Books that get behind the walls and beneath the floors of a specific building, giving it presence? A work that really exposes a building’s bones, history, architecture and blueprint. Any genre, but I’ll cut everyone off at the pass – not House of Leaves, Shirley Jackson or A Gentleman in Moscow.
I really love literature that allows the reader to go up and down stairs, explore rooms and passageways and move through time with a building. Any suggestions?
The _Gormenghast_ Trilogy takes place in the castle Gormenghast, an ancient, remote structure, largely cut off from the world, which has been slowly expanded over the course of centuries, and which has developed its own series of intricate and bizarre traditions. The physical castle itself is in many ways a central character. Among other things, it has a cat room, a bird room, a tearoom atop a giant tree growing out of one of its walls, a tower of owls where corpses are left, and numerous rooms which have been largely abandoned and forgotten.
nekomoo on
The Name of the Rose
RightLocal1356 on
It’s been a while since I read it but Jack Finney’s [Time and Again](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40526.Time_and_Again) contains time travel in the Dakota building in New York City. Finney writes with loads of details and I’m sure I remember him writing a lot about the Dakota.
Caleb_Trask19 on
The Glass Room is a novel based on the real modernist Tugendhat Villa in Eastern Europe through out the years, especially the upheaval of WWII
The Paris Architect is about an architect who becomes involved in redesigning rooms to his Jews in during the occupation, and is based off on a true occurrence.
North Woods, the house is a prominent element throughout its history from colonial times to present day, but the property itself is the main character.
maybemaybenot2023 on
These were technically written for children, but the Green Knowe series by L.M. Boston takes place in a Tudor Manor that is the heart of the stories. She based on the manor she had purchased IRL and was restoring.
hazard_profile_4 on
Rebecca by Daphne DeMaurier. It’s one of the first to have done this.
6 Comments
The _Gormenghast_ Trilogy takes place in the castle Gormenghast, an ancient, remote structure, largely cut off from the world, which has been slowly expanded over the course of centuries, and which has developed its own series of intricate and bizarre traditions. The physical castle itself is in many ways a central character. Among other things, it has a cat room, a bird room, a tearoom atop a giant tree growing out of one of its walls, a tower of owls where corpses are left, and numerous rooms which have been largely abandoned and forgotten.
The Name of the Rose
It’s been a while since I read it but Jack Finney’s [Time and Again](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40526.Time_and_Again) contains time travel in the Dakota building in New York City. Finney writes with loads of details and I’m sure I remember him writing a lot about the Dakota.
The Glass Room is a novel based on the real modernist Tugendhat Villa in Eastern Europe through out the years, especially the upheaval of WWII
The Paris Architect is about an architect who becomes involved in redesigning rooms to his Jews in during the occupation, and is based off on a true occurrence.
North Woods, the house is a prominent element throughout its history from colonial times to present day, but the property itself is the main character.
These were technically written for children, but the Green Knowe series by L.M. Boston takes place in a Tudor Manor that is the heart of the stories. She based on the manor she had purchased IRL and was restoring.
Rebecca by Daphne DeMaurier. It’s one of the first to have done this.