Suburb always felt weird to me. Disquieting, weird, just WRONG. I couldn’t place my finger on why until I really began to dig in. Not only are suburbs missing almost every element that I’ve identified as necessary for making someone feel at home, but there architecture also sucks. Ranch homes, with the exception of maybe Eichler’s are an abomination. Our public architecture has gone from buildings like the Library of Congress with its striking composite order to crappy Federal buildings that make you question whether nihilists are too optimistic.

I began reading and reading and reading on the topic, and now feel I have a better grasp. This is a fluid list that I’ll update as it grows, but includes resources that have been helpful for me.

• Christopher Alexander’s books A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building are great gateways to understand that there is an inherent life in buildings that modernity has oftentimes stripped away. There’s a cure too, and Alexander’s work draws from math, art, and light to create a method for capturing the gestalt. Alexander was a mathematician first, and married math to beauty and language in such a beautiful way that A Pattern Language is often used to teach programmers how build better code.

• Vitruvius’ De Architectura or The Ten Books of Architecture is splendid. The book was more or less lost until a discovery in ~ 1450 by a monk. The book contains a description of classical Roman architecture, but more important the forms and formulas that allow the mind to be at ease. The three bases of architecture were forever captured by Vitruvius. Firmitas, Utilitas, Venustas.

• Pallladio’s Four Books on Architecture is also fantastic. He explores classical techniques and his dissemination of them lead to an explosion in classical architecture across the continent. He also made some pretty amazing villas himself, as you see above.

• Calder Loth’s YouTube series is fantastic as well. He distills hours of reading into a detailed, thorough, and memorable lecture series in partnership with the ICAA. Loth walks through the genesis of the orders Roman and Classical, the reintroduction of such, and minor details that make or break again, the Gestalt.

This is the beginning of my education on Classical Architecture, but I’m excited to learn much, much more. I hope this resources are helpful. Feel free to email me if this has been useful or if you have suggestions, corrections, or comments!