A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams Paperback – December 30, 2008

I really enjoyed reading Pollan's experience about building his own hut in the woods, which would house his writing desk and books but be within sight of his home in Connecticut. About half of the book is about the nuts and bolts experience of designing and building the 8'x13' writing house, and the other half is much more philosophical and far ranging - about architecture in general, columns and pediments, conflicts between architects and contractors, feng shui, chi, and many aspects of building. He admits "a tendency of mine to lean rather heavily on words and theories in my dealings with the world." In Chapter 3 he wrote. "...deep piles of words on the page comprised for me a kind of soothing environment, a plush cushion into which sometimes I could barely wait to sink my head." If you're looking for a how-to book about building an outbuilding, you will become impatient with Pollan's book. If you're looking for a deep immersion in words about the history, theory and philosophy of building, interspersed with Pollan's actual experience in the project, you will thoroughly enjoy this book.Pollan refers frequently to Thoreau and shared his desire to find a place of his own to write and spent untold hours surveying his land, bringing a chair to rest upon to look at each aspect at different times of day before selecting the perfect site for his hut. He wrote a letter to his architect to describe what he was looking for, and pored over drawings with the architect. Realizing his limitations as a handyman, he selected a skilled young carpenter to help him one day a week on the project. He visited the mill from which the wood was sourced, and found a custom shop to produce the windows where he planed some of the lumber for the framework himself. He developed a genuine reverence for the wood used in his hut, having selected and sanded and nailed almost every piece himself. He wrote that "buildings give us a way to leave a lasting mark, to conduct a conversation across the generations."He concluded with "So this was the house for the self that stood a little apart and at an angle, the self that thought a good place to spend the day was between two walls of books in front of a big window overlooking life." The book concludes just as he is moving his books into the "writing house". I only wished that he had extended the book a bit to give us some flavor of his experience of working in the writing house, whether it inspired him or made him more productive. Indeed his writing career really flourished after the hut was built, but I think only his first book or two were written in Connecticut before he moved to Berkeley, California.

Excellent book. Actually about perceiving the world and oneself, with choosing the site, designing the structure, and building it as a vehicle. Details about the evolution of architecture and carpentry that I had never come across, or considered. I am in the middle of designing and building a studio/workshop and I now see both tasks through new eyes.

I remember in high school hearing about the eccentricities of Walden and rolling my eyes. This book has helped me see why that book has held such a strong place in the zeitgeist... and yes, makes me want to build my own little place in the woods.I really appreciated how Pollan went into some of the architectural history and theory - although at one point I just wanted to shout at him to just get up off of his duff and DO something rather than reading about doing something! And then only a few paragraphs later, he made fun of himself for that very thing, and went and actually started with the doing. Pretty handy, that! Wish it always worked that way for me, the things I could do...The book really has 3 main characters - his architect friend/mentor, his contractor/mentor, and Pollan. The book spends an awful lot of time on the struggle between architects and contractors, and Pollan's place stuck between the two of them... and his gradual acquisition of knowledge and confidence, which allows him to make decisions outside of the blueprints.I read this book on audiobook, so it was solidly built out of imagination. I imagine that the book itself has drawings or illustrations - and see, even just looking at the cover shows me what the finished product looks like, and darn that little hut looks cute and snug! - which would help give it shape mentally... but actually that may have helped me a bit. I rewound and relistened in some parts to try to figure out what he meant when describing building details, and I don't know that I would have thought so hard about it if it had been diagrammed.That said, is this the Omnivore's Dilemma? Nope, not by a long shot. But if I had never read OD, I'd have given it 5 stars, so that's what I'm doing here. (maybe OD should get an imaginary 6th star, to make it fair to every other book?)This was just a really enjoyable book, and it's subtly altered how I look at buildings around me. Worth the reading, definitely.

Despite being a big fan of Transcendatalism in theory, I've struggled to read Walden and hoped this book would be my modern version. Perhaps more my fault than the author's, I was expecting a literal tale of building interwoven with a more general discourse on building and nature.There's certainly some of that present in this book, but there's also a lot of talk on architecture and its movement and meanings. A lot. I consider myself a bit of an information sponge and love learning about a variety of topics, but I found this very dry. I often wished the discussions of architecture included basic drawings the same way some of the construction detail sections do, so that perhaps I'd have some concrete idea what he was referring to. This is a very "writerly", head in the clouds, theoretical take on a subject, and for me it was just too abstract.Pollan is at his best in this book when describing people. He brings his carpenter and his architect to vivid life and imbues a real sense of humor into his work with, and challenge between, each of them. The segment about how all roads lead to gun control with carpenter Joe is without a doubt my favorite few pages in the book. The details of construction and his reverence for his materials are engaging and understandable, despite my lack of familiarity with the subject.All told, this is a well-written book that happened to miss the mark for me personally.