Description

The Builder's Guide. A Practical Treatise on Grecian and Roman Architecture, Together with Specimens of the Gothic Style. also, Practical Treatises on Geometry, Decimal Fractions, Mensuration, Trigonometry, and Carpentry and Joinery. Embracing All the Necessary Details, and Particularly Adapted to the Wants of the Less Experienced. By Chester Hills, Practical Architect. Revised and Improved, with Additions of Villa and School House Architecture, By H. Austin, Architect, and H. Barnard, Esq. Second Revised Edition. Hartford, CT: Printed and Published by Case, Tiffany, and Burnham. 1847. Full Leather binding, 96 pp, 38 woodcut engravings, 50 lithographed plates (some double-page). 15 x 11.5”, 4to. In fair condition. Leather boards scuffed at edges and worn/bumped at corners. Head and tail of leather spine rubbed. Black leather title label chipped around edges & gilt lettering dulled, but still legible. General soiling and scuffing to leather covered boards. Front gutter beginning to split; binding exposed. Top edge of front end-page, fly-leaf and frontispiece exhibit a water dampness stain. Foxing and age-staining found on frontispiece and title page as a result of water dampness staining. General toning throughout text-block; with some instances of age-staining or finger-soiling. Some plates exhibit foxing & darkening. Attractive contents despite imperfections. Binding intact. Please see photos and ask questions, if any, before purchasing. Henry Austin (1804 – 1891) was a prominent and prolific American architect based in New Haven, Connecticut. He practiced for more than fifty years and designed many public buildings and homes primarily in the New Haven area. His most significant years of production seem to be the 1840s and 1850s. The paucity of precise information concerned with Austin and a lack of many personal papers (such as diaries or letters) makes a complete biography of his life difficult to write. Austin was born in Hamden, Connecticut in 1804 and was the son of Daniel and Adah (Dorman) Austin. He first seems to have worked as a carpenter's apprentice and then began his career in architecture in association with Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, although the nature of his relationship to Town and Davis has not been ascertained. In 1837, he opened his own office in Hartford, evidenced by newspaper advertisements. In Hartford, he designed the tower of Christ Church Cathedral (1838) , the Wadsworth Athenaeum with Town and Davis (1842 , his involvement is uncertain), the demolished gothic-revival Kellogg house (1841), and the long-gone 1842 building for St. John's Episcopal Church (Hartford, Connecticut); he also became associated at this time with Nelson Hotchkiss a New Haven real estate developer and designed with him villas along "Park Row" in Trenton, NJ, probably his first major commission. In 1841, he moved his practice to New Haven where his first significant commission was the now-demolished, Greek Revival George Gabriel House (1841). In New Haven, Austin's style diversified; in one ad, Austin claimed he could design buildings "in every variety of architectural style". He worked in a range of styles popular in the nineteenth century including Gothic, Italianate, Egyptian and Moorish Revival. In some buildings, he employed an eclectic mix of styles, creating varied, exotic formi. His New Haven work left a lasting impression on the domestic architecture of the then-developing real estate projects in the areas of Wooster Square and Hillhouse Avenue. Includes the only published architecture designs of Henry Austin: Villa in Cottage Style; frontispiece shows view of Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford by Austin. Quite rare! Attractive contents. RAREA1847HOQX 05/24 - HK1557