ARCHITECTURE OF THE WESTERN RESERVE, 1800-1900.

By Richard N. Campen '34. Cleveland: The Press ofCase Western Reserve University. 1971.260 pp. Illustrated with photographs bythe author. $20.

Uncritically you pick up this book and exclaim delightedly, "Ah, New England at its best! Oh, that lovely covered bridge, 'Clearance 11 ft. 3 in.!- And that enchanting Litchfield, Connecticut, church, eighteenth century, with portico and tower!" If not perfect, your memory is better than good. The church is in Tallmadge, Ohio, but it is like Litchfield's.

More critically, you discover that this handsome book, a labor of love as profound as its scholarship, concerns the region of northeastern Ohio known as the Western Reserve, also as the Western Reserve of Connecticut because of the 1662 King Charles II charter.

You are not to worry if you missed your art course in college and cannot tell the difference between a metope and a mutule, a modillion and a mullion, and a pediment and a pendant. An illustrated glossary defines terms used in the description of the 400 buildings shown in photographs of exceptionally high quality. Each picture is complemented with quintessential comment about the architect, origin and embellishments, and details worthy of particular condemnation or commendation.

Although specialized, the book will attract almost anyone interested in houses. In an historical essay Mr. Campen relates the evolution of Western Reserve architecture to current stylistic developments elsewhere in the United States from vernacular construction to the eclecticism of the latter part of the century. He also sketches the lives and achievements of important local architects like Jonathan Goldsmith, deservedly applauded for his beautiful style marking early Reserve architecture, and Charles Schweinfurth to whom Cleveland residents should be eternally grateful for his late nineteenth century Richardsonian and Tudor buildings.

Photographs, sketches, floor plans with special emphasis on Connecticut constitute a 28-page essay describing the Classic Revival, the Georgian Colonial Period, Archaeology and Romanticism, the Federal Style, the Greek Revival, Romanticism and the Gothic Revival, and American Architecture after the Civil War.

In the push westward many restless Americans were content with temporary sacks, but Ohio settlers, conscious of their New England heritage, built their houses, churches, and public buildings with their grandchildren in mind.

This volume should provide many evenings of pleasure to countless residents of Ohio and New England and perhaps even to displaced New Englanders in California, especially those who used to describe the route taking them there as the one by way of Dedham, Massachusetts, and their nostalgia as the result of living so far from the ocean.