Architecture in Detail Series

First Church of Christ Scientist

by Edward R. Bosley

Published 1 August 1994

Part of a series of technically informative monographs embracing a broad spectrum of internationally renowned buildings, this work deals with the First Church of the Christ Scientist, California, and includes a comprehensive set of technical drawings and working details. Bernard Maybeck's First Church of Christ Scientist is an exemplary craftsman's building, but one which defies simple categorization; it is both unique and eccentric. Maybeck was fist trained as a furniture maker and then progressed to the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris. The church is both steeped in craft tradition and reliant on ceremonial axial composition ideas basic to the Beaux Arts outlook. Architecturally, it is an exuberant collage of Gothic, domestic Californian and Stick Styles, and an almost fantastic variety of materials, including carved wood, and industrial windows sashes. Yet the design has a convincing unity which contains and far transcends its sources.

Gamble House

by Edward R. Bosley

Published 19 March 2002

The Gamble House was the masterpiece of Greene and Greene's new regional style. Built for a wealthy heir of the soap firm Procter and Gamble, the house represents the full ennoblement of the California bungalow image, yet the building is still striking for its intimacy, intricacy and scale. Stunning photography by Tim Street-Porter reveals this house as a genuine and enduring masterpiece.

Launched in 1991, the Architecture in Detail series attracted immediate acclaim and now comprises more than 60 titles. These books are highly collectable documents, each focusing in depth on a celebrated building. The series covers all sides of the vast spectrum of architecture from the past, present and future; the individual buildings are selected for their exceptional character, innovative design or technical virtuosity.

Each volume contains a definitive text by a respected author; a sequence of colour and black-and-white photographs; a series of technical drawings; and a set of essential working details. These titles are vital to every architectural library, appealing to the professional and student alike, or indeed anyone with an appreciation of buildings.

University of Pennsylvania Library

by Edward R. Bosley

Published 19 September 1996

Cloaked in its brilliant mantle of red brick, fiery terracotta and red sandstone, the University of Pennsylvania Library stood, at its dedication on 7th February 1891, as the mature-period masterwork of Philadelphia's premier Victorian-era architect, Frank Furness. Conceived by Furness in consultation with two eminent library theoreticians, the library plans evolved from practical experience with the fundamental inadequacies of 19th-century institutional library buildings. The result was a modern factory for learning - a machine for the use and storage of books. Furness's highly rationalized plan, expressed on the exterior as bold, ecclesiastical design, was challenged for decades, and anti-Victorian sentiment threatened the edifice with demolition as late as the 1960s. Renewed appreciation has since come full circle, however, culminating in a dramatic interior restoration and rehabilitation by the eminent Philadelphia architect, Robert Venturi.