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Badger’s Illustrated Catalogue of Cast-Iron Architecture
By Daniel D. Badger
(The Architectural Iron Works of the City of New York)

I have chosen this book about Cast-Iron Architecture in New York as a point of reference for the architecture of the early 1840s. The American Daniel D. Badger is one of many pioneers of cast-iron architecture in the United States.

Daniel D. Badger founded a company called Architectural Iron Works that manufactured iron shutters (movable iron windows) at 44 and 46 Duane Street, N.Y. He incorporated cast-iron work into the storefronts of Greek Revival Buildings that previously used granite material in their post-lintel-system.

Badger’s company became very successful in the iron industry. In 1865, he published a catalogue of cast-iron post-lintel-systems, ornaments that architects were eager to use in their façade designs.

Since this class is about learning about places in New York City, I am curious about the ornamental details that many New York City Landmarks have. For instance, Grand Central Depot 1871, designed by John B. Snook, had a train shed designed by Issac C. Buckout. The shed was built by Architectural Iron Works and it was considered a masterpiece of architecture at the time.

Badger’s book illustrates his architectural iron works done in many buildings, including the owner’s names. Each illustration has a number in the catalogue details called a “plate” with Roman numbers. Also, each illustration has a number that refers to the detail’s name.

Today the ornamental details for buildings are not made of cast-iron, but they retain the original style from Badger’s company. Many buildings were erected during the late 1800s and there are a few that survived. These surviving buildings preserve the original cast-iron ornaments and today they are considered New York City Landmark buildings.

This book is definitely worth reading. It gives the reader a better understanding of the ornamental details used in many of the landmark building throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

The book that I chose to read for this assignment is “freehand sketching” by Paul Laseau. This book discusses the essentials and gives tips on how to improve your freehand sketching and drawing. It talks about a variety of things that are needed to draw better ranging from your hand positioning to shading, which can give depth to your sketches. I chose to read this book because I am pretty bad at sketching and would like to improve on it. This book references other drawing books as well as architecture books.

Name of the book: The Golden Ratio
Author: Mario Livio

Professor mentioned Golden Ratio on his first lesson, and I was hopping I could find something more interesting. I studied mathematics, but I was not sure how golden ratio could be applied to architecture, so I borrowed this book. In this day we know the Golden ratio exist in nature from as small as human DHA to as lager as the galaxy. The matter of fact that the ancient Greeks knew about Golden ratio in two thousand years ago. They build a very famous temple called the Parthenon. Also,Egyptian knew how to use golden ratio. Scientist found out that the pyramid had almost the perfect golden ratio. We are talking about 0.01% difference, which is amazing.

Book Name: Grand Central Terminal
Author: Kurt C. Schlichting

The book I choose was the “Grand Central Terminal”. This book talks about how the creation of Grand Central, brings together a numbers of themes of New York’s history. The urban change, the brilliant creation of engineers and the dynamic influence of technology on history. The book has four chapters the first is, “The Commodore’s Grand Central” in which author writes about how in nineteenth century New York was becoming the residential and commercial area. In this era the form of transportation appeared was steam train services in lower Manhattan.
The 2nd chapter is “ The Engineer’s Grand Central ” which talks about how engineers build a massive Grand central by introducing two level tracks and electrified trains. And how it transformed the train services. The 3rd chapter is “The Architect’s Grand Central” which shows how Architecture of that era builds the great sculpture and beautiful deigns of the Grand Central. And the last chapter is “ New York’s Grand Central” which shows how this big creation has been use since then for so many people of New York City as a transportation service. Each chapter tells you specific details about how Grand Central transforms New York City in the way it is now.

Book Name: Guide to New York City Landmarks New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Forth Edition
Edited by: Matthew AS. Postal
Text by: Andrew S. Dolkart / Matthew A. Postal

My book is, as the title states, a guide book to the landmarks in New York City. It has grids of the many historical districts in the different boroughs and also individual sites to see. The book is very interesting to me because I’m a big fan of being a “tourist” in my own city. There is never really enough to see and always something new to find in New York City. I haven’t come across sources in this book as of yet. Currently I’m reading up on the landmarks in Harlem, which I believe are very important for the younger generation to know about so they can grasp what Harlem was then and what it is now.

BOOK TITLE: Conquering Gotham
A gilded age epic:
The construction of Penn Station and its tunnels
Author: Jill Jonnes

Jill Jonnes tells a great tale about corporate leaders, engineers and politicians, and sacrifice workers who brought the station to life in 1910. Conquering of Gotham is more about Penn Station and how they wanted to make an easily accessible to the people on the other side of the Hudson river. the book covers the corruption of Tammany Hall. Alexander Cassatt was the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station. He determined that it was possible to build the tunnels to connect Manhattan to New Jersey and long Island. Cassatt’s plans of construction of the tunnels involved not only engineering problems, but also confronted Tammany Hall. Conquering Gotham addressed some serious topic, such as success and Failures.

Book Title: Drawing Architecture and the Urban
Author: Sam Jacoby

This book has quite a deceiving title. You open up the book and begin to think, “Wow this book will be great at teaching me how to draw”. Then you begin reading it and realize this is a goldmine of pure architectural terminology. The book is split into four different parts starting with conventions and ending with transformations. The book is also filled with various illustrations ranging from planes and lines all the way into orthographic projections and computer assisted designs. You learn a lot about how architectural sketching went from purely by hand and soon morphed into what we know now as graphically and computer assisted. The author actually references all the help he got at the beginning of the book. The book was written with the help of many architects and professors of the subject itself. It also references what other books can be used alongside with this book when conducting research. Although a lot of the terminology in this book will not be used in class it is still nice to know what’s on the surface of the subject.