Various Dwellings Described in a Comparative Manner

The drawings on display here span the enormous variety of human habitations over many periods, in many places. They range in time from an Egyptian house of 2000 B.C. to a Louis Kahn dwelling of the 1960s, in place from India to Florence to the Yucatan, and in elaboration from a simple two-family Norwegian farmhouse to the Chateau de Chambord. The pictured buildings are all drawn to the same scale, 1:384 or 1 inch to 32 feet, so that the relative sizes of the various dwellings can be directly apprehended. In each case, four views are given: the front elevation; a vertical second view, seen in perspective, with the front half of the building cut away; a horizontal sectional view of the main floor, also in perspective, with the upper stories cut away; and a plan of the main floor. The drawings were prepared by the University of North Carolina architecture students. Captions place and date the dwellings, name their architects and clients (if known), give their net and gross areas and volumes, and list the building materials used. The dwellings into which the reader is invited are as follows: La Alhambra (Granada)-L'Hotel Lambert (Paris)-Gamble House (Pasadena)-Parson Capen House (Massachusetts)-a trullo (Apulia, Italy)-Gardsjordet (Norway)-Das Jagerhaus (Bern)-an Egyptian house (c. 2000 B.C.)-Upper Wern-Hir (Wales)-Bhaskarrao Vithal's Wada (India)-Johansen's Greens Farms (Long Island)-Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye a Poissy (Ile de France)-Palazzo Daranzati (Florence)-a Chinese Marchant's house (Canton)-Residential Building, Caius College, Cambridge-Chateau de Coucy (Aisne)-Kahn's Esherick House (Philadelphia)-Le Petit Trianon-Wright's David Lloyd Wright House (Arizona)-Donjon de Dinan (Brittany)-Casa di M. Obellio Firmo (Pompeii)-Wright's Fallingwater (Pennsylvania)-a Pelasgian house (c. 2000 B.C.)-Palazzo Strozzi (Florence)-Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation (Provence)-Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House (Illinois)-Siedlung Halen bei Bern-Casa di D. Ottavio Quartione (Pompeii)-Chateau d'Amboise (Touraine)-Radha Krishna Kaul's House (India)-Palazzo Riccardi-Medici (Florence)-Mulberry Castle (South Carolina)-Chateau de Chambord (Touraine)-Sutton Place (Surrey)-and the House of the Governor (Yucatan, Mayan, c. 900 A.D.). In addition, main floor plans are given for these dwellings: Hotel de Jacques Coeur (Bourges), the Katsura Detached Palace (Kyoto), the Palace of Knossos, Mora Farmstead (Sweden), a Median house (c. 1500 B.C.), an Ionian house (c. 1000 B.C.), Monticello, Certosa de Pavia (Lombardy), a house in Fort Worth, Chateau d'Oudon, Cinili Kosk (Istanbul), and Villa Capra, Villa Rotunda (Vincenza). The book was published in 1964. After June 1972 it will be available from The MIT Press, its new distributor.Wurman, Richard Saul is the author of 'Various Dwellings Described in a Comparative Manner', published 1972 under ISBN 9780262230599 and ISBN 0262230593.