Stories
- Article
How slums make people sick
A newly gentrified corner of Bermondsey leaves little clue to its less salubrious history. But a few intrepid writers recorded the details of existence in one of London’s most squalid slums.
- Article
The building as tool of healing
When we’re ill, it’s not just medical care that helps to treat us. Architects have discovered that the right environment can play an important part too.
- Article
Would you like to buy a dinosaur?
Two remarkable letters and a drawing of a plesiosaur by Mary Anning offer a tantalising portal into the exciting world of fossil hunting and discovery of the 1800s.
- Article
How do advertisers get inside our heads?
Vance Packard exposed techniques of mass manipulation developed by 1950s advertisers that are still at work today in the age of big data.
Catalogue
- Books
- Online
The complete modern joiner, or a collection of original designs in the present taste, for chimney-pieces and door-cases, with their Mouldings and Enrichments at Large; Frizes, Tablets, Ornaments for Pilasters, Bases, Sub-Bases and Cornices for Rooms, &c. With a table shewing the proportion of chimneys with their entablatures, to rooms of any size: by N. Wallis, Architect.
Wallis, N.Date: [1772]- Books
- Online
A key to civil architecture; or, the universal British builder. Containing the principles and properties of building clearly demonstrated, with Illustrations and Definitions, both Theoretical and Practical; and a Dissertation on the Sciences appertaining thereto, as well as the Kindred Requisites of Strength, Convenience, Propriety and Beauty. Also a strict enquiry into the present manner of building and Mode of Finishing, and how far the Taste is consistent with Symmetry and found Reason: Likewise A New Criterion, or Universal Estimator; In which are considered the Quantity and Quality of Materials adequate to the Execution of any Building; their exact Value wherever appropriated; the real and universal Price assigned, proved by the Labour which is required to every Job; and practical Remarks on all the different Branches of a Building, especially on Joiners Works; where the most irksome and difficult Parts are considered and reduced to familiar Practice, by the most judicious and approved Methods. The Principles, Properties, and Consequence of all Sorts of Stairs defined, both with respect to Plans and Execution, as well as the Manner of gluing up all Kinds of Hand-Rails. The Manner and Method of measuring the different Artificers Works, as practised by the most eminent Surveyors, with their Prices to each Work. - Also, the Masters Prices, and a Schedule of Prices for Task-Masters. To which is added, A treatise of arithmetick, Extraction of the Roots, Duodecimals, Mensuration of Superficies and Solids, round and square Timber, &c. with Explanations and Reasons for the Rules. The second edition, corrected, with the addition of two useful plates on the construction of stair cases. By Thomas Skaife, P.A.
Skaife, Thomas.Date: 1776- Books
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The practical builder, or workman's general assistant: shewing the most approved and easy methods for drawing and working the whole or separate part of any building, as The Use of the Tramel for Groins, Angle-Brackets, Niches, &c. Semi-Circular Arches on Flewing James, the preparing and making their Soffits. Rules of Carpentry; To find the Length and Backing of Hips, strait or curved; Trusses for Roofs, Domes, &c. - Trussing of Girders, Sections of Floors, &c. The Proportion of the Five Orders, in their general and particular Parts, Gluing of Columns, Stair-Cases with their ramp and twist Rails, fixing the Carriages, Newels, &c. Frontispieces, Chimney-Pieces, Ceilings, Cornices, Architraves, &c. in the newest Taste. With plans and elevations of gentlemans and farm-houses, yards, barns, &c. By William Pain, Architect and Joiner. Engraved on eighty-three plates.
Pain, William, 1730?-1790?.Date: MDCCLXXIV. [1774]- Books
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A critical review of the public buildings, statues, and ornaments, In and about London and Westminister. Originally written by - Ralphk, architect, and now reprinted with very large additions. The whole being digested into a six days tour, in which every thing worthy the attention of the judicious enquirer, is pointed out and described.
Ralph, James, -1762.Date: 1783- Books
- Online
Designs in architecture; consisting of plans, elevations, and sections, for temples, baths, cassines, pavilions, garden-seats, obelisks, and other buildings; for decorating Pleasure - Ground, Parks, Forests, &c. &c. Engraved on 38 copper-plates. By John Soan.
Soane, John, Sir, 1753-1837.Date: M,DCC,LXXVIII. [1778]