Architecture and Town Planning in Colonial North America (3 Vol. Set)
A monument of scholarly publishing, this three-volume work is the first thorough history of its subject... Comprehensive and detailed, it examines -- in unusually brisk and intelligent prose, and with more than 4,000 aptly chosen illustrations -- the public and private buildings; the forts and harbors; the squares and greens; and the gardens and landscapes of the New World... A remarkable work of both art history and social history, these volumes keenly assess the aesthetic triumphs of town planning and landscape design... but they also reveal how structures and designs reflected North America's disparate cultural, environmental, and religious characteristics... Thank God for university presses; these beautiful books are of lasting importance.(Atlantic Monthly)This magnum opus documents in impressive detail the builders and planners of colonial towns and cities of Canada and the United States and the architecture of those places. With a thorough grasp of the political and economic context of urban from, Kornwolf organizes the material by influence... Original and important scholarship abounds... Highly informative graphic figures illustrate town plans, floor plans, and historic views... This is very likely the most informative source on colonial architecture of North America in print.(Library Journal)A monumental survey... Historians and art historians will find much that is valuable... and come away awed at the audacious scale of the book... James Kornwolf embarked on a study that most other scholars would never have attempted. We will profit from his work for years to come.(J. Ritchie GarrisonJournal of American History)Nothing on this scale for North American design has ever before been attempted... Spanning three centuries, from Jean Ribault's 1562 attempt to establish permanent settlement on Parris Island, South Carolina, to the 1867 formation of the Dominion of Canada, these volumes constitute the most detailed yet comprehensive account of what North Americans (including Indians and African Americans) built -- firmly anchored in design history, social and political context, and environmental influences -- that we are ever likely to have.(Robert TwomblyReviews in American History)In its comprehensiveness and in its incorporation of the half century of research since the appearance of the previous standard study of the subject, Architecture and Town Planning in Colonial North America establishes a new foundation for its field... Kornwolf's work provides a readable and authoritative overview of the present understanding of the past and will serve as the basis on which the next generation will construct the twenty-first century's view of the Colonial development of the North American landscape.(Dwight ShurkoDaily Press (Newport News, Virginia)1900-01-00)An extensively researched, detailed examination and thoughtful exposition of architecture, town planning, and landscape gardening in what are now the U.S. and Canada from the earliest 16th-century settlements to about 1820.(Choice1900-01-00)This is an impressive work that will contribute markedly to general understanding of the formation of cities and towns and their architecture. Utilizing a vast array of sources and the carefully orchestrated distillation of a broad universe of historical facts, this is a pioneering study in the field of early American architectural and general history.(Bryant Tolles, Professor of History and Art History and Director, Museum Studies Program, University of Delaware)I stand in awe of this monumental work. The greatest value of Architecture and Town Planning in Colonial North America is its wide scope which brings together valuable information about the architecture and landscape design and town planning of all regions of early America. It is an extraordinary accomplishment.(William M. S. Rasmussen, Lora M. Robins Curator of Art, Virginia Historical Society)