Philadelphia Architecture, A Guide to the City (Fourth Edition) provides more than three hundred descriptions and photographs, both color and black and white, of the city's architecturally most significant buildings. Spanning more than three hundred years, these great buildings characterize Philadelphia as unique among American cities, comprising, as they do, nearly every style of architecture found in the United States.
Divided into four sections, Philadelphia Architecture proceeds chronologically from the founding of the city in 1682 into the early Federal period, through its industrialization in the 19th century, and its growth as a metropolis in the 1900s, concluding with the latest buildings, erected in the 21st century. Each entry provides historical and architectural information pertinent to the structure and relates the building to its setting in the city.
This compact guide also includes short biographies of the city's renowned architects; a building chart, which catalogs the building types and dates of construction; and maps of ten walking and driving tours, which highlight important buildings and sites in Philadelphia and the surrounding region.
Philadelphia Architecture, A Guide to the City is a project of the Center for Architecture, a nonprofit institution founded by the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
John Andrew Gallery received his M.Arch. from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has served as Associate Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, Director of the Philadelphia Office of Housing and Community Development, and Executive Director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. He is also the author of The Planning of Center City Philadelphia and Sacred Sites of Center City, both available from Paul Dry Books.