Richard J. Goy – författare

Each year, millions of visitors travel to Florence to admire the architectural marvels of this famous Renaissance city. In this compact yet comprehensive volume, architect and architectural historian Richard J. Goy offers a convenient, accessible guide to the city’s piazzas, palazzos, basilicas, and other architectural points of interest, as well as pertinent historical details regarding Florence’s unique urban environment.Clearly laid out and fully illustrated, this handbook is designed around a series of expertly planned walking tours that encompass not only the city’s most admired architectural sites, but also its lesser-known gems. Maps are tailored to each walking tour and provide additional references and insights, along with introductory chapters on the city’s architectural history, urban design, and building materials and techniques. Featuring a complete bibliography, glossary of key terms, and other useful reference materials, Goy’s guide will appeal both to travelers who desire a greater architectural context and analysis than that offered by a traditional guide and to return visitors looking to rediscover Florence’s most enchanting sites.

This 1985 book is the study of the history of a group of villages, and one large town, that lie in the lagoons that surround Venice. Although written by an architect, it is not concerned solely with architecture, but with the whole history of the settlements, their origins, their growth and development, the occupations of their inhabitants, and the reasons for their prosperity or decline over the centuries. The book will interest professional architects and historians, many of whom will be familiar with the history and environment of Venice itself. It will also attract a more general reader, and perhaps lovers of Venice, and engender a desire to explore beyond St Mark's Square and the Rialto markets, to discover or rediscover the lesser riches of these modest but fascinating communities, whose physical environment, like that of Venice itself, has changed very little over the last two hundred years.

This book is an introduction to the vernacular or 'minor' architecture of the villages of the Venetian lagoon, excluding the historic centre of the city itself. This 1989 study provides an authoritative account of their architectural style and development and a companion volume to Dr Goy's Chioggia and the Villages of the Venetian Lagoon (1985). In a broadly based and fully illustrated discussion, the author aims to show how certain, often palatial, architectural forms found in the Venetian metropolis were modified when transferred to the outlying, 'suburban' communities of the lagoon, which were constructed in far more trying conditions when materials and skilled labour were both in short supply. The book offers an encyclopaedic guide to almost all aspects of the building process, paying particular attention to materials, motifs, decoration and the organisation of labour, and also gives valuable English translations of such primary sources as Sansovino and Palladio.

In 1406 a young Venetian nobleman, Marin Contarini, married into another ancient patrician clan. His wife's family owned an old palace on the Grand Canal. Contarini demolished the old palace and, in 1421, he began to build the C... d'Oro, his 'House of Gold'. This 1993 book tells the history of the building of the palace over a period of nearly twenty years. After a general introduction to the city of Venice at the beginning of the quattrocento, Dr Goy discusses the background to the building of the palace. There follows a discussion of the building industry in Venice in this flourishing period, and of the functions of the three chief building crafts. In the latter half of the study, the whole building process is recreated in detail; the relationships between Contarini and his craftsmen are analysed, as is the pivotal role of Contarini himself, the architect manqué whose monument this was to become.