Architecture for General Readers, &c

Abstract

THE aim of this treatise, as stated in the preface, is certainly a good one, namely, to supply the “general reader” with the means of criticising architecture in an intelligent manner, and principally by giving an analysis of the.two most logical and complete styles that have ever existed, namely, the Greek and the Gothic; the former representing the trabeated, and the latter the arcuate system of building. Our author, however, very properly does not confine his attention to these two styles and their later developments, but also makes wide digressions in the direction of Egyptian, Byzantine, and Mahommedan structures, all of them being copiously illustrated and discussed at considerable length. The work exhibits throughout the author's great and varied acquaintance with his subject, and cannot but be of much interest and value to any reader who desires to dive more deeply than amateurs are accustomed to do into the principles which ought to guide the professional architect, and which, indeed, do guide all those who achieve anything worthy of the art in which they practise.

Architecture for General Readers, &c.

By H. Heathcote Statham. 8vo. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1895.)