1st Edition
Encounters with Architecture Insights from a Hundred Places
The hundred places of this book were visited over several decades, and played an important role in Davis’s career. Insights come from everyday places and famous landmarks: some beautiful, some the product of fine craftsmanship, some active places of gathering or commerce, some quiet places of contemplation. All stayed in the author’s memory, helping build the framework of his understandings of what is important to people in architecture and cities.
Organized chronologically, the book begins with the author’s encounters with buildings and places as a child in New York, and leads to his most recent architectural experiences as a seasoned professor, scholar and traveler. Each encounter is explained on two or three pages, that bring out the reasons for its significance and the lessons learned from it. Readers are encouraged to look for themselves and see how the places they encounter in their everyday lives and travels can enrich their own understandings about the built world that surrounds them.
Illustrated with beautiful photographs, drawings and diagrams, the book will interest people outside architecture who are fascinated by buildings and cities, as well as teachers, practitioners and students of architecture and cities
PART ONE 1957–1975
Four shops, St. Johns Place, Brooklyn
Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
Meadows, Catskill Mountains, New York
House, Levittown, Long Island
Small towns near New York City
Brooklyn Technical High School, Brooklyn, New York
Foundation Building, Cooper Union, New York
Library, Mount Angel Abbey, Oregon
Orchard Lane, Berkeley, California
London
La Tourette Monastery, Eveux-sur-l’Arbresle, France
Farmhouse, Tunisia
Roehampton housing estate, London
Arcaded streets, Bologna, Italy
PART TWO 1980–1985
House, Sierra Nevada, California
Christian Science Church, Berkeley, California
New York Public Library
West 47th Street, New York
Mosque of Rustem Pasa, Istanbul
Outdoor book market, Istanbul
Mount Athos, Greece
Little Singer Building, New York
Victoria and India streets, Edinburgh, Scotland
Byker Wall, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
House, open-air museum, Copenhagen
Washington Mews, New York
A neighborhood in Cairo
Kings Road House, West Hollywood, California
PART THREE 1986–1991
Knight Library, University of Oregon, Eugene
Red Fort, Delhi, India
Houses and streets, Jaisalmer, India
Mausoleum of Mahmud Begada, Sarkhej, Ahmedabad, India
Sarabhai House, Ahmedabad, India
Doges’ Palace, Venice
Wilhelm Pelster house-barn, Franklin County, Missouri
Public housing, Vienna
Karlsplatz Station, Vienna
Church and orphanage, Florence, Italy
Church of San Prassede, Rome
Cosmati pavements, Roman churches, Italy
Side of the road, India
Village house, near L’viv, Ukraine
PART FOUR 1992–1999
Passage des Panoramas, Paris
A slum, Madras (now Chennai), India
Temple of Athena Nike, Acropolis, Athens
Apartment terrace, Athens
Entsu-ji Temple, Kyoto
Daishen-in, Myoshinji, Kyoto
St. James Piccadilly, London
Apartment houses, New York
Inner Shrine, Ise, Mie Prefecture, Japan
Tung Pattana, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Al-Ghansour Caravanserai, Cairo, Egypt
Grand Central Terminal, New York
Tinngarden, Herfolge, Denmark
Pati, Patan, Nepal
Newari house, Patan, Nepal
Trapezoidal bricks, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
PART FIVE 2000–2004
Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle
India International Centre, New Delhi
Court Gardener’s House, Potsdam, Germany
Shop/houses in New York
American Folk Art Museum, New York
Arnados, Tinos, Greece
Canal houses, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Seventeenth-century house interiors, the Netherlands
Town hall, Hilversum, the Netherlands
Artists’ houses and studios, Hammersmith, London
Seabird Island School, Agassiz, British Columbia, Canada
Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh
PART SIX 2006–2014
Equitable Building, Portland
St. Mark’s Church, Bjorkhagen, Stockholm
Cantonal library of Ticino, Lugano, Switzerland
Commercial extensions, London
Stolpersteine (stumbling stones), Hamburg, Germany
Housing project, Lindenstrasse, Berlin
Dunboyne Road housing, Camden, London
Gillett Square, Dalston, London
Thermal baths, Vals, Switzerland
Cathedral, Chartres, France
Piazza dei Signori, Vicenza, Italy
Swimming pool, Matosinhos, Portugal
Sao Bento Train Station, Porto, Portugal
PART SEVEN 2015–2024
Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, Rome
Winkley Estate, Bethnal Green, London
Myyrmaki Church, Vantaa, Finland
Town hall, Saynatsalo, Finland
Three spaces, Hvittrask, Kirkkonummi, Finland
Dining room, Aalto house, Helsinki, Finland
Tripotamos, Tinos, Greece
Everyman Theatre, Liverpool
Worship Street houses, London
Silkweavers’ work spaces, Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, India
Karappankadu, Tamil Nadu, India
Castelvecchio, Verona
Hedmark Museum, Hamar, Norway
Place du Tertre, Montmartre, Paris
Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, New York
Experimental project, Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico
Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Biography
Howard Davis is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Oregon, where his specialty is issues of culture and place in buildings and cities. He is the author of The Culture of Building, Living Over the Store, and Working Cities, and the co-author, with Christopher Alexander and others, of The Production of Houses. Davis is a Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and winner of the Herman Award at the University of Oregon. His travels in over fifty countries are the basis for the writing and photography in this book.
