rajaraks's review
2.0
As I was reading, I increasingly hated the tone and style of the book. When trying to put the feeling to words, I finally came up with this assessment: The book is actually just pages of pages of basic observations and very little data or references to support the claims. Here's an example: "Trees make the home look more attractive, but only up to a point." The remaining paragraph following that statement weakly supports the statement with hearsay presented as truth: "Realtors have said..." And "Interviewers report..." With other points made, there are occasional direct references to other writers, but they all tend to have a line or short paragraph from their texts. These quotes, seemingly, are used as further evidence for the argument, but ultimately comes off as just a way of showing that the author had done some research.
It became so bad that I ended up skimming the rest of the book from Chapter 3 on, hoping that at some point a deeper analysis or insight into the psychological responses of architecture would emerge. Unfortunately, I just kept reading the same kind of surface observations. There were moments of interest during the religious and confinement buildings chapters but by the end of it, I'm glad I made the decision to skim.
I looked at other reviews of this book as I was writing this to see if anyone shared my distress and I was a little surprised to see all the positive reviews. I was trained as an architect so I think that's why I'm having such a negative reaction, but I honestly feel like I would have enjoyed the book more if it was just completely illustrated with arrows pointing out her thoughts.
A way I can see this book being really meaningful is if you didn't grow up in the US and are not familiar with how architecture speaks to people there. There are some mentions of international buildings/styles, but very few and any direct references are kept just to the more popular and famous ones.
With all that being said, if you're someone that has never thought about how architecture influences the way you feel, or has never spent much time in the US, then maybe you should check out this book... but perhaps just out of the library.
It became so bad that I ended up skimming the rest of the book from Chapter 3 on, hoping that at some point a deeper analysis or insight into the psychological responses of architecture would emerge. Unfortunately, I just kept reading the same kind of surface observations. There were moments of interest during the religious and confinement buildings chapters but by the end of it, I'm glad I made the decision to skim.
I looked at other reviews of this book as I was writing this to see if anyone shared my distress and I was a little surprised to see all the positive reviews. I was trained as an architect so I think that's why I'm having such a negative reaction, but I honestly feel like I would have enjoyed the book more if it was just completely illustrated with arrows pointing out her thoughts.
A way I can see this book being really meaningful is if you didn't grow up in the US and are not familiar with how architecture speaks to people there. There are some mentions of international buildings/styles, but very few and any direct references are kept just to the more popular and famous ones.
With all that being said, if you're someone that has never thought about how architecture influences the way you feel, or has never spent much time in the US, then maybe you should check out this book... but perhaps just out of the library.
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