The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002 Page: 171
741 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
importance of the inadequately recognized influence of published patterns on
local architectural styles. Pattern book and catalogue was a general voice guiding
local taste and expectation.
Many homes built from books still stand. The survivors are mostly those of the
upper and high-middle classes. The more modest houses still standing typically
have their origins obliterated by renovation, remodeling, and additions-it is
the grand house that emerges unsullied by changes of taste and requirement. In
her search for examples, Culbertson has used contact with preservationists and
archivists; public records explicitly linking local construction with national
design are nearly non-existent. Primarily, however, Culbertson depended on her
own eyes and feet in finding the three-dimensional realization of a design and
recognizing that design as having originated from a published source. It is an
impressive accomplishment of a historian thoroughly immersed in her subject
that a tour of a likely old neighborhood with attention to telling detail can make
the link of house to its paper progenitor.
There are 154 black-and-white illustrations. These are typically paired
between the original illustration and the wood, brick, and glass realization. Most
of the modern photographs are made by the author, who shows real ability for
architectural rendering with the camera; in most instances she very helpfully
emulates the perspective and viewpoint of the original line drawing.
University of Chicago BRUCE MITZIT
Along Route 66. By Quinta Scott. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000o.
Pp. xii+308. Acknowledgments, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN o-8o61-
3250. $34.95, cloth.)
Early Texas Architecture. By Gordon Echols. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian
University Press, 2000. Pp. x+238. Preface, introduction, glossary, bibliogra-
phy, index. ISBN 0-87565-223-9. $34.95, cloth.)
Texas is a state with a regional collection of architecture as diverse as its cul-
ture, history, and geography. This vernacularization of time and place is a theme
brought out in two new books, albeit in different ways. Both are largely photo-
graphic surveys of the built environment and, as such, are limited in both scope
and text. This does not serve to detract from their relevance, but rather to focus
their place in the existing literature. Together, they serve as complements to
more scholarly studies, such as Drury B. Alexander's Gone from Texas: Our Lost
Architectural Heritage (University of Texas Press, 1966), Willard Robinson's
People's Architecture (Texas State Historical Association, 1983), and Tom and
Elizabeth Skidmore Sasser's Dugout to Deco: Building in West Texas, 188o-193o
(Texas Tech University Press, 1993).
Gordon Echols, in Early Texas Architecture, and Quinta Scott, in Along Route 66,
provide readers with important perspectives on elements of our architecture
that often go unnoticed by the casual observer. Both books serve, therefore, as
good introductory pieces for understanding the significance of regional influ-
ences in material culture.171
2001
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002, periodical, 2002; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101222/m1/179/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.