North Carolina Architecture by Catherine W. Bishir, and: Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building by Catherine W. Bishir et al (review)

48 Book Reviews _[ -,-....l ·. [j i+-~--'---'--"'-"""-'------rr . ·.:. Catherine W. Bishir. North Carolina Architecture. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. xiv + 514 pp. 490 duotone photographs, 18 color plates, 65 line drawings. Catherine W. Bishir, Charlotte V. Brown, Carl R. Lounsbury, and Ernest H. Wood III. Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History ofthe Practice ofBuilding. Chapel Hill and London: University of North · Carolina Press, 1990. xi+ pp. Illustrations, maps, and plans (not numbered). How often does a writer of architectural history, who is associated with two titles on related subjects that are published in the same year, become a winner of awards for both publications? Catherine Bishir has achieved this distinction. She wrote North Carolina Architecture although she also credits the many field researchers in the State Historic Preservation Office in North Carolina for data on thousands of individual structures from which she could select. In 1991 this book won the Author Award of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and the A.I.A. International Architecture Book Award. In Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History ofthe Practice ofBuilding, Bishir contributed two chapters. This title won the Best Edited Book Award from Pioneer America Society in 1990. Although these two volumes were published by the University of North Carolina Press, they were printed in different formats and sizes as separate entities. Yet any reader of architecture can easily see that the books belong beside each other on the same book shelf as companions. The North Carolina Society for the Preservation of Antiquities, founded in 1939, helped by underwriting publication costs for this history of the state's architecture, one reason, perhaps, that North Carolina Architecture is such a spectacular production with the very best photography, paper, and graphic design that all writers dream of having. Although less weighty, Architects and Builders is packed with complementary information not found in its oversized complement. During the past ten years it has been fashionable to publish books on the architectural heritage of individual states in oversize formats, having plenty of illustrations and a beautiful color dust jacket, all geared to the public that is looking for a coffee table book. While North Carolina Architecture's cover will attract some buyers, the text is also a multifaceted and thorough survey of the state's historic architecture. First it is a chronological survey of architecture from its seventeenth century beginnings to 1945. It analyses every imaginable type of architecture from private houses to commercial, agricultural, industrial, ecclesiastical, civic and governmental, and from simple log buildings by unknown artisans to complex high-style steel frame and reinforced concrete structures by architects and engineers. Because of the nature of settlement in North Carolina, which is more rural than urban, the book carefully maintains a balance between buildings in the country and city, representing more small towns in the beginning while focusing on urban II centers at the end. Bishir also is concerned with the subregional developments within the state, showing its coastal beginnings and moving inwards. Despite the rapid urbanization that took place from the late nineteenth century onwards, Bishir was sensitive to include a worthwhile section on log structures at the end of the century, something I believe that some writers would have been tempted to delete since log structures were covered in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century sections. She also presents documentation showing that log structures were built during the seventeenth century, but none of these survive. Architects and Builders examines the history of builders and building construction practices in North Carolina from the late seventeenth century to the present. This theme integrates the construction practices with a history of building technology and mechanization, new industrial materials, and a history of the urbanization of the state. For example, railroad construction during the 1880s linked North Carolina to national markets, facilitating the export of raw products and the import of prefabricated houses as well as enabling urban migration and the development of new industries in cities and towns. Architects and Builders was inspired by the vast collection of interesting documents that architectural historians discover when researching buildings, such as those found in courthouse contracts...