Neighborhood Architecture–Irvine Park, Saint Paul: a coloring book.

Twin Cities-based illustrator Jeanne Kosfeld and author Richard Kronick have together transformed a simple sketchbook featuring pen and ink drawings into a brief storytelling of the Irvine Park neighborhood’s unique 173-year history. Artists of all ages and abilities may colorize their own imagined versions of these historic edifices, including fanciful Queen Anne-style homes, simple clapboard houses, and elaborate French Second Empire-style mansions, while learning about the architecture and history of the area and its inhabitants at the same time.

Neighborhood Architecture–Irvine Park, Saint Paul: a coloring book is available in softcover with eighteen house sketches, brief histories of the homes’ owners and architecture; and an architectural style guide and glossary at the end of the forty-eight-page book. Cost is $20; $18 for RCHS members.

Order books here.

The Board of Directors of the Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, awarded the David Stanley Gebhard Award, Honorable Mention, to Neighborhood Architecture–Irvine Park, Saint Paul: a coloring book. The judges noted, “This book is an excellent and user-friendly contribution to the public history of Saint Paul and its built environment. It provides a summary of the history of each house arrayed around Irvine Park, as well as a nice history of the park itself. The hand-drawn illustrations of each house are inviting for both walking tours of the neighborhood and for folks who might want to color them, which adds to the book’s appeal to a range of ages. Houses are treated equally in their historical summaries, whether owned by a carpenter, like Alonzo Eaton, or by one of nineteenth-century Minnesota’s most prominent citizens, like Alexander Ramsey.”