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Architectural Topographies: A Graphic Lexicon of How Buildings Touch the Ground
by Tomà BerlandaArchitectural Topographies is a critical dictionary for architects and landscape architects in which the graphic lexicon can be read from a beginning, the ground, to a conclusion, the specific case studies. Meant as a tool to help you recognise, analyse, choose, and invent solutions, the book's key words refer to the physical and material relationship between construction and ground; to where and how the link is built; to the criteria, methods, and tools used to know and transform the ground; and to the possible approaches to the place and their implications on the way the earth is touched. Fifty case studies by forty-six of the greatest architects of the previous hundred years are represented throughout in sectional drawings which place the buildings along the same ground plane to illustrate how the key words might be combined and to show each architect's position on their built work in relation to all the others. Includes projects by Alvar Aalto; Tadao Ando; Gunnar Asplund; Atelier Bow-Wow; João Batista Vilanova Artigas; Patrick Berger; Mario Botta; Marcel Breuer; Erik Bryggman; Gonçalo Byrne; David Chipperfield; Le Corbusier; Sverre Fehn; Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat, and Ivo Trumpy; Dick Van Gameren; Herzog and De Meuron; Steven Holl; Arne Jacobsen; Kengo Kuma; Anne Lacaton and Jean Philippe Vassal; Adalberto Libera; Frank Lloyd Wright; Paulo Mendes da Rocha; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos; Glenn Murcutt; Juan Navarro Baldeweg; Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey; Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin; John Pawson; Giuseppe Perugini, Mario Fiorentino, and Nello Aprile; Renzo Piano; Georges-Henry Pingusson; Rudolph Schindler; Roland Simounet; Alvaro Siza; Luigi Snozzi; Alejandro de la Sota; Eduardo Souto de Moura; Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; Fernando Tavora; Jørn Utzon; Livio Vacchini; Francesco Venezia, Roberto Collovà, and Marcella Aprile; Amancho Williams; and Peter Zumthor.
Architectural Topographies: A Graphic Lexicon of How Buildings Touch the Ground
by Tomà BerlandaArchitectural Topographies is a critical dictionary for architects and landscape architects in which the graphic lexicon can be read from a beginning, the ground, to a conclusion, the specific case studies. Meant as a tool to help you recognise, analyse, choose, and invent solutions, the book's key words refer to the physical and material relationship between construction and ground; to where and how the link is built; to the criteria, methods, and tools used to know and transform the ground; and to the possible approaches to the place and their implications on the way the earth is touched. Fifty case studies by forty-six of the greatest architects of the previous hundred years are represented throughout in sectional drawings which place the buildings along the same ground plane to illustrate how the key words might be combined and to show each architect's position on their built work in relation to all the others. Includes projects by Alvar Aalto; Tadao Ando; Gunnar Asplund; Atelier Bow-Wow; João Batista Vilanova Artigas; Patrick Berger; Mario Botta; Marcel Breuer; Erik Bryggman; Gonçalo Byrne; David Chipperfield; Le Corbusier; Sverre Fehn; Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat, and Ivo Trumpy; Dick Van Gameren; Herzog and De Meuron; Steven Holl; Arne Jacobsen; Kengo Kuma; Anne Lacaton and Jean Philippe Vassal; Adalberto Libera; Frank Lloyd Wright; Paulo Mendes da Rocha; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos; Glenn Murcutt; Juan Navarro Baldeweg; Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey; Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin; John Pawson; Giuseppe Perugini, Mario Fiorentino, and Nello Aprile; Renzo Piano; Georges-Henry Pingusson; Rudolph Schindler; Roland Simounet; Alvaro Siza; Luigi Snozzi; Alejandro de la Sota; Eduardo Souto de Moura; Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; Fernando Tavora; Jørn Utzon; Livio Vacchini; Francesco Venezia, Roberto Collovà, and Marcella Aprile; Amancho Williams; and Peter Zumthor.
Architecture and Agriculture: A Rural Design Guide
by Dewey ThorbeckArchitecture and Agriculture: A Rural Design Guide presents architectural guidelines for buildings designed and constructed in rural landscapes by emphasizing their connections with function, culture, climate, and place. Following on from the author’s first book Rural Design, the book discusses in detail the buildings that humans construct in support of agriculture. By examining case studies from around the world including Australia, China, Japan, Norway, Poland, Japan, Portugal, North America, Africa and the Southeast Asia it informs readers about the potentials, opportunities, and values of rural architecture, and how they have been developed to create sustainable landscapes and sustainable buildings for rapidly changing rural futures.
Architecture and Agriculture: A Rural Design Guide
by Dewey ThorbeckArchitecture and Agriculture: A Rural Design Guide presents architectural guidelines for buildings designed and constructed in rural landscapes by emphasizing their connections with function, culture, climate, and place. Following on from the author’s first book Rural Design, the book discusses in detail the buildings that humans construct in support of agriculture. By examining case studies from around the world including Australia, China, Japan, Norway, Poland, Japan, Portugal, North America, Africa and the Southeast Asia it informs readers about the potentials, opportunities, and values of rural architecture, and how they have been developed to create sustainable landscapes and sustainable buildings for rapidly changing rural futures.
Architecture and Leadership: The Nature and Role of Space and Place in Organizational Culture (Leadership Horizons)
by Mark A. Roberson Alicia D. CrumptonFrom cathedrals to cubicles, people go to great lengths and expense to design their living and working environments. They want their spaces to be places where they enjoy being, reflecting who they are and what they care about. The resultant environments in turn become loud, albeit unvocal, leaders for people occupying those corresponding spaces. The design and use of work and living spaces typifies and thematizes expectations for the group. Essentially, the architecture of rooms, buildings and cities creates cultures by conveying explicit and implicit messages. This is evident when people approach and walk into St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, or the Rothko Chapel in Houston, to name some examples. While leaders oftentimes lack the resources to have their spaces mirror the greatest architectural achievements of the world, they are in a position to use the art and science of architecture, at whatever scale is available, to their advantage. The creative and intentional use of space and place advances and promotes cherished values and enhances organizational effectiveness. This book explores the essence of good architecture and establishes relevant connections for leaders and managers to strategically design and use the organizational workplace and space to support their mission and purpose, and create aesthetically meaningful work environments. It equips leaders to be culturally astute on what defines good architecture and to incorporate principles of beauty in their leadership practices accordingly and will be of interest to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of leadership, organizational studies, and architecture theory and practice.
Architecture and Leadership: The Nature and Role of Space and Place in Organizational Culture (Leadership Horizons)
by Mark A. Roberson Alicia D. CrumptonFrom cathedrals to cubicles, people go to great lengths and expense to design their living and working environments. They want their spaces to be places where they enjoy being, reflecting who they are and what they care about. The resultant environments in turn become loud, albeit unvocal, leaders for people occupying those corresponding spaces. The design and use of work and living spaces typifies and thematizes expectations for the group. Essentially, the architecture of rooms, buildings and cities creates cultures by conveying explicit and implicit messages. This is evident when people approach and walk into St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, or the Rothko Chapel in Houston, to name some examples. While leaders oftentimes lack the resources to have their spaces mirror the greatest architectural achievements of the world, they are in a position to use the art and science of architecture, at whatever scale is available, to their advantage. The creative and intentional use of space and place advances and promotes cherished values and enhances organizational effectiveness. This book explores the essence of good architecture and establishes relevant connections for leaders and managers to strategically design and use the organizational workplace and space to support their mission and purpose, and create aesthetically meaningful work environments. It equips leaders to be culturally astute on what defines good architecture and to incorporate principles of beauty in their leadership practices accordingly and will be of interest to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of leadership, organizational studies, and architecture theory and practice.
Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic: A New Look at Design and Resilient Urbanism
by Jana VanderGootDespite population trends toward urbanization, the forest continues to have a strong appeal to the human imagination, and the human preference for forest over many other types of terrain is well documented. This book re-imagines architecture and urbanism by allowing the forest to be a prominent consideration in the language of design, thus recognizing the forest as essential rather than just incidental to human well-being. In Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic, forest is a large-scale urban construct that is far more extensive and nuanced than trees and shrubbery. The forest aesthetic opens designers to the forest as a model for an urban architecture of permeable floors, protective canopies, connected food chains, beneficial decomposition, and resilient ecologies. Much can be learned about these features of the forest from the natural sciences; however, when they are given due consideration technically and metaphorically in the design of urban habitat, the places in which humans live become living forests. What is present here in Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic is both a review of many ingenious ways in which the forest aesthetic has already been expressed in design and urbanism, and an encouragement to further use the forest aesthetic in design language and design outcomes. Case study projects featured include the Chilotan building craft of Southern Chile, the yaki sugi of Japan, the Biltmore Forest in the Southeastern United States, the Australian capital city Canberra, Bosco Verticale in Milan, Italy, the Beijing Olympic Forest Park in China, and more.
Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic: A New Look at Design and Resilient Urbanism
by Jana VanderGootDespite population trends toward urbanization, the forest continues to have a strong appeal to the human imagination, and the human preference for forest over many other types of terrain is well documented. This book re-imagines architecture and urbanism by allowing the forest to be a prominent consideration in the language of design, thus recognizing the forest as essential rather than just incidental to human well-being. In Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic, forest is a large-scale urban construct that is far more extensive and nuanced than trees and shrubbery. The forest aesthetic opens designers to the forest as a model for an urban architecture of permeable floors, protective canopies, connected food chains, beneficial decomposition, and resilient ecologies. Much can be learned about these features of the forest from the natural sciences; however, when they are given due consideration technically and metaphorically in the design of urban habitat, the places in which humans live become living forests. What is present here in Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic is both a review of many ingenious ways in which the forest aesthetic has already been expressed in design and urbanism, and an encouragement to further use the forest aesthetic in design language and design outcomes. Case study projects featured include the Chilotan building craft of Southern Chile, the yaki sugi of Japan, the Biltmore Forest in the Southeastern United States, the Australian capital city Canberra, Bosco Verticale in Milan, Italy, the Beijing Olympic Forest Park in China, and more.
Architecture and the Nazi Cultural Landscape: Blood, Soil, Building
by David H. HaneyThis book traces cultural landscape as the manifestation of the state and national community under the Nazi regime, and how the Nazi era produced what could be referred to as a totalitarian cultural landscape.For the Nazi regime, cultural landscape was indeed a heritage resource, but it was much more than that: cultural landscape was the nation. The project of Nazi racial purification and cultural renewal demanded the physical reshaping and reconceptualization of the existing environment to create the so-called "new Nazi cultural landscape." One of the most important components of this was a set of monumental sites thought to embody blood and soil beliefs through the harmonious synthesis of architecture and landscape. This special group of "landscape-bound" architectural complexes was interconnected by the new autobahn highway system, itself thought to be a monumental work embedded in nature. Behind this intentionally aestheticized view of the nation as cultural landscape lay the all-pervasive system of deception and violence that characterized the emerging totalitarian state.This is the first historical study to consider the importance of these monumental sites together with the autobahn as evidence of key Nazi cultural and geographic strategies during the pre-war years. This book concludes by examining racial and nationalistic themes underlying cultural landscape concepts today, against this historic background.
Architecture and the Nazi Cultural Landscape: Blood, Soil, Building
by David H. HaneyThis book traces cultural landscape as the manifestation of the state and national community under the Nazi regime, and how the Nazi era produced what could be referred to as a totalitarian cultural landscape.For the Nazi regime, cultural landscape was indeed a heritage resource, but it was much more than that: cultural landscape was the nation. The project of Nazi racial purification and cultural renewal demanded the physical reshaping and reconceptualization of the existing environment to create the so-called "new Nazi cultural landscape." One of the most important components of this was a set of monumental sites thought to embody blood and soil beliefs through the harmonious synthesis of architecture and landscape. This special group of "landscape-bound" architectural complexes was interconnected by the new autobahn highway system, itself thought to be a monumental work embedded in nature. Behind this intentionally aestheticized view of the nation as cultural landscape lay the all-pervasive system of deception and violence that characterized the emerging totalitarian state.This is the first historical study to consider the importance of these monumental sites together with the autobahn as evidence of key Nazi cultural and geographic strategies during the pre-war years. This book concludes by examining racial and nationalistic themes underlying cultural landscape concepts today, against this historic background.
Architecture and the Social Sciences: Inter- and Multidisciplinary Approaches between Society and Space
by Maria Manuela Mendes Teresa Sá João CabralThis book contributes to current debates on the relationship between architecture and the social sciences, highlighting current interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teaching as well as research and practice in architecture and urbanism. It also raises awareness about the complementarities and tensions between the spaces of the project, including the construction spaces and living space. It gives voice to recent projects and socio-territorial interventions, focusing on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches between society and space. Divided into two parts, the first part discusses the possible dialogue between social sciences and architecture, while the second part explores architecture, politics and social change in urban territories from a European perspective.
Architecture for Residential Care and Ageing Communities: Spaces for Dwelling and Healthcare
by Sten Gromark Bjö AnderssonArchitecture for Residential Care and Ageing Communities confronts urgent architectural design challenges within residential innovation, ageing communities and healthcare environments. The increasing and diversified demands on the housing market today call for alterability and adaptability in long term solutions for new integrated ways of residing. Meanwhile, an accentuated ageing society requires new residential ways of living, combining dignity, independence and appropriate care. Concurrently, profound changes in technical conditions for home healthcare require rethinking healing environments. This edited collection explores the dynamics between these integrated architectural and caring developments and intends to envision reconfigured environmental design patterns that can significantly enhance new forms of welfare and ultimately, an improved quality of life. This book identifies, presents, and articulates new qualities in designs, in caring processes, and healing atmospheres, thereby providing operational knowledge developed in close collaboration with academics, actors and stakeholders in architecture, design, and healthcare. This is an ideal read for those interested in health promotive situations of dwelling, ageing and caring.
Architecture for Residential Care and Ageing Communities: Spaces for Dwelling and Healthcare
by Sten Gromark; Björn AnderssonArchitecture for Residential Care and Ageing Communities confronts urgent architectural design challenges within residential innovation, ageing communities and healthcare environments. The increasing and diversified demands on the housing market today call for alterability and adaptability in long term solutions for new integrated ways of residing. Meanwhile, an accentuated ageing society requires new residential ways of living, combining dignity, independence and appropriate care. Concurrently, profound changes in technical conditions for home healthcare require rethinking healing environments. This edited collection explores the dynamics between these integrated architectural and caring developments and intends to envision reconfigured environmental design patterns that can significantly enhance new forms of welfare and ultimately, an improved quality of life. This book identifies, presents, and articulates new qualities in designs, in caring processes, and healing atmospheres, thereby providing operational knowledge developed in close collaboration with academics, actors and stakeholders in architecture, design, and healthcare. This is an ideal read for those interested in health promotive situations of dwelling, ageing and caring.
Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt
by Hassan FathyArchitecture for the Poor describes Hassan Fathy's plan for building the village of New Gourna, near Luxor, Egypt, without the use of more modern and expensive materials such as steel and concrete. Using mud bricks, the native technique that Fathy learned in Nubia, and such traditional Egyptian architectural designs as enclosed courtyards and vaulted roofing, Fathy worked with the villagers to tailor his designs to their needs. He taught them how to work with the bricks, supervised the erection of the buildings, and encouraged the revival of such ancient crafts as claustra (lattice designs in the mudwork) to adorn the buildings.
Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt
by Hassan FathyArchitecture for the Poor describes Hassan Fathy's plan for building the village of New Gourna, near Luxor, Egypt, without the use of more modern and expensive materials such as steel and concrete. Using mud bricks, the native technique that Fathy learned in Nubia, and such traditional Egyptian architectural designs as enclosed courtyards and vaulted roofing, Fathy worked with the villagers to tailor his designs to their needs. He taught them how to work with the bricks, supervised the erection of the buildings, and encouraged the revival of such ancient crafts as claustra (lattice designs in the mudwork) to adorn the buildings.
Architecture in Motion: The history and development of portable building
by Robert KronenburgThe idea that architecture can be portable is one that grabs the imagination of both designers and the people who use it, perhaps because it so often forecasts a dynamic and creative solution to the complex problems of our contemporary mobile society, while at the same time dealing with issues of practicality, economy and sustainability. Architecture in Motion examines the development of portable, transportable, demountable and temporary architecture from prehistory to the present day. From familiar vernacular models such as the tent, mobile home and houseboat, to ambitious developments in military and construction engineering, all aspects of portable building are considered. Building on his earlier works Portable Architecture and Houses in Motion, Robert Kronenburg compares traditional forms of building, current commercial products and the work of innovative designers, and examines key contemporary portable buildings to reveal surprising, exciting and imaginative examples. He explores the philosophical and technological issues raised by these experimental and futuristic prototypes. By understanding the nature of transitory architecture, a new ecologically aware design strategy can be developed to prioritise buildings that 'tread lightly on the earth' and still convey the sense of identity and community necessary for an established responsible society. This book provides a unique insight into this pivotal field of design.
Architecture in Motion: The history and development of portable building
by Robert KronenburgThe idea that architecture can be portable is one that grabs the imagination of both designers and the people who use it, perhaps because it so often forecasts a dynamic and creative solution to the complex problems of our contemporary mobile society, while at the same time dealing with issues of practicality, economy and sustainability. Architecture in Motion examines the development of portable, transportable, demountable and temporary architecture from prehistory to the present day. From familiar vernacular models such as the tent, mobile home and houseboat, to ambitious developments in military and construction engineering, all aspects of portable building are considered. Building on his earlier works Portable Architecture and Houses in Motion, Robert Kronenburg compares traditional forms of building, current commercial products and the work of innovative designers, and examines key contemporary portable buildings to reveal surprising, exciting and imaginative examples. He explores the philosophical and technological issues raised by these experimental and futuristic prototypes. By understanding the nature of transitory architecture, a new ecologically aware design strategy can be developed to prioritise buildings that 'tread lightly on the earth' and still convey the sense of identity and community necessary for an established responsible society. This book provides a unique insight into this pivotal field of design.
The Architecture of Happiness: The Architecture Of Happiness (Vintage International Series)
by Alain De BottonThe Architecture of Happiness is Alain de Botton's exploration of the hidden links between buildings and our well beingBestselling author Alain de Botton has written about love, travel, status and how philosophy can console us. Now he turns his attention to one of our most intense but often hidden love affairs: with our houses and their furnishings. He asks: What makes a house truly beautiful?Why are many new houses so ugly?Why do we argue so bitterly about sofas and pictures - and can differences of taste ever be satisfactorily resolved?Will minimalism make us happier than ornaments? To answer these questions and many more, de Botton looks at buildings across the world, from medieval wooden huts to modern skyscrapers; he examines sofas and cathedrals, tea sets and office complexes, and teases out a host of often surprising philosophical insights. The Architecture of Happiness will take you on a beguiling tour through the history and psychology of architecture and interior design, and will forever alter your relationship with buildings. It will change the way you look at your current home - and help you make the right decisions about your next one.'Engaging and intelligent . . . full of splendid ideas, happily and beautifully expressed'IndependentAlain de Botton was born in 1969 and is the author of non-fiction essays on themes ranging from love and travel to architecture and philosophy. His bestselling books include Essays in Love; The Romantic Movement; Kiss and Tell; Status Anxiety; How Proust Can Change Your Life; The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work; The Art of Travel; The Architecture of Happiness and Religion for Atheists. He lives in London and founded The School of Life (www.theschooloflife.com) and Living Architecture (www.living-architecture.co.uk). For more information, consult www.alaindebotton.com.
An Architecture of Parts: Architects, Building Workers and Industrialisation in Britain 1940 - 1970 (Routledge Research in Architecture)
by Christine WallThis book is unique in describing the history of post war reconstruction from an entirely new perspective by focusing on the changing relationship between architects and building workers. It considers individual, as well as collective, interactions with technical change and in doing so brings together, for the first time, an extraordinary range of sources including technical archives, oral history and visual material to describe the construction process both during and in the decades after the war. It focuses on the social aspects of production and the changes in working life for architects and building workers with increasing industrialization, in particular analysing the effect on the building process of introducing dimensionally co-ordinated components. Both architects and building workers have been accused of creating a built environment now popularly discredited: architects responsible for poor design and building workers for poor workmanship. However, many of the structures and ideas underpinning this period of rapid change were revolutionary in their commitment to a complete transformation of the building process. An Architecture of Parts adds to the growing literature on changes in the building world during and immediately after the Second World War. It is significant, both empirically and historically, in its examination of the ideas, technology and relationships that fired industrialization of the building process in mid-century Britain.
An Architecture of Parts: Architects, Building Workers and Industrialisation in Britain 1940 - 1970 (Routledge Research in Architecture)
by Christine WallThis book is unique in describing the history of post war reconstruction from an entirely new perspective by focusing on the changing relationship between architects and building workers. It considers individual, as well as collective, interactions with technical change and in doing so brings together, for the first time, an extraordinary range of sources including technical archives, oral history and visual material to describe the construction process both during and in the decades after the war. It focuses on the social aspects of production and the changes in working life for architects and building workers with increasing industrialization, in particular analysing the effect on the building process of introducing dimensionally co-ordinated components. Both architects and building workers have been accused of creating a built environment now popularly discredited: architects responsible for poor design and building workers for poor workmanship. However, many of the structures and ideas underpinning this period of rapid change were revolutionary in their commitment to a complete transformation of the building process. An Architecture of Parts adds to the growing literature on changes in the building world during and immediately after the Second World War. It is significant, both empirically and historically, in its examination of the ideas, technology and relationships that fired industrialization of the building process in mid-century Britain.
The Architecture of Phantasmagoria: Specters of the City
by Libero Andreotti Nadir LahijiIn a time of mass-mediated modernity, the city becomes, almost by definition, a constitutively ‘mediated’ city. Today, more than ever before, the omnipresence of media in every sphere of culture is creating a new urban ontology, saturating, fracturing, and exacerbating the manifold experience of city life. The authors describe this condition as one of 'hyper-mediation' – a qualitatively new phase in the city’s historical evolution. The concept of phantasmagoria has pride of place in their study; using it as an all-embracing explanatory framework, they explore its meanings as a critical category to understand the culture, and the architecture, of the contemporary city. Andreotti and Lahiji argue that any account of architecture that does not include understanding the role and function of media and its impact on the city in the present ‘tele-technological-capitalist’ society is fundamentally flawed and incomplete. Their approach moves from Walter Benjamin, through the concepts of phantasmagoria and of media – as theorized also by Theodor Adorno, Siegfried Kracauer, and a new generation of contemporary critics – towards a new socio-critical and aesthetic analysis of the mediated space of the contemporary city.
The Architecture of Phantasmagoria: Specters of the City
by Libero Andreotti Nadir LahijiIn a time of mass-mediated modernity, the city becomes, almost by definition, a constitutively ‘mediated’ city. Today, more than ever before, the omnipresence of media in every sphere of culture is creating a new urban ontology, saturating, fracturing, and exacerbating the manifold experience of city life. The authors describe this condition as one of 'hyper-mediation' – a qualitatively new phase in the city’s historical evolution. The concept of phantasmagoria has pride of place in their study; using it as an all-embracing explanatory framework, they explore its meanings as a critical category to understand the culture, and the architecture, of the contemporary city. Andreotti and Lahiji argue that any account of architecture that does not include understanding the role and function of media and its impact on the city in the present ‘tele-technological-capitalist’ society is fundamentally flawed and incomplete. Their approach moves from Walter Benjamin, through the concepts of phantasmagoria and of media – as theorized also by Theodor Adorno, Siegfried Kracauer, and a new generation of contemporary critics – towards a new socio-critical and aesthetic analysis of the mediated space of the contemporary city.
The Architecture of Ruins: Designs on the Past, Present and Future
by Jonathan HillThe Architecture of Ruins: Designs on the Past, Present and Future identifies an alternative and significant history of architecture from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first century, in which a building is designed, occupied and imagined as a ruin. This design practice conceives a monument and a ruin as creative, interdependent and simultaneous themes within a single building dialectic, addressing temporal and environmental questions in poetic, psychological and practical terms, and stimulating questions of personal and national identity, nature and culture, weather and climate, permanence and impermanence and life and death. Conceiving a building as a dialogue between a monument and a ruin intensifies the already blurred relations between the unfinished and the ruined and envisages the past, the present and the future in a single architecture. Structured around a collection of biographies, this book conceives a monument and a ruin as metaphors for a life and means to negotiate between a self and a society. Emphasising the interconnections between designers and the particular ways in which later architects learned from earlier ones, the chapters investigate an evolving, interdisciplinary design practice to show the relevance of historical understanding to design. Like a history, a design is a reinterpretation of the past that is meaningful to the present. Equally, a design is equivalent to a fiction, convincing users to suspend disbelief. We expect a history or a novel to be written in words, but they can also be delineated in drawing, cast in concrete or seeded in soil. The architect is a ‘physical novelist’ as well as a ‘physical historian’. Like building sites, ruins are full of potential. In revealing not only what is lost, but also what is incomplete, a ruin suggests the future as well as the past. As a stimulus to the imagination, a ruin’s incomplete and broken forms expand architecture’s allegorical and metaphorical capacity, indicating that a building can remain unfinished, literally and in the imagination, focusing attention on the creativity of users as well as architects. Emphasising the symbiotic relations between nature and culture, a building designed, occupied and imagined as a ruin acknowledges the coproduction of multiple authors, whether human, non-human or atmospheric, and is an appropriate model for architecture in an era of increasing climate change.
The Architecture of Ruins: Designs on the Past, Present and Future
by Jonathan HillThe Architecture of Ruins: Designs on the Past, Present and Future identifies an alternative and significant history of architecture from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first century, in which a building is designed, occupied and imagined as a ruin. This design practice conceives a monument and a ruin as creative, interdependent and simultaneous themes within a single building dialectic, addressing temporal and environmental questions in poetic, psychological and practical terms, and stimulating questions of personal and national identity, nature and culture, weather and climate, permanence and impermanence and life and death. Conceiving a building as a dialogue between a monument and a ruin intensifies the already blurred relations between the unfinished and the ruined and envisages the past, the present and the future in a single architecture. Structured around a collection of biographies, this book conceives a monument and a ruin as metaphors for a life and means to negotiate between a self and a society. Emphasising the interconnections between designers and the particular ways in which later architects learned from earlier ones, the chapters investigate an evolving, interdisciplinary design practice to show the relevance of historical understanding to design. Like a history, a design is a reinterpretation of the past that is meaningful to the present. Equally, a design is equivalent to a fiction, convincing users to suspend disbelief. We expect a history or a novel to be written in words, but they can also be delineated in drawing, cast in concrete or seeded in soil. The architect is a ‘physical novelist’ as well as a ‘physical historian’. Like building sites, ruins are full of potential. In revealing not only what is lost, but also what is incomplete, a ruin suggests the future as well as the past. As a stimulus to the imagination, a ruin’s incomplete and broken forms expand architecture’s allegorical and metaphorical capacity, indicating that a building can remain unfinished, literally and in the imagination, focusing attention on the creativity of users as well as architects. Emphasising the symbiotic relations between nature and culture, a building designed, occupied and imagined as a ruin acknowledges the coproduction of multiple authors, whether human, non-human or atmospheric, and is an appropriate model for architecture in an era of increasing climate change.
The architecture of social reform: Housing, tradition, and German Modernism (Studies in Design and Material Culture)
by Isabel RoussetThe architecture of social reform explores the fascinating intellectual origins of modern architecture’s obsession with domesticity. Copiously illustrated, Rousset’s revealing analysis demonstrates how questions over aesthetics, style, urbanization, and technology that gripped the modernist imagination were deeply ingrained in a larger concern to reform society through housing. The increasing demand for new housing in Germany’s rapidly growing cities fostered critical exchanges between a heterogeneous group of actors, including architects, urban theorists, planners, and social scientists, who called for society to be freed from class antagonism through the provision of good, modest, traditionally-minded domestic design. Offering a compelling account of architecture’s ability to act socially, the book provocatively argues that architectural theory underwent its most critical epistemological transformation in relation to the dynamics of modern class politics long before the arrival of the avant-garde.