Buildings of Iowa

By Gerald Mansheim and David Gebhard

Book Overview

From the first years of European settlement down to the present moment, Iowa has symbolized the heart of America. In Buildings of Iowa we are offered a wide-ranging survey of this state's architecture from the earliest Native American influences to the present. The image of Iowa as the breadbasket and agricultural center of the nation often overlooks the unity of urban and rural that is reflected in Iowa's buildings and landscape.
Surveying the full array of Iowa's architectural styles on a town-by-town basis, this volume examines such structures as octagonal houses, log cabins, Beaux-Arts courthouses, water towers, grain elevators, the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans Home at Cedar Falls, the bright blue "glass fused to steel" silos built by A.O. Harvestore Products Inc., Art Deco service stations, post office buildings, churches, bank buildings, public high schools, American Prairie houses, and motion picture theaters.
Beautifully illustrated with over 400 photographs, lincuts, and maps, Buildings of Iowa shows both general readers and travelers how a unity of rural and urban is effectively mirrored in Iowa's buildings.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019509378X
• ISBN13: 9780195093780
• Release Date: February 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 592 Pages
• Weight: 1.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Almost perfect

As with the other titles in the series, this book is the state-wide catalog of (mostly) historic buildings that you expect, sorted by region and town. Each entry includes a brief descriptive essay, and about one entry in ten also includes a small monochrome photograph. The coverage is comprehensive, with a focus on late Federal and Victorian styles. I also notice that the authors seem to favor domestic architecture over public architecture in this guide, which is something not found in other volumes in the series. In fact, I find the coverage of Sioux City's public architecture (particularly its many fine churches) to be entirely incomplete, and the only real flaw in the book.

Iowa is dope

This book is a handy dandy little guide for the daring soul who enjoys taking lazy Sunday afternoon drives in the great state of Iowa. The book doesn't have a lot of information per se, but it is really nice as a quick reference to many well-designed/constructed buildings that may be lurking just around the corner, or cornfield.