There is something slightly ironic about reviewing a book whose stated aim is to make architecture more appreciable by and accessible to a wider public, only for a readership largely constituted by other architects. The book has a message, however, that architects themselves would benefit from hearing.

This review may well be one of the shorter ones that I have written in that, not unlike the mathematical tiles that introduce Holland’s chapter on materials, the pleasure, and the meaning of the book is less in the structure and the detail – and there is a great deal of fascinating detail and insight in the book – than in how it is encountered, how it is written, and read.

There are six chapters which variously discuss style, composition, space, materials, structure, and use, prefaced by an introduction. The chapters contain few illustrations and are not exhaustive; this is a big topic, and the book neither tries nor needs to be comprehensive.

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