A comprehensive architectural history of America's greatest living architectural laboratory.

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union: slightly more than 1,200 square miles, 14 percent of which is taken up by the waters of Narragansett Bay. Yet this tiny enclave contains one of the richest concentrations of important historical architecture to be found anywhere in the United States. Buildings of Rhode Island, the ninth volume in the Society of Architectural Historians' Buildings of the United States series, is a guide to this heritage. Covering the state's thirty-nine cities and towns in some 900 building entries accompanied by approximately 330 illustrations and 55 maps, it combines the comprehensive approach that is a hallmark of the series with a special perspective on Rhode Island's built environment. It is one of the last works of esteemed historian of American architecture William H. Jordy, edited and updated by two of his collaborators and contributors for the volume, Ronald J. Onorato and William McKenzie Woodward. lThe volume covers not only Rhode Island's most important architecture, but also a substantial selection of lesser structures chosen for their distinction or uniqueness. It traces the legacy of nineteenth-century industrialists from their Providence mansions to the cultural and educational institutions they financed to the mills that generated their fortunes to the communities that they built (and in some cases designed) for their workers. Extensive entries on Newport's civic buildings and palatial "cottages" follow finely tuned comparisons among examples of modest vernacular building types found in villages and rural areas throughout Rhode Island. The book also tours the lighthouses, coastal fortifications, and summer enclaves of the Ocean State. The individual entries of Buildings of Rhode Island accumulate as a compelling narrative rooted in William Jordy's years of intimate association with the state and its architecture. Rich in substance, luminous and lucid in insights, his observations also have a lively immediacy that gives a sense of direct encounter with the buildings. We experience their qualities as though standing before the building, then moving around it and sometimes through it. In such a compact territory, fascinating interrelationships among building histories, including links among the architects and clients responsible for the state's building heritage, are especially evident. THE BUILDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES SERIES Sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians, Buildings of the United States is a series that the New York Times called "one of the most ambitious in publishing history." This is the ninth volume to be published; the full series will include fifty-eight volumes, organized on a state-by-state basis, that together will serve as a valuable resource for scholarship in American architectural history, teaching, preservation, and urban planning and as an indispensable guidebook for general readers interested in their architectural surroundings.

The architectural splendor of Newport, Rhode Island, from colonial clapboard dwellings and public buildings to ornate marble mansions built by the robber barons at the beginning of the 20th century, is preserved in this volume. 175 full-color photos.

Newport, Rhode Island, blessed with stunning ocean vistas and constant sea breezes, is home to some of the most exceptional private residences in America. Its deeply rooted history makes it a perennial destination, with more than 3.5 million visitors each year. Although it is one of the most high profile towns in the country, Newport is also one of the most cloistered. Private Newport: At Home and in the Garden offers an invitation to venture beyond the privet hedges and massive iron gates. It is the first book to step inside the privately owned mansions to reveal a diverse collection of architectural jewels complemented by spectacular gardens. These homes, created by distinguished architects and landscape designers, are stunning examples of Newport's 375-year "old-world" heritage. Eighteen exquisite and unique homes are prominently featured-from the resilient crescent curve of majestic Seafair, which withstood the Hurricane of '38, to the prizewinning Japanese garden at Wildacre, to the nostalgic working farm of heritage breeds at Swiss Village-each contributing its own part to the "Eden of America."

A survey of the Gilded Age mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, for all who love grand houses. Newport Villas describes the architectural and social development of this summer resort town, the nexus of wealth and fashion at the end of the nineteenth century. All the accoutrements were the best that money could buy, whether it was Parisian frocks, meticulously groomed thoroughbred horses, or meals prepared by imported French chefs. To properly mount their entertainments, Newport's elite built "cottages" that ranged in size from thirty to seventy rooms. The country's most accomplished architects designed these seaside villas, many of them rivaling the great houses of Europe. Pictured here in abundant archival and new photographs, with accompanying floor plans, the houses cover the gamut of revival styles from Colonial Revival to Italian Renaissance Revival, from French Classical Revival to Georgian Revival.