One in a unique series which takes the reader back to the original texts.

How to Read Houses is an insider's guide to recognising and appreciating the diversity of domestic architecture that reflects the location, the fashion and the technological savoir-faire of the age - from Tudor timber-frames to the truly unconventional. Houses are arranged by period and style, including Renaissance, Neoclassical, Arts and Crafts, Modernist and many more besides. Featured houses range from Sutton House in London to Port Sunlight in Merseyside; from St Fagans in Cardiff to Hill House in Glasgow. Compact enough to travel with you, yet comprehensive enough to provide real...

An essential and handy visual vocabulary of modern architecture. How to Read Modern Buildings is an indispensable pocket-sized guide to understanding the architecture of the modern era. This handy book takes you on a guided tour of modern architecture through its most iconic and significant buildings, showing you how to read the hallmarks of each architectural style and how to recognise them in the buildings all around. From Art Deco and Arts and Crafts, through the International Style and Modernism to today's environmental architecture and the rise and fall of the icon, read all...

The essential companion to discover the styles, architecture, form, significance and historical impact of castles from all over the world. How to Read Castles is a travel-size primer that takes a strictly visual approach to castle architecture, building up your vocabulary of castle types, styles and materials, and showing you how these aspects can be recognised across architectural features from the floor-plan and moat, to the towers and crenulations. Focusing on the 10th-16th century period, and crusading across the globe from a Welsh motte-and-bailey to a Japanese hirajiro, this is...

How to Read Fashion is a practical introduction to looking at the key fashion trends of the past 200 years and how they relate to contemporary styles.