Charles W. Moore

When I first picked up Water and Architecture by Charles W. Moore (published by Harry H. Abrams in 1994), I thought I'd found the perfect resource for those of us who design and build contained, controlled bodies of water.  As I delved into this book's incredibly well-illustrated 224 pages, however, for a short time I worried that the text was mostly irrelevant to the working lives of watershapers. Ultimately, however, I found the text to be very helpful - even if it wasn't in the manner I had initially thought.   I was disheartened initially because the text seemed so broad in its coverage of water and architecture - and so rooted in history and philosophy - as to be of little practical use.  Specifically, Moore deals with subjects as grand as rivers, oceans, harbors and architectural history in very broad and almost