How to Read Buildings

This book, a graphic crash-course in architecture by Carol Davidson Cragoe, more or less did what it said on the tin - which was to walk me through various facets of buildings and how and why they vary depending on historical styles. Each double-page spread is filled with five helpful images (ranging from utterly unhelpful line sketch to hyper-realistic high-detail drawings) of examples. Following an introductory trio of chapters about types of building, the 'grammar of style', and common building materials, Carol Cragoe then walks us through columns, capitals, arches, roofs, gables, vaults, domes, towers, doors, porches, windows, stairways, chimneys, fireplaces, and ornamentation. The sheer variety of architectural features out there is something I've never systematically looked into, despite my being an avid-yet-casual enjoyer of looking at buildings: from the gorgeous vaulted roofs and intimidating spires of medieval Gothic buildings to the friendly curvatures of Rococo or the harsh efficiency of modernism, the cultural and technological contexts of building styles has yielded enormous breadth in how buildings can come to look and function. I certainly learned a lot. (A glossary of architectural jargon at the back helps one retain all this knowledge for all those [never] times in the future that you'll not only look appreciatively at a building but point out a given feature.) I also found this book almost unspeakably dull, finishing it only because

1. It belongs to my housemate Chris, and he's leaving Sheffield soon. He doesn't even know I've got it I don't think, I borrowed it ages ago and got so bored of it that it's just been sat in my room since about November.
2. It's quite short, so I may as well have squeezed an extra blog post out of it.
3. Knowing vague flurries of details about architecture isn't a bad thing, but I'm struggling to envisage a practical use for the non-systematic non-comprehensive mass of information I've ingested, other than deliberately irritating (by talking at length about boring stuff) my younger brother when we see cool buildings on holiday. This may be just enough of a warrant.

Anyway. If you like buildings, culture, history, pictures of buildings, whatever, you might well enjoy this little book. Go for it.