House

Architecture is always a collaboration between the architect who conceives the project, the builder who must realize it, and the client who starts it—and pays for it The protracted building process, which is often stressful, is always a complicated pas de trois. No one has written about this better than Tracy Kidder, who describes the complex choreography by following (in real-time and in detail) the construction of a family home in New England.

Kidder is—high praise—a process freak, and his books are the gold standard for nonfiction procedurals. In House (1985), the follow-up to The Soul of a New Machine, he documents one of the most fundamental processes of all: the building of a home. At the center of the narrative is a young professional couple, Judith and Jonathan Souweine, who have commissioned the design and building of a house in Amherst, Mass. Kidder follows their odyssey from groundbreaking to moving in, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look not only at his protagonists’ family life but also at the craft challenges that architects… show more.