Encounters with Architecture : Insights from a Hundred Places

This book describes one hundred memorable places that have been important in the architectural career of the author. The illustrated essays provide insights from a variety of buildings and places on five continents: from different eras, from the everyday to the famous, from houses to public buildings, and from streets to cities.

The hundred places of this book were visited over several decades, and played an important role in Davis’s career. Insights come from everyday places and famous landmarks: some beautiful, some the product of fine craftsmanship, some active places of gathering or commerce, some quiet places of contemplation. All stayed in the author’s memory, helping build the framework of his understandings of what is important to people in architecture and cities. Organized chronologically, the book begins with the author’s encounters with buildings and places as a child in New York, and leads to his most recent architectural experiences as a seasoned professor, scholar and traveler. Each encounter is explained on two or three pages, that bring out the reasons for its significance and the lessons learned from it. Readers are encouraged to look for themselves and see how the places they encounter in their everyday lives and travels can enrich their own understandings about the built world that surrounds them. Illustrated with beautiful photographs, drawings and diagrams, the book will interest people outside architecture who are fascinated by buildings and cities, as well as teachers, practitioners and students of architecture and cities