The Seven Lamps of Architecture

A veritable tour the force of scope and insight. Indispensable background nowadays regretfully almost forgotten. 1- Sacrifice – Dedication of man's craft to God, as visible proofs of man's love and obedience 2- Truth – Handcrafted and honest display of materials and structure. Truth to materials and honest display of construction were bywords since the serious Gothic Revival had distanced itself from the whimsical "Gothic" of the 18th century; it had been often elaborated by Pugin and others. 3- Power – Buildings should be thought of in terms of their massing and reach towards the sublimity of nature by the action of the human mind upon them and the organization of physical effort in constructing buildings. 4- Beauty – Aspiration towards God expressed in ornamentation drawn from nature, his creation 5- Life – Buildings should be made by human hands, so that the joy of masons and stone carvers is associated with the expressive freedom given them 6- Memory – Buildings should respect the culture from which they have developed 7- Obedience – Obedience to the spirit, values and cannons of and art tradition which is expert, truthful, fertile and honest. No originality for its own sake, but conforming to the finest among existing English values, in particular expressed through the "English Early Decorated" Gothic as the safest choice of style.

The Seven Lamps of Architecture The Seven Lamps of Architecture, written by John Ruskin on a series of lectures use in his lectures. The book is an epic because of its' historical accounts of information given to architects in the past and continues to now and in the future. His use of the English language is superb, where the reader is lost in the beautiful words and the excellent techincal material. He emphasizes the points of good design that is dependent on a series of seven factors. He also gives example of buildings that are under discussion, the plates are not in the Kindle edition therefore the book must be bought otherwise the reader has to keep googling in order to find his examples. The examples are explained in detail. The first few pages are slightly boring, but like all good books he dives into the subject and never let up, drowning the reader is good information. SPR Great Architecture Of The World Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture The Picture History of Great Buildings Mathematical Excursions to the World's Great Buildings

I see the value in Ruskin. I understand why we need to study him. I despised every minute of it. Also, this edition does not have drawings or photos of any of the buildings he is speaking of which makes it hard to visualize. I had to read this for class. I will not be reading it again. He is a religious crackpot who has some ideas on architecture thrown in.

This is a good book about architecture, even though a bit dated. Still, most of the concepts still ring true. I highly recommend a more modern work available as an e-book for $4.99, called ABODE. It contains important details about architecture, but it's an easy reading reference that anyone would enjoy, and is filled with photo images, many of them previously unpublished. ABODE (The Picture Dictionary of Home Construction and Residential Architecture) Another surprisingly good architectural study by the same author is San Francisco Easy Streets (also $4.99). it contains hundreds of stunning, original, unpublished photos of San Francisco architecture. SAN FRANCISCO EASY STREETS

A little dated for the current view of 19th century architecture. Too opinionated. Glad this book is no longer a required reading for architecture school.

Pretentious nonsense

I never receipt