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Book Cover for: The Book of Errors, Annie Coggan

The Book of Errors

Annie Coggan

The Book of Errors by Annie Coggan is a tale of three architects who shaped and altered the stories of three historic American structures--the Henry Knox Museum in Maine, Fraunces Tavern in New York City, and the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia. The book takes its title from the preservation missteps and preconceptions of those involved. Through her renderings of imagined architectures, Annie Coggan considers how narratives of history are configured. The parallel stories by Mark Hage--entwining the factual and the imagined--frame and give form to these portraits, giving overall shape to the interaction of text and image. A collection of drawings, ephemera, and imaginings, The Book of Errors​ ​invites us to new possibilities that may or may not have happened, but that become stories of our mind, each in our unique way. With an introduction by Brigid Hughes.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Public Space Books
  • Publish Date: Aug 24th, 2021
  • Pages: 64
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.90in - 5.80in - 0.30in - 0.40lb
  • EAN: 9781734590791
  • Categories: EssaysHistoric Preservation - GeneralDesign, Drafting, Drawing & Presentation

About the Author

Annie Coggan is a principal with Chairs and Buildings Studio and a professor at Pratt Institute School of Design. A contributing editor to A Public Space, she lives in Brooklyn, New York; and Belfast, Maine.

Praise for this book

"Fact and fiction intertwine in this project--fact and fiction, real and imaginary, dance in this book--daring the reader to see preservation and architectural history as something playful and more inclusive of creativity than one might think."--World Architects

What Coggan's book reminds us is of all the ways a historic site might not accurately reflect history...The Book of Errors isn't an easy book to summarize, but as a guide to history and perception it's invaluable.
--Tobias Carroll, Press Herald