Built by Hand: Vernacular Buildings Around the World

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Summary: Built by Hand: Vernacular Buildings Around the World
Review: A photographic anthology of the astounding variety of architecture produced without architects-a colorful successor to Bernard Rudofsky's pioneering study of vernacular building, Architecture Without Architects. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

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Summary: A Spectacular Collection of Vernacular Archtcture Worldwide
Review: I perused this book in a bookstore and just purchased my own copy. It is FILLED with gorgeous, detailed photographs that show not only the buildings themselves, but include human life and show how people interact with their architecture. I feel that it is a mind-opening book because it makes one realize how much this vernacular, "primative"-like architecture is still used and useful, around the world. I am an architecture student and hope that other young architects look to books like this for inspiration. I think that this book is the next "Architecture Without Architects" (another thoughtful architect's must-have, by Bernard Rudolfsky), and one of the best to emerge in the last several decades. I congratulate the authors and photographers for their work!

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Summary: Celebrating traditional architecture
Review: The collaborative effort of Bill Steen, Athena Steen, and Eiko Komatsu, and enhanced with the photography of Yoshio Komatsu, Built By Hand: Vernacular Buildings Around The World is an eye-catching collection of colorful photographs celebrating traditional architecture constructed by ordinary homesteaders. Very little text distracts from the beautiful layouts of dwellings, in this inspirational celebration of human effort and ingenuity. Built By Hand is a unique, impressive, and very highly recommended addition to any personal, professional, academic, or community library Architectural Studies collection.

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Summary: Ultimate Book on Vernacular Architecture
Review: There has never been a photographer of buildings like Yoshio Komatsu. He's been shooting photos around the world for 25 years now and this stunning book is the result. It's a spectacular photo journey, like a film, around the planet, giving you rare glimpses of shelter in every corner of the earth. The photos are absolutely wonderful. Text and editing are by straw bale gurus Bill and Athena Steen, and Eiko Komatsu. This is like an updated, expanded, technicolor, improved-upon Architecture Without Architects. Wow!

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Summary: Best book on verancular architecture ever
Review: Without qualification, this is the greatest account of vernacular architecture, indigenous shelter, and traditional folk-built home images ever published. And it won't likely be surpassed, since fanatical photographer Yoshio Komatsu spent 25 years travelling the globe to document the full jaw-dropping variety of shelter on earth. He's been EVERYWHERE. I can't think of a remote region of Asia, Africa, South American and Europe that he missed; most of the styles are new and stimulating to me, and I've been around. While the classic small tome of Architecture Without Architects hints dreamily at this diversity, Built By Hand completes the thought by explicitly celebrating this abundance in vivid in-your-face technicolor. It's in a different league from all previous vernacular architecture books. This one is a stupendous 480-page cornucopic tome overflowing with 700 photographs, and thousands of details, hopes, and design ideas. Totally breathtaking, totally awesome! If this doesn't get you to grab a hammer, nothing will.