Buildings in Disguise: Architecture That Looks Like Animals, Food, and Other Things

by Joan Marie Arbogast

Overview

Imagine climbing into an elephant, sitting inside a sombrero, or working inside a basket. These things are possible with mimetic architecture—structures that mimic other objects.

From north to south, from east to west, buildings designed to look like beagles, baskets, and binoculars dot the American landscape. In this fascinating nonfiction picture book, discover a variety of eye-catching, head-turning buildings beginning with our nation's oldest functioning example, Lucy the Elephant, to one of our youngest, a beagle named Sweet Willy. Though different in size, shape, and color, these buildings have one thing in common: they all grab your attention.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590788240
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	08/01/2010
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.19(d)
Age Range:	7 - 9 Years

About the Author

Joan Marie Arbogast is the author of one book for adult readers and is published in numerous children's and family magazines. She lives in Stow, Ohio.

Editorial Reviews

"Architecture at its most vernacular, the dozens of oversized concrete wigwams, kettles, animals, and food-related items that pack this survey of American roadside attractions make irresistible eye candy." -Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Architecture at its most vernacular, the dozens of oversized concrete wigwams, kettles, animals, and food-related items that pack this survey of American roadside attractions make irresistible eye candy. As the endpaper maps show, Arbogast ranges from coast to coast, opening with Lucy, the Margate, NJ, elephant still in use after almost 125 years, closing with Sweet Willy, a 30-foot-high Idaho beagle completed just last year. In between, she profiles an entire office building shaped like a picnic basket, Long Island's renowned Big Duck, South Dakota's Corn Palace, plus arrays of hot dog and fried-chicken stands, quirky motels, and gas stations. The author supplies statistics and background notes for most of her examples, describes how several were (or were not) saved from demolition, and closes with a multimedia resource list. The various Disney enterprises and their ilk don't make these pages-but that just points up the endearingly rough-hewn charm of what does. (Nonfiction. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews