to the masters (from Lutyens to Morphosis). That's why I gave it 3 stars instead of the 5 the title deserved.
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