Newly Released: Searching for Authenticity
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Author: Edward Ford
Fall 2025
ORO Editions
Searching for Authenticity: Rustic Architecture in America 1887–1940 is a history of a series of misunderstood masterpieces, the log-based architecture that emerged in the Adirondacks and the National Parks between 1890 and 1935. It is a history of how both form and technology of construction were determined by the tourist industry and the railroads that built these buildings. The book expands upon the social and environmental damage caused by the larger process of which these buildings and their construction were a part.
Many of these buildings were constructional shams driven by romantic pretenses, but there is also — in the best of this architecture — something truly original. Ford articulates a history of how the rustic aesthetic transcended glib, mythic romanticism to produce a truly original architecture, how the unique conditions of the West merged craft with the industrial, of how its designers drew on the landscape of the West in combination with the European traditions of the rustic to create an original architecture and a unique way of building.
Searching for Authenticity features forty buildings, examined in detail. The text and the numerous original drawings unfold the story how each work of architecture was actually constructed in relation to its many enduring myths.
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| All book cover and spread photography by publisher, ORO Editions. | |
In its opening chapter titled "The Malaise of the Overcivilized," Ford recounts the stories of innumerous men who between the years of 1879 and 1904 abandoned "not just their daily lives but the civilization that housed them," opting instead to take on a life that was "in some way archaic, following impulses they saw as intuitive, living the existence nature intended..."
Through this introduction, Ford sets the stage for the an architectural history that follows the rustic architecture of America over the five decade period of 1887 to 1940, tracing a lineage from the Adirondacks to the West. Across this journey, he weaves together narrative, technology, industry, materiality and construction. Featuring forty architectural works, such as Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (architect Robert Reamer), Portland Forestry Building in Oregon (architects Ion Lewis and A.E. Doyle), Lookout Studio and Hermit's Rest in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona (architect Mary Colter), the publication includes detailed analysis of construction and assembly presented through descriptive original architectural drawings.
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In 2023, Ford received a McDowell Fellow residency where he was able to complete the design layout for this comprehensive history of rustic architecture in America. There, he worked in the Mansfield studio, a small shingled frame structure with stone foundation that was originally fronted by a garden and a stone pathway. Described as an excellent example of simple materials assembled by craftsmen for a clear purpose, the building has been noted as "providing everything that is needed and nothing extraneous to the creative process" for writers and designers alike. Ford's latest title follows a series of renowned publications by the author, including two volumes of The Details of Modern Architecture and Five Houses, Ten Details.
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Author
Architect and Professor Emeritus Edward Ford is the author of the two volumes of The Details of Modern Architecture (MIT Press, 1990, 1996), and The Architectural Detail (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011). In 2011, Designers and Books named The Details of Modern Architecture to the list of “Books Every Architect Should Read” and named The Architectural Detail as one of the notable books of 2011. His architectural work is the subject of his book Five Houses, Ten Details.
His work has also been published in The New American House, Japan Architect, Competitions, The Cambridge Journal of Architecture, and exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Chicago Foundation for Architecture, the Washington and Boston Chapters of the AIA, and featured on the House and Garden Channel. In addition to his title of Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, he has taught at Washington University-St. Louis, the University of Texas, Austin, and the University of Arkansas.
