Boston Buildings and Neighborhoods 

The Boston Society of Architects' AIA Guide to Boston, 2nd ed., Susan and Michael Southworth. Chester, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 1992. (NA735.B7.S68 1992)

Boston: A Topographical History, 3rd ed., Walter Muir Whitehill. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2000. (F73.3.W592 2000) Essential reading for an understanding of the evolution of Boston from settlement to metropolis. 

Boston After Bulfinch: An Account of its Architecture 1800-1900, Walter Kilham. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946. (NA735.B7.K48)

Boston Architecture, Boston Society of Architects. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970. (NA735.B7.B748) This served as the primary guide to Boston architecture prior to the AIA Guide.

Boston Architecture, 1637-1954, Henry-Russell Hitchcock. New York: Reinhold Pub., c1954. (NA735.B7.H674)

Boston Architecture, 1975-1990, Naomi Miller and Keith Morgan. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1990. (NA735.B7.M55 1990)

Boston: Photographs, Santi Visalli. New York: Rizzoli, 1988. (F73.37.V57 1988)

Boston Then and Now: 59 Boston Sites Photographed in the Past and Present, Peter Vanderwarker. New York: Dover, 1982. (F73.37.V36 1982)

Boston: One Hundred Years A City. Boston: State Street Bank, 1922. (F73.3.S8)

Built in Boston: City and Suburb, 1800-1950, Douglass Shand-Tucci. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. (NA735.B7.T8 1999)

The City Observed, Boston: A Guide to the Architecture of the Hub, Donlyn Lyndon. New York: Random House, 1982. (NA735.B7.L96 1982) A personal view of Boston's architectural highlights.

Establishing a Threshold: Twelve Architectural Practices in Boston. Cambridge: Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 1985. Exhibition catalog. (NA735.B7.E88 1985)

Great Buildings of Boston: A Photographic Guide, George M. Cushing. New York: Dover, 1982. (NA735.B7.C8 1982)

Houses of Boston's Back Bay: An Architectural History, 1840-1917, Bainbridge Bunting. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1967. (NA7237.B65.B942) The authoritative study.

Invented Cities: The Creation of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century New York and Boston, Mona Domosh. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. (HT168.N5.D66 1996) 

 

Inventing the Charles River, Karl Haglund. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. (F72.C46.H33 2003)

Lost Boston, Jane Holtz Kay. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. (NA735.B7.K39 1999) An extremely good overview of Boston prior to mid-20th century development.

The Many Voices of Boston: A Historical Anthology, 1630-1975, edited by Howard Mumford Jones and Bessie Zaban Jones. Boston: Little, Brown, 1975. (F73.3.J66)

Mapping Boston, edited by Alex Krieger, David Cobb, and Amy Turner. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999. (GA430.M36 1999)

New Architecture in Boston, Joan Goody. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965. (NA735.B7.G658)

Old Boston in Early Photographs, 1850-1918: 174 Prints From the Collection of the Bostonian Society. New York: Dover, 1990. (F73.37.B773 1990)

Planning the City Upon a Hill, Lawrence W. Kennedy. Amherst: UMass Press, 1992. (HT168.B6.K46 1992)

Portrait of a Port: Boston, 1852-1914, William Henry Bunting. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971. (HE767.B7.B942) Largely old photographs of tall ships, but includes fine views of waterfront Boston in the 19th century.

Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900, 2nd ed., Sam Bass Warner. New York: Atheneum, 1969. (HN80.B7.W284) Painstaking, thorough research.

A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff. Boston: Noyes, Holmes, and Co., 1872. (F73.3.S562 1872)

Peter Cohn
Associate Head, Rotch
pcohn@mit.edu

Heather McCann
Reference Coordinator and Public Services Librarian, Rotch
hmccann@mit.edu

• Neighborhood Documents
• Landmarks Commission Reports
• Boston Preservation AllianceLetter