William Stout + G.E. Kidder Smith

Looking for a book at the web page of San Francisco-based William Stout Architectural Books I saw the following announcement:

"We have recently purchased the architectural library of writer/architect G.E. Kidder Smith. Kidder Smith was born in 1913 in Birmingham, Alabama and received his education at Princeton, getting his MFA in 1935.

Kidder Smith wrote and photographed the books; Brazil Builds, Switzerland Builds, Sweden Builds, Italy Builds, The New Churches of Europe, A Pictorial History of Architecture in America, The Beacon Guide to New England Houses of Worship, Source Book of American Architecture and other books.

Kidder Smith practiced and lived in New York, but spent much of his time traveling all over the world researching for his books."

While Kidder Smith is not a household name, I remember the Builds series from the library at undergraduate architecture school, especially the ones on Italy and Switzerland. From what I remember of those books, he presented work that was Modernist yet of its place, what now goes by the monicker Critical Regionalism.

A selection of Kidder Smith's books shows an equal appreciation of Modernism and the vernacular. Here's some books that stood out for me, in no particular order:



Left column, top to bottom:

Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture. Tange, Kenzo, Walter Gropius, and Yasuhiro Ishimoto. 1960.

The Japanese House: A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture. Engel, Heinrich. 1964.

Folk Architecture of the East Mediterranean. Branch, Daniel Paulk. 1966.

Traditional Architecture in Kuwait and the Northern Gulf. Lewcock, Ronald and Zahra Freeth. 1978.

Art of Islam: Language and Meaning. Burckhardt, Titus. 1976.

Right column, top to bottom:

Prehistoric Architecture in the Eastern United States. Morgan, William N. 1980.

American Building Art. The 19th century - The 20th century (2 Vols.). Condit, Carl W. 1960-61.

Wooden Houses. Futagawa, Yukio. 1978.

Norwegian Architecture Throughout the Ages. Alnaes, Eyvind and Georg Eliassen, Reidar Lund, Arne Pedersen, Olav Platou. 1950.

Orthogonal Town Planning in Antiquity. Castagnoli, Ferdinando. 1971.

The Aesthetic Townscape. Ashihara, Yoshinobu. 1983.

While Stout's prices can be a bit steep ($700.00 for the book on traditional architecture in Kuwait!), it's really interesting to see an individual's library in one place like this, illustrating his interests throughout his life, but also -- and maybe most importantly -- the importance of books in that life.

G.E. Kidder Smith's featured books can be found here and his whole library at William Stout can be found here.