On the Art of Building in Ten Books
By (Author) Leon Battista Alberti
Translated by Joseph Rykwert
Contributions by Neil Leach
Contributions by Robert Tavernor
MIT Press Ltd
MIT Press
1st July 1991
United States
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Literary essays
720
Paperback
470
Width 175mm, Height 254mm, Spine 27mm
953g
"De Re Aedificatoria", by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), was the first modern treatise on the theory and practice of architecture. It was very important for the subsequent history of architecture and this is the first English translation based on the original Latin text on which Alberti's reputation as a theorist is founded.
Brilliantly translated...Rykwert and his team have restored the pleasures of Alberti's writing for English readers...This undoubtedly deserves to become the standard English translation.
Anthony Hughes, Times Literary SupplementThis English edition surpasses the earlier one in a number of significant ways...It will no doubt soon find a place on all architectural reading lists, and deservedly so.
Paul Davies, Art HistoryJoseph Rykwert is Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. Neil Leach is an architect and theorist who has taught at a number of institutions worldwide, including the Architectural Association in London, the Dessau Institute Dessau, Germany, and Columbia University. He is the author, editor, or translator of more than a dozen books, including Rethinking Architecture, The Anaesthetics of Architecture (MIT Press, 1999), and Alberti's On the Art of Building in Ten Books (MIT Press 1991). Robert Tavernor is Professor and Head of Architecture at the University of Bath and a practicing architect. His previous books include a translation (with Joseph Rykwert and Neil Leach) of Alberti's On the Art of Building in Ten Books; and Palladio and Palladianism.