Book Review: Architecture in the United States by Dell Upton

five themes: Community, Nature, Technology, Money, and Art. The usefulness of this technique becomes apparent as one progresses through the book and realizes that Upton discusses not only houses and farm and commercial buildings but also landscape architecture, gardens, bridges, public sculpture, and whole cities. His thematic structure is also well coordinated with his intention to examine architecture not primarily as a form of art but as an integral part of social and economic history. B The first chapter, 'An American Icon,' is devoted to the house. Upton's discussion of this elemental unit of architecture and its importance to the primary social structure of the family is an effective introduction to the broad topic of architecture in relationship to society. While much of the chapter focuses on examples of elite houses, in particular Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, Upton incorporates much essential information about folk houses into his interpretations. This chapter, like the succeeding four, follows a loose chronological orientation in its analysis of several examples of homes from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, while integrating discussion of form and style with social and economic processes. C The…