Bricks & Mortals: Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made - Tapa dura

Revealing the extraordinary backstories behind architectures both every day and spectacular, Bricks & Mortals is consistently informed, polemical and surprising (Owen Hatherley)

Lively and quirky . It's hard to imagine a history of buildings design being such good fun. You don't have to be a lover of architecture to enjoy this stimulating book with its mix of social and cultural history . Fascinating (The Times)

A stunning assembly of ideas, thoughts and perspectives . It's rare to encounter an accessible book of this intellectual density, and Wilkinson must be given credit for marshalling his thoughts into a relatively brief volume . A brilliantly accomplished series of often provocative and controversial ideas, and its well-paced narrative is beautifully readable (Observer)

Poses the contrarian modernist belief that it's not people and use that make buildings, but buildings that direct the ideas that make societies. He kicks off with the Tower of Babel, races through mud mosques in Timbuktu and the Ford factory in Detroit, before stopping on Pine Street and Finsbury Health Centre (AA Gill, Sunday Times)

Impressive ... Bricks and Mortals is shot through with the conviction that architecture is more than just an art form: if done right, it can improve lives (Sunday Times)

'Wilkinson ... gleefully sets out to undermine previous generations of historians and critics ... The combination of perceptive architectural observation and licentious historical analysis ... is proof that Wilkinson has looked at buildings honestly and can write about them well ... He uses sex to imply that life is, as Niemeyer said, more important than his subject (New Statesman)

The sheer weight of information imparted is delightful ... Mr Wilkinson's method is to select a building and then see where it takes him. It's an approach that depends on the possession of a vast knowledge and on the ability to make audacious connections (Country Life)

A lively combination of scholarship, cultural history and sharp-tongued social commentary ... A scholarly but swiftly flowing text that glistens with attitude (Kirkus)

A stunning antidote to conventional histories ... Wilkinson's writing is informed by an astonishing breadth of knowledge ... Superb storytelling .... A chance to travel the world with a guide of uncommon wisdom and talent to discover how buildings make us who we are (Buffalo News 2014-06-19)