[.ca] Architecture: Form, Space, & Order (ISBN 0471752169)

a bad book for architects:
One of the most damaging books that has ever flooded architectural education. The book is the dullest and uninspiring compilation of platitudes without any critical referent. To the problems of architecture and architectural imagination, it offers as panacea the most insidious graphic banalities that can be used in a set of architectural drawings as pseudo-effective means of communication and design. The book presents in many drawings easy formulas or ready-made clichés, or smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of graphic conventions that prevent any critical dispute of the most pedestrian and prosaic design protocols. The instructions divulged by this pseudo-didactic and professional publication reduce both the discipline and the profession of architecture to a trade without a critical tradition.

A wonderful architectural book!:
I read this book in Chinese when I started to learn architecture many yaers ago, and I bought the English version later when I came to the US. I love it, it is one of the best architectural books that you can have. Gang Chen, Author of "Planting Design Illustrated"

Disappointing - solely for architects, no-one else.:
As a practicing civil engineer, I wanted a book that allowed me to add some architectural flavour to my houses. This book did not do that. It is really a coffee table book about the different ancient and modern architectural styles without really explaining how to practically go about adding such features. I suppose in the architectural world all the flowery language and concepts mean something, but its practically useless to anyone outside.

Excellent illustrations:
An excellently illustrated dictionary of architecture. Good for reference and fun for just browsing.

"Refer to Ching!!!":
As a current architecture studio student, I have to say that this book is the architect's Bible. Any time me or any of my classmates has a question on graphic standards, we are told "Refer to Ching!", it is an old joke in the studio. Couldn't live in the studio without it. Design Drawing by Ching is also extremely helpful, to the point of necessity