Art Architecture Photography Books

One would think that a book titled 'Roman Gardens' would.... well, contain a little more gardens and a little less interior. I ordered this along with it's companion (Roman Gardens; Villas of the city), they are both currently on the way back from whence they came. Also - very disappointing - a lot of the photographs are out of focus and shot from bad angles. My ten-year-old takes better photographs.

I bought the book because I intend to build a japanese style house.This book is useless in residence design.The title is wrong!The book is about famous royal palaces and sorroundings.It contains exactly nineteen beautiful color pictures, showing some general views of six imperial palaces and gardens. Short descriptions and historical details are presented with a score of black and white pictures and some sketcks.

It is difficult to believe that this ordinary book was written by the former leading authority in premodern Japanese architecture.

I recommend "Form & Space in Japanese Architecture" by Norman Carver Jr, who really understood and captured the the japanese spirit.

I understand this is used as a reference for logo Design. The problem is that it is pretty thin when it comes to design books.

Slick full color for most of the book..

Not as helpful as I thought it was going to be.

A good book with a variety of works and ideas.

This is a stunning book -- absolutely essential for artists who need to understand why proportion is so important.

This book is about recognizing very basic patterns in nature (anatomy of humans and animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.), universe,arts, crafts, architecture, music,writing, rhythm in poetry.Diverse cultures are covered.The preview of this book can give you quite a good idea how its looks like and how its logic is developed.This is not a book on composition, dealing with design principles teaching how to balance your composition using those principles, if you are in creative profession.

This book is not dealing as much in depth with composition from the view point of art history, although touches it, but it takes a wider, more holistic approach.(You will not find for ex. the analisis how triangles and diagonal lines were applied in composition in order to create harmony in paintings).Historical references range from neolithic times, through antiquity, Renaissance.For ex. the author deals with such universal symbol as pentagram, but not as much from the view point of iconography: it is more about harmonics in a more Pythagorean way, and it is mentioned that this symbol is meanignfull still today , which allows the pentagram to be classified among Jungian archetypes. Or the author touches sightly on the view of unity and harmony laws among Maoris (mana and tapu), American Indians,Minoan art and architecture expressed in its spiral patterns (mother earth symbols, mother and child, symbols of re-emergence, labyrinth). You get the idea.

I think this book can be of great interest to many people who are interested in patterns and proportions: mathematicians, specially if you are into fractal geometry, artists, art historians, architects, craft people, musicians, dancers, scientists, or if you have deeper interest in those areas.The book is loaded with illustrations, diagrams, and photos (black and white). I highly recommend this book. (Specially if you liked Goedel, Escher, Bach:an Eternal Golden Braid, and forgive me the alterantive spelling in Goedel's name, can't find umlaut on my keyboard).

its a goood and extremely helpful book!

A very good book an sacred geometry with lots of diagrams.

This beautifully illustrated and diagrammed book attempts to show the harmony that exists in nature and all good art and architecture. Not only that, Doczi attempts to weave into this picture, (with some success) Pythagorean concepts of harmony and it's relation to growth in nature.
The essential concept in this book is the 'power of limits.' Doczi shows that this limiting factor is the golden section. And he does it using almost no math! The golden section has the powerful quality that division or expansion by this proportion always leads to harmonious growth. No matter how small or large is the division, there is never anything "left over" to create disharmony. This limiting factor is of transcendental power, thus "The Power of Limits."
Unregulated growth could never achieve anything but randomness, which is not what we observe in nature.
Of course in nature and in life it is impossible to achieve perfection. Yet Doczi elegantly explains how nature compensates for this inability by using the Fibonnaci sequence instead. Profusely illustrated with many detailed, easy-to-understand diagrams, this book is a must for those who wish to understand more deeply how our world is constructed, without wading through a lot of math.