The book Grund Regeln über die fünf Säulen, des Jacobi Barozzi, is about classical orders of architecture. Therefore, I used the words columns and order to type into Alice search engine with architecture as the topic of conversation. I also tried a few different keywords but the outcome was more or less the same. 1. Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory, 2. Leatherbarrow Eisenschmidt, Twentieth Century Architecture and 3. Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture.
The first book book I chose to compare with Grund Regeln über die fünf Säulen was Modern Architectural Theory by Mallgrave. The content in this book is quite similar to the one from Barozzi. It also talks about the different styles of columns, the greek and roman orders. It does not depict or describe the styles as precicly as barozzi does, because it mostly usese text and not drawings. Instead, it talks about the orders in a more historical and international context. For example comparing Greek and Chinese architecture. This book is more about the column as a design element, where as Barozzis Book is about objectively looking at the architectural design element.
The second book I chose to compare with Grund Regeln über die fünf Säulen was Elements of Architecture by Rem Koolhaas. It is made for a similar reason: To understand essential architectural elements and laws of buildings. It is a summary of the basics of architecture, such as columns. However, this book is more extensive than the one from Barozzi. It’s not only about classical orders but about basic building parts like walls, doors, balconies, chimneys, etc. Both books are about describing the look of architectural elements.
To work with Alice was useful for this task, but I had to work with google as well to complete it. I think the combination of both tools can be very powerful.