Nairn's Paris [Hardcover]

50th Anniversary of original publication; this is a unique Paris guidebook from the late, great, architecture and travel writer Ian Nairn.

Illustrated with the author's black and white snaps of the city, Nairn shows his eye for detail - whether it is stonework on an archway, shadows cast by a railing, or an empty chair in a Paris park, in this book which celebrates the City of Light.Nairn's Pariscaptures the city on the cusp of great changes and provides a glimpse of a city that is about to disappear. Here is an idiosyncratic and unpretentious portrait of the 'collective masterpiece' that is Paris.

Introduced by writer and BBC presenter Andrew Hussey, author of the popularParis: The Secret History.

'About one third of the book is discovery, in the sense that I came upon the sites by accident or by following a topographical hunch. There must be many more, and all you need for the search is the ability to turn off the main road, switch on your antennae and respond. Good luck.' - Ian Nairn You could see that Nairn was made of equal parts of amiability and disagreeableness, that he could swoon, but only over the very finest things; that he could take joy in the most ordinary streetscape if it could be shown to make daily life better; and that he could always be counted on to prefer the work of an eccentric genius like Nicholas Hawksmoor over that of a sane and rational architect like Christopher Wren.” —Paul Goldberger, “Books Every Architect Should Read

It’s not easy to pigeonhole the late English writer Ian Nairn. But after reading his work you might rightly decide that there’s no need to do so. His rubric doesn’t matter because, whatever kind of writer he is, he follows his own meandering counsel, and the results are consistently brilliant.”  — James McWilliams, The Millions
 
To call Ian Nairn a great architectural writer is too rl#K