Robert Elwall
RIBA Publications
£9 each
108 pages
Fed up with those glossy architectural photofests that demand a crane to lift and cost the price of a camera to buy? Well, here are a couple of enchanting tiddlers that will fit neatly into a Christmas stocking without making a hole in your pocket. They both contain classics of black-and-white architectural photography. Working mainly in the 1950s and 60s, Eric de Maré revelled in the functional tradition of vernacular architecture, and his snaps celebrate the perennial ingredients of fine architecture – form, proportion, texture, and rhythm. Dating from a couple of decades earlier, John Maltby's work exhibits international style and art deco at first hand in all its exciting freshness.