It was quite difficult to find a book similar to “A Book of Architecture” by James Gibbs, because the book contains mostly pictures and illustrations of buildings. There is no such topics or themes that I can search on Alice and Xenotheca. So I just started with the search of “James Gibbs” on Alice. By having “architecture” as topic and “Xenotheca” as brain, I found a book named “A History of Architectural Theory” by Kruft: Kruft explains in his book in chronical order the different topics of Architectural Theory “from Vitruvius to the Present”. The book was first published in 1994, so it is relative recent. In a passage at the chapter “England from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century” James Gibbs is mentioned. According to Kruft, James Gibbs adopted certain Palladian features in his work, but is not to be classified as a Palladian. Kruft continues his analysis of James Gibbs: “he occupies an intermediate position between the Wren tradition, Italian Baroque Classicism, and Palladianism.”
As a second book who we can some similarities with my book, I found through Alice “Gotham A History of New York City to 1898” by Burrows. The book is based on the research of 20 years about the history of New York City and was published in 1998. Unlike the first book I found, it is not focused on Architectural Theory but more on the buildings of New York. When he talked about the different churches, the author Burrows mentioned the St. Paul’s chapel. The builder, Thomas McBean studied under James Gibbs. His chapel has therefore resemblances with the St. Martin’s in the Fields Church in London, which Gibbs designed. So, this points out that James Gibbs’ unique style combining like Kruff said Palladianism, Wren tradition and Italian Baroque had some influence in North American architecture. “A Book of Architecture” that the Scottish man published served probably as reference for his former student Thomas McBean.