A Façade of Buildings

About the Book

A Facade of Buildings

By

Alexander G. Passikoff

Many architectural styles have made their way to New York City. From other countries, and many, distinctly American, were created or brought here. The grouping of styles helped to produce a real sense of New York, making it is hard to argue with the statement "there is no place like New York."

With a total of 37,837 buildings - residential, commercial, and industrial - on the 508.38 miles of street in Manhattan, the city provides an extensive range of architectural styles and architecturally significant buildings that illustrate major design approaches. Together they create the face, or the "facade" of the city, and, therefore, the book's title, a proposed collective noun for the structures of this city: "A Facade of Buildings."

From any viewpoint, New York City is complex. Adding more complexity, in New York City, styles and nomenclatures overlap one another, sometimes by decades, and sometimes just by years. And while there were architectural styles with identifiable starts and finishes - like "Art Deco" - many buildings ended up being designed in a mix of styles. No matter what the initial, intended style, some buildings borrowed from a number of architectural styles in their design and ornamentation, making absolute classification difficult.

Beginning with eight basic architectural styles the author, Alex Passikoff, finally ended up with a list of thirty classic architectural styles, ranging from an 18th-century Dutch Colonial built in 1783 to a Structural Expressionist skyscraper completed in 2006.

For each the author describes the style, provides a short history regarding the style generally, and photographs of a building that represents that particular design style. There's also a brief history of the buildings and brief biographies of the architects who designed them.

Join him in this new book, A Facade of Buildings, and take a tour of New York like you've never experienced it before!

About the Author

While studying at The Hun School of Princeton, Alexander Passikoff spent his Junior and Senior years researching and photographing A Façade of Buildings. This project gave him a chance to combine his academic interests (history, design, and architecture) and an advocation for photography. He can be reached at APassikoff@gmail.com.