Caryatids and glass panels. [The Architecture Lover's Guide to Paris by Ruby Boukabou]

Unlock the secrets of Paris’s charm with this handy visual guidebook. Learn the history of the city’s most famous landmarks, grasp their fascinating details and discover dozens of lesser known architectural gems. Whether you are a Paris regular or visiting for the first time, this guide will help you understand how the city acquired its unique and beautiful design palette and recommend ways to experience it more fully with self-guided walking tours and suggestions of some of the best hotels, restaurants, cafés, churches, parks and more. You’ll also discover ancient Roman baths, seventeenth century mansions, Art Deco theatres, contemporary cultural complexes and find out where to kick back, cocktail or mock-tail in hand, with a panoramic view over the capital. Written by Ruby Boukabou, author of The Art Lover’s Guide to Paris, and part-time Parisian, this book is the perfect companion for anybody intrigued by Paris’s seductive magic.

Back in October of last year a TikTok introduction to the game of GeoGuessr unknowingly changed my life. Now I'm an amateur geography nerd. I've always loved architecture and history, but that newly piqued interest of getting to see and know the world through satellite imagery and Google Street View was an extra impetus to request Ruby Boukabou's The Architecture Lover's Guide to Paris. I figured I'd learn more about Paris monuments and landmarks, all the while building an improved, more informed mental picture of the city landscape. Unfortunately this reads more like travel guide than it does architectural spotlight.

That's fine, because, truly, why not both? Travel guide through the lens of architecture is the selling point. The problem is I spent a lot of time searching up images of highlighted locations and my read was longer than it needed to be. I went on tangents, learning history of peoples, names, techniques, arrondissements, and so on and so forth. Because it was a travel guide, thematic groupings did not led to photographic abundance. So while photographs of repeat mention locales were interspersed throughout the book, being generally unfamiliar with city buildings and landmarks, I mostly had to Google Image or map search locations several times. Sometimes I just read on. 

As an architectural highlight, I'd like to say this was a very superficial. I learned a lot Googling terms and techniques I knew nothing or little about, like caryatids and atlantes, pre-stressed concrete. But if I learned, then was it superficial? Or was it just above my head. Because speaking of implied pre-existing knowledge, I don't imagine this is the best read for those who, like myself, have not visited Paris before. Reading on landmarks without having the slightest clue where they are in relation to anything else meant I had to read this with a map, and that really took away from the focus of Parisian architecture, making it more about the city of Paris and it's city planning than anything. The map of Paris in my mind was not ready for this expansion, but I'm glad I got it. For me the history of Paris and how that shaped the city was most interesting. But I can't say I feel significantly empowered to speak on Parisian architecture or Paris as a city. 3 stars from me.

The Architecture Lover's Guide to Paris (ISBN:9781526779977) was published March 31, 2021.