The imagined histories of twenty-five architectural drawings and models, told through reminiscences, stories, conversations, letters, and monologues. Even when an architectural drawing does not show any human figures, we can imagine many different characters just off the page- architects, artists, onlookers, clients, builders, developers, philanthropists-working, observing, admiring, arguing. In Stories from Architecture, Philippa Lewis captures some of these personalities through reminiscences, anecdotes, conversations, letters, and monologues that collectively offer the imagined histories of twenty-five architectural drawings. Some of these untold stories are factual, like Frank Lloyd Wright's correspondence with a Wisconsin librarian regarding her $5,000 dream home, or letters written by the English architect John Nash to his irascible aristocratic client. Others recount a fictional, if credible, scenario by placing these drawings-and with them their characters-into their immediate social context. For instance, the dilemmas facing a Regency couple who are considering a move to a suburban villa; a request from the office of Richard Neutra for an assistant to measure Josef von Sternberg's Rolls-Royce so that the director's beloved vehicle might fit into the garage being designed by his architect; a teenager dreaming of a life away from parental supervision by gazing at a gadget-filled bachelor pad in Playboy magazine; even a policeman recording the ground plans of the house of a murder scene. The drawings, reproduced in color, are all sourced from the Drawing Matter collection in Somerset, UK, and are fascinating objects in themselves; but Lewis shifts our attention beyond the image to other possible histories that linger, invisible, beyond the page, and in the process animates not just a series of archival documents but the writing of architectural history.

Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter

Arts & Photography

Lewis, Philippa

Architecture

The MIT Press

Dictionary Of Ornament

DARLEY, Gillian

History & Criticism

Macmillan

This book covers the whole range of decorative styles and motifs used by designers, architects and craftsmen from the Middle Ages onwards. It provides coverage of both architecture and the decorative arts.

THE DICTIONARY OF ORNAMENT

Pantheon

The planning, planting, growing, and tending of a garden may be intimidating to the average person, but the pleasures of a garden need not be. Illustrated throughout, this delightful book demonstrates that we can create our own kingdom and do precisely what we want within the garden — it's not about gardening but about what we do when that is done (or not done). In Everything You Can Do in the Garden Without Actually Gardening, Philippa Lewis looks at how people have spent time in the garden. We can all be tempted by the idea of reading or dozing (or maybe even smoking) in a deckchair, or taking a gentle walk, or perhaps even playing tennis or croquet. But some people are considerably more imaginative. the poet Blake and his wife liked to lie naked in their summerhouse, reading aloud to each other from Paradise Lost. Lawrence of Arabia rode a camel in his Northumberland garden. Menageries, parties, shooting, follies, grottoes, drawing — the notion of what a garden can be used for is endlessly various.

Everything You Can Do in the Garden Without Actually Gardening

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

Frances Lincoln

An illustrated exploration of our limitless fascination with doors, gates, and bridges.
The word "portal" comes from the Latin for "gate," but it refers to any place of ingress and egress. According to architectural historian Philippa Lewis, a portal "is generally an optimistic thing, both literally and metaphorically . . . The word encapsulates the idea of passing through, to a new opportunity, to making progress or moving forward, to entering fresh new worlds."
That may be the reason so many people are drawn to the idea of portals--from King Nebuchadnezzar's Ishtar Gate through the walls of Babylon, to mountain passes, the doorway to the Raphael Loggia at the Vatican, pontoons, and drawbridges. Portals also have enlivened fiction and lore--what would Arabian Nights have been without the magical command "Open Sesame!" or Alice in Wonderland if Alice had not followed the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole? And in many cultures around the world, a rainbow is a portal that "stands for peace, tolerance, respect for life and diversity." In this beautifully illustrated book, the seemingly everyday means of ingress and egress become things of beauty and cultural significance.

Portals: Gates, Stiles, Windows, Bridges & Other Crossings (Wooden Books)

Literature & Fiction

Bloomsbury USA

Intimacy and Distance: Conflicting Cultures in Nineteenth-Century France (Legenda)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Legenda

Recollections From the Past: Irish Country Life

History

Europe

Parkgate Books

A charming evocation of Victorian life, this delightful volume details the fresh and packaged ingredients, the menus, equipment, and the kitchen regulars—from cook to passing tradesmen—of the 19th-century kitchen. With wonderful illustrations of Victorian food packaging and advertising, this is a great nostalgic look at life below stairs in the age of Victoria.

Kitchen Memories: Food and Kitchen Life 1837―1939

Drury,Elizabeth

National Trust Books

With more than 250 stunning photographs of people and places throughout 1920's London, this portrait of a city charts a decade of change and progress in England's capital. From children playing at the Blackheath village fete to bankers milling around Threadneedle Street and flapper girls leaving Mayfair clubs in the early morning, this charming collection documents all walks of life.

Forgotten London: A Picture of Life in the 1920s

Photography & Video

Batsford

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Books by Lewis, Philippa