Courtyards: Intimate Outdoor Spaces presents a pictorial survey of an increasingly popular part of indoor/outdoor design-the courtyard. Today's architects and designers are creating beautifully private indoor/outdoor spaces amidst escalating urban development. Doug Keister's striking, color photography illustrates a diverse selection. From ancient Rome and medieval Europe to modern-day New Orleans and San Diego, Courtyards explores the courtyard's history, development, landscaping, and modernization. Whether quaint and quiet or spacious and stimulating, Courtyards offers a taste of how these unique living spaces can be a canvas on which to paint a lasting impression, and on how they can set the mood and tone of any structure. Courtyards will inspire you to create a space for entertaining, family meals, relaxation, and solitary reflection. It includes chapters such as The Greening of the Courtyard; Community Courtyards: Apartment, Bungalow and Cottage Courts and Public Buildings; Courtyards in Historic Residential Architecture; Water Elements; and Lighting. Douglas Keister has photographed more than twenty-five critically acclaimed books. He also writes and illustrates magazine articles and contributes photographs and essays to dozens of magazines, newspapers, books, calendars, posters, and greeting cards worldwide. Some of his books include Classic Cottages, Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, Ready to Roll, Red Tile Style, Silver Palaces, and Victorian Glory. Keister lives in Chico, California, with his wife Sandy Schweitzer. Courtyards: Intimate Outdoor Spaces by Douglas Keister When the outside meets the inside, a courtyard is born, and whether defined by tropical plants and a low stone wall, or a burbling fountain and modern sculpture, each one has the ability to delight our senses. Long associated with comfort and security, courtyards have been an important architectural element for thousands of years, and today these indoor/outdoor spaces are more popular than ever. Courtyards takes you on a journey across the globe, looking at all kinds of courtyards and exploring their fascinating history. Courtyards can be adapted to almost any space, large or small, and the variations in greenery, stonework, water elements and lighting are endless. Classic Courtyards is perfect for homeowners looking to remodel, add something extra to the landscape, or simply modify an existing space, and this book, with its beautiful color photos and helpful advice, is sure to inspire anyone looking to create a unique place of solitude and serenity. Douglas Keister has photographed more than twenty-five critically acclaimed books. He also writes and illustrates magazine articles and contributes photographs and essays to dozens of magazines, newspapers, books, calendars, posters and greeting cards worldwide. Some of his books include Classic Cottages, Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, Ready to Roll, A Travel Trailer, Red Tile Style, The Bungalow, and Victorian Glory. Keister lives in Chico, California, with his wife Sandy Schweitzer. Few architectural elements are more closely associated with comfort, protection, and security than the courtyard-an outdoor living space that is partially or fully enclosed by walls or buildings. The courtyard became a major architectural design element almost as soon humans began constructing permanent buildings. Scholars tell us that courtyards have been around since at least 3000 b.c. The earliest civilizations in China, the Middle East, and North Africa all had courtyards. Protection was the primary function of these early courtyards, with high walls providing a shield from the weather and a barrier to marauding animals and unwanted human visitors. In later western culture, the requirements of a courtyard were looser, and any area that was partially or entirely enclosed by walls or buildings could be called a courtyard. Today, defining a courtyard seems to depend on the elements it contains and the feelings it evokes rather than the architecture that surrounds it. The basic elements of a courtyard have always been water, walls, and sky combined to convey qualities of intimacy, security, and quiet. Chico, California-based photographer Douglas Keister has photographed twenty-two award-winning, critically acclaimed books. His seventeen books on architecture include four books on Victorian homes (Daughter's of Painted Ladies, Painted Ladies Revisited, America's Painted Ladies and Victorian Glory); three books on bungalow homes (The Bungalow, Inside the Bungalow and Outside the Bungalow), a book on 1920s whimsical homes (Storybook Style) a book about cemetery art and architecture (Going Out in Style), a book on Spanish architecture, (Red Tile Style), six books on bungalow details and Classic Cottages, that will be published by Gibbs Smith Publisher in the Spring of 2004. Keister photographed and wrote an award winning children