The Story of Architecture

I really do love ordering books through Amazon, they always arrive quickly and in great shape.

Fachbuch zum Schmöckern

Scharfsinnig analytisch. Das Wesentliche argumentiert, wie wir denken, planen und bauen müssen in unseren Bauhistorie - Kontexten und 'Lessons to learn"

Brilliant written and a great example of Energy and Architecture!

I purchased this book after reading a glowing review in Architect magazine (“Rethinking Architectural History”), extolling the author as one of a handful of bright, young, up-and-coming architectural historians and theorists. Unfortunately, the book codifies the underlying issues that hinder the architectural profession’s ability to meaningfully address the ostensible problematics that the book itself purports to evaluate. The survey itself is too broad, which means that in Calder’s supersonic tour of human history, each site, civilization, and culture that comes briefly before the reader is at best superficially addressed, and the treatment is so indifferent as to make the reader wonder why they were included at all.Some reviewers have indicated that the book is readable. It is, but this fact alone should not determine the merit of a work, and the notion of “readable” should be qualified – it is readable in the sense that a relatively popular blog like Dezeen is readable. The work is so readable in fact that despite its at first apparently ponderous breadth, it would be feasible to finish it in two – three moderately long sittings. This is because reading it is like eating Twinkies, there is nothing either substantial, critical, or even remotely original about the author’s positions or the information that he presents; the book is unchallenging, and any architect, designer or academic interested in using this work as a resource for meaningful, critical and challenging research will end up with the equivalent of a pop-history induced sugar headache, and potentially an upset stomach.The author evinces an (at best) passing familiarity with contemporary anthropological and archeological research regarding some of the civilizations that fall under his review, and as a result, ends up recapitulating many of the foundational myths that themselves may prove problematic in terms of our understanding of our relationships with both energy and the built environment. The architectural historical segment of the work is at an introductory level, perhaps suited to first-year undergraduates at a mediocre American University. The understanding of energetics and the relationship between energy and civilization is almost non-existent (if you are interested in this relationship, I would recommend Vaclav Smil’s Energy and Civilization).The problem with works like this is that they do more ill than good. Any architect, designer, or researcher attempting to meaningfully address the complex relationship between energetics, culture and architecture using this work as a foundation, will have only the flimsiest of foundations upon which to build. In the end, the architectural response (theoretical and professional) will continue to be as insipid as the rough-shod and superficial theories that inspire it, and which are marched out in short order throughout this book. This is a serious topic and deserves serious work to understand and formulate meaningful responses capable of inducing meaningful change. It is a shame that instead of finding critical and challenging works that might inspire such change, the editors at Architect decided it was more important to promote youth over quality.

I liked the range of architecture that was dealt with and how the author explained how different influences, availability of materials, economics etc played their part in the diverse structures from ancient to modern times. One chapter, for example, deals with Liverpool - for me that was unexpected (yes, I did know about the Liver building) but there was much more. Also explained are some of the practical deficiencies of some famous modernist structures. Very interesting book.

This book reviews the history of architecture in the context of energy use in an easily accessible manner showing how architecture has developed over the millennia, subject to the constraints imposed by the availability of suitable building materials and accessible energy supplies. Architectural design has progressed over the centuries from the use of wooden beams and stone pillars in early buildings to the development of buildings using innovations such as the arch, the dome and concrete in Roman times. Building construction was limited by the workforces available and local building materials. Many building techniques were lost after the fall of the Roman Empire but after the Dark Ages ended the building of huge cathedrals in stone rediscovered many of the necessary skills. The use of fossil fuels, initially coal and then oil, changed the nature of buildings and the shape of cities to the extent that our current architecture is dependent on plentiful, low cost energy from these sources. Our challenge now is to move to a sustainable zero carbon future whilst still retaining an architecture we are able to use to construct buildings and housing suitable for a changed world dependent on renewable energy sources. The book gives a good historical perspective on ways this might be achieved given how architecture has adapted over the ages.