The title “architecture pratique” already says a lot about the content and main function of the book. The work primarily dealt with the problems of measuring, calculating and billing construction services and thus differed from the usual contemporary architectural literature. Bullet also tried himself in first structural investigations in terms of earth pressure und roof construction.
The book experienced a lot of new editions until the beginning of the 19th century and thus became one of the most successful architectural books of all times.
The author Pierre Bullet (1639-1716) was a french architect from the classicist baroque period as well as member of “Académie royal d’architecture” which played a big role in influencing architectural theory and education, throughout Europe and the Americas from the late 17th century to the mid-20th.
As the format suggests Bullet dived deep into the matter of construction. The book does not include a list of content, but follows a really natural logical order of topics, starting with a general instruction of geometrical shapes up to complicated structural plans.
Bullet worked with a lot of geometrical illustrations of curse all hand-drawn as it was normal at that time. I think those kind of small sketches really helped to understand the content despite his very detailed descriptions.