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American Homes

The Landmark Illustrated Encyclopedia of Domestic Architecture

Contributors

By Lester Walker

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Mar 10, 2015
Page Count
336 pages
ISBN-13
9781579129927

Price

$21.99

Price

$28.99 CAD

Format

Trade Paperback

Format:

Trade Paperback $21.99 $28.99 CAD

American Homes is the classic work of American house architecture. From the Dutch colonial, to the New England Salt Box, to the 1950s prefab, this unrivaled reference and useful guide to 103 building styles pays homage to our country’s housing heritage.

American Homes opens the window onto the rich landscape of all the places we call home. Award-winning architect Lester Walker examines hundreds of styles of homes — more than any other survey of American domestic architecture — and helps us understand the history of each style, why it developed as it did, and the practical and historical reasons behind its shape, size, material, ornament, and plan. Hundreds of sequenced drawings illustrate the evolution of our most beloved housing styles, like the colonial English Cottage, which grows before our eyes from a simple square of posts and beams to a fully constructed home with hand-split cedar clapboards and an intricately thatched roof. There’s also the Italianate, whose roof displays its intricate carved brackets and is topped with a cupola that serves to filter light to the interior of the home. Annotated floor plans offer insight into the structure of these homes, and with it, a good measure of inspiration. No wrought-iron railing, white stucco wall, or gingerbread gable goes neglected. Every idiosyncratic detail and decoration of each of these uniquely American designs is delicately drawn.

American Homes is the perfect reference for enthusiasts of architecture, history, and American studies. It is also the ideal inspiration for anyone who lives in or dreams of living in a classic American home.

Lester Walker

Lester Walker

About the Author

Lester Walker is chef and co-founder of Ghetto Gastro. Walker brings unrelenting imagination, competition-ready technique, and skill at layering flavors to Ghetto Gastro’s iconic events, offerings, and storytelling. A native of the Bronx’s Co-op City, Walker discovered cooking at a pivotal moment in his teen years. New York City’s Careers Through Culinary Arts Program inspired him to pursue a career in food. Spurred by the speed, focus, and creativity of cooking, Walker worked up the fine-dining line in award-winning kitchens in New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami. Walker’s cooking merges the roots of NYC-based Black American foodways with the cuisines he studied professionally: French, Italian, Indian, and Southeast Asian. In 2012, he won Chopped on the Food Network. That same year, seeking ways to explore historic and modern Black culture through food, he partnered with Jon Gray, fellow Co-op City native, to launch Ghetto Gastro. With Ghetto Gastro, Walker aims to create art by intentionally pairing food with ideas that represent and celebrate where he comes from.
 

Learn more about this author