great
success.

The study of academic design is of the utmost importance to the young
architect, and unfortunately the opportunities for such study in the
usual routine of office practice are not very extensive. The working out
each season of two or three such designs as those required by the
Beaux-Arts Society will be of material benefit to the older men who are
already familiar with the academic methods of design, and of much more
benefit to the younger men whose opportunities have been more limited.
The criticism and suggestion of the older men in the profession is
easily obtained while the work is in progress. Nothing could be better
calculated to foster a certain _esprit de corps_, which is certainly a
desirable quality in any club.

The personnel of the Cleveland Club is as follows: Benj. S. Hubbell,
president; Harry S. Nelson, vice-president; Herbert B. Briggs,
secretary; Perley H. Griffin, librarian; E. E. Noble, treasurer; W. D.
Benes and Wilbur M. Hall, members of the executive board. The officers
and Robert Allen, Frederick Baird, J. W. Russell, G. B. Bohm, Williard
Hirsh, Ray Rice, Albert E. Skeel, and C. S. Schneider constitute the
charter membership.

Books.

_Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople_: A Study of Byzantine
Building. By W. R. Lethaby and Harold Swainson. Macmillan & Co. 1894.
307 pages with illustrations. $6.50.

It seems especially fitting that a notice of Mr. Lethaby's work on the
church of Sta. Sophia, or as he calls it Sancta Sophia, should appear in
the same issue with the beautiful Byzantine capitals from Ravenna, which
we publish this month. In the description of this work from Ravenna, on
another page, the connection is pointed out between Constantinople, the
capital of the Roman Empire in the East, and Ravenna, then the Western
capital.

The work before us is an important and exhaustive study, both
architecturally and historically, of this beautiful building, which Mr.
Van Brunt has called "the central building of the world." Nothing has
ever been done in enriching interiors which approaches in splendor the
best work of the Byzantine builders, and Sta. Sophia, by general
consent, is the most beautiful of the Byzantine churches; but its
exterior is by no means without faults, and its claim for distinction
would fall if supported only by this.

The book takes up in order the history of Sta. Sophia, with citations of
various authorities for statements concerning its e