Overview

Between 1906 and 1914, New York architect Frank M. Snyder published Building Details, a serial produced in twelve parts over eight years. Each issue consisted of ten beautifully executed sixteen- by twenty-one-inch drawings showing details of houses, civic buildings, banks, churches, clubs, and other structures designed by some of the period's leading architects, including McKim, Mead & White, John Russell Pope, Grosvenor Atterbury, and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson. Redrawing from the architects' working drawings, Snyder paid careful attention to scale, materials, and dimensions, and he incorporated full explanatory notes as well as small photographs of the projects within each plate. Intended as a design tool for architects, Building Details gives numerous construction and design suggestions that Snyder urged could be ""readily adapted to any Work having similar requirements, using different materials, sizes and proportions than those shown, either for more or less expensive work."" In addition to showing the problem worked out, the drawings also would ""save much valuable time in preparing Drawings of similar work"" and ""call attention to many things often overlooked in the preparation of Working Drawings and Specifications."" Not only is Building Details important in showing how architects learned and drew from the designs of the great masters; it is a rare and beautiful documentation of how these important early-twentieth-century architects realized their designs. Snyder's 120 plates clarify details that continue to confront architects today and allow us to see thoroughly how the buildings we admire were put together. Building Details is a trove of knowledge that goes beyond conventional printed sources and continues to be an important resource for architects working today. Also included is a DVD-ROM that contains printable TIFF files of all the plates in the original edition of Building Details, at their original size of sixteen by twenty-one inches. 120 illustrations

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[M]ay prove as valuable today as it was a century ago should be particularly helpful...teaching tool for today s traditional architects. --Will Holloway

[M]ay prove as valuable today as it was a century ago should be particularly helpful...teaching tool for today s traditional architects.--Will Holloway

Author Information

Frank M. Snyder (1867–1939) was a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and worked in the offices of McKim, Mead & White, John Russell Pope, and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson during his career. He contributed drawings and plates for the National Terra Cotta Society’s Architectural Terra Cotta Standard Construction (1914) and published Details to Which Standard Hardware Can Be Applied in 1917. Peter Pennoyer is the principal partner of the eponymous architecture firm that has a national practice in classical and traditional architecture. The Pennoyer firm has designed houses and institutional projects from New York to California. The firm’s work is recognized for combining an inventive spirit with an erudite grasp of architectural history and has been widely published and exhibited. Pennoyer serves on the boards of the Institute for Classical Architecture and Classical America, the Morgan Library, and the Whiting Foundation. He is the coauthor of The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich and The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore. Anne Walker holds a master’s degree in historic preservation from Columbia University. She is the coauthor of The Ford Plantation Architectural Pattern Book, with Donald M. Rattner; The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich; and The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore.

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