Domestic Architecture

Atlanta: Franklin Printing and Publishing Co, 1897. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. Tall quarto. 155 pages. 59 tissue protected photographic plates and 11 floor plans. Frontispiece is a photograph of the Fine Arts Building facade used during the 1896 Atlanta Cotton States Exposition. Green cloth hardcover with gilt stamped title and design on front cover and spine. Cloth edge worn head and base of spine. Light edge wear to boards. Repaired hinges. New white end sheets added in front and rear. Light soiling to a few pages. W. T. Downing writes in his introduction "the illustrations contained in this book are selected from buildings designed by me within the past few years. They serve to show the style and character of work that has been done in the best residences of this section." Illustrations of Atlanta homes include Samuel Inman, Mrs. Henry W Grady, Dr. A. W. Calhoun, Judge Samuel Lumpkin, and several other prominent Atlanta residents. Elizabeth Lyon's catalog "Atlanta Architecture. The Victorian Heritage: 1837-1918" prepared for an Exhibit at the Atlanta Historical Society in 1976 has a brief biographical profile on W. T. Downing (1865-1918). She writes "Though some public buildings are among his works, the most impressive bulk of his production took form of houses for affluent Atlantans in which the interiors were elaborately detailed.