CHURCHES.

By Judith Dupré. HarperCollins. 168 pp. $40

In 1996, Dupré published Skyscrapers— a fine collection of minibiographies of the world’s most famous very tall buildings, presented chronologically in a distinctively proportioned volume, 18 inches tall and eight inches wide. The left-hand page was given over to a black-and-white photograph of a particular building, while on the facing page was stacked all the accompanying information. It was both an inventive design decision and a clever marketing device.

In 1997 came her equally informative book Bridges. Since these structures also tend to be unidirectional, the format of Skyscraper was repeated, only this time turned on its side. While justifiable, this approach had its drawbacks. Bridges spans three feet when open. This not only makes it awkward to handle; it also imposes potentially threatening structural demands on the book’s comparatively modest spine.

After three years, Dupré is back with another large volume, Churches. As she states in her foreword, this is a highly subjective collection of approximately 60 examples of Christian architecture built around the world at various times over the past 1,800 years. Some, like the great cathedrals of northern Europe or the Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome, are very familiar. Others, such as the modest Ethiopian churches of the 13th century, cut from the top down into volcanic rock, or San Francisco Acatepec in Mexico, with its exuberant ceramic-and-stucco decoration, are wonderful surprises. The stops on Dupré’s tour are all rewarding.

Like its two predecessors, Churches cleverly and appropriately begins with a conversation between the author and a contemporary architect—in this case, Mario Botta, a man widely recognized for creating distinctive and highly personal churches in his native Switzerland. Botta’s words remind us that even the most aweinspiring church represents at its core a solution to a number of very practical problems. Dupré further underscores the relevance of her subject by including several contemporary churches and the stories behind them. In so doing, she helps us appreciate and ultimately share in her commemoration of some of mankind’s most meaningful architectural achievements.

My only complaints stem from the book’s design. As in Skyscrapers and Bridges, each structure is given its own spread, and once again half of that spread is devoted to a single photograph. Some of the smaller images seem lost on the oversized pages (a foot wide by 16 inches high), while others are of insufficient quality to hold up at the necessary level of magnification.

The page opposite each photograph features an extended piece of text, several smaller photos with captions, a horizontal band with a fragment of prayer or Scripture, a second band with the "who, what, when, and where" information, sometimes a quotation, and, last and absolutely least, a floor plan the size of a large postage stamp—generally too small to be read, and lacking any scale that would permit readers to compare one edifice with another. Dupré justifies this fragmented design as reflecting and celebrating (celebrating!) the "kaleidoscopic information deluge of our times." But don’t people enter churches, at least in part, for relief from the information deluge of our times? These pages aren’t awful, but they are a missed opportunity to reflect, through a careful placement of infor-mation, the sense of order maintained in even the most elaborately decorated church interiors by the reassuring hints of structure.

And last, the book’s unusual binding. The front cover has been split down the middle and bound at both sides, so that it opens like a pair of cathedral doors. But there is no followthrough on this idea: We immediately confront the large pages, bound at the left in the customary fashion. "The book’s unusual format calls attention to itself as an object to be held and read," Dupré writes. To be read, yes, but held? Any book that stretches 31 inches when open is going to be a bit of a challenge, and, with the split binding, the pages on the left side are only partly supported, while the other half of the front cover flaps uselessly to the right.

To get at the content, which I reiterate is worth the effort, you’ll first have to overcome the package. In short, you’ll need a table.

—David Macaulay