Bricks & Mortals
Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
We don't just look at buildings: their facades, beautiful or ugly, conceal the spaces where we live. We are born, work, love, and die in architecture. We buy and sell it, rent and squat it, create and destroy it. All of these aspects of buildings-economic, erotic, political, and psychological-are crucial if we are to understand architecture properly. And because architecture molds us just as much as we mold it, understanding architecture helps us to understand our lives and our world.
In this book, ten buildings from across the globe tell stories of architecture from the beginning of civilization to the present day. From the remains of the Tower of Babel to the Summer Palace in Beijing, built and destroyed by Europeans, to the Ford car plant where the production line was born, Tom Wilkinson unpicks these structures to reveal the lives of the people who built and used them. Architecture has always had a powerful and intimate relationship with society and the lives of those who build and live with it. It has often been used to try and improve society. But can architecture change our lives for the better?
The buildings are: the Tower of Babel, Babylon; Nero's Golden House, Rome; Djinguereber Mosque, Timbuktu; Palazzo Rucellai, Florence; the Garden of Perfect Brightness, Beijing; the Festival Theatre, Beyreuth; E.1027, Cap Martin; Highland Park Ford Plant, Detroit; and the Finsbury Health Centre, London.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wilkinson takes readers on a lively tour through the ages by studying 10 world-wide architectural wonders. From ancient Babylon's Tower of Babel, to a mercantile palazzo in Renaissance Italy, to a footbridge in contemporary Rio, Wilkinson focuses on what makes each structure specific to its time and place. Broadly exploring how architecture "shapes people's lives and vice versa," he uses each selection as a springboard to discuss the themes evoked. Designer Eileen Gray's villa on the French Riviera, built in the 1920s for her lover, leads to musings on buildings and sex, while Henry Ford's car factory in early 20th century Detroit connects architecture with mass production, and Nero's Golden House inspires a thought-provoking discussion on the morality of architecture (Can a structure built by a bad ruler be good?). Concluding that today's biggest challenge is the fact that the 21st century urban world "squats in squalor," he urges political change, with architecture that benefits people, rather than "the developers, speculators, and corrupt bureaucrats who profit from it." A witty, erudite narrator not shy about inserting his opinions, Wilkinson draws on his extensive knowledge of art, literature, history urban planning, sociology, and culture to explore the intimate relationship between architecture and society. Illus.
