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Title details for The Secret Lives of Buildings by Edward Hollis - Wait list

The Secret Lives of Buildings

by Edward Hollis
ebook
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A strikingly original, beautifully narrated history of Western architecture and the cultural transformations that it represents
Concrete, marble, steel, brick: little else made by human hands seems as stable, as immutable, as a building. Yet the life of any structure is neither fixed nor timeless. Outliving their original contexts and purposes, buildings are forced to adapt to each succeeding age. To survive, they must become shape-shifters.
In an inspired refashioning of architectural history, Edward Hollis recounts more than a dozen stories of such metamorphosis, highlighting the way in which even the most familiar structures all change over time into "something rich and strange." The Parthenon, that epitome of a ruined temple, was for centuries a working church and then a mosque; the cathedral of Notre Dame was "restored" to a design that none of its original makers would have recognized. Remains of the Berlin Wall, meanwhile, which was once gleefully smashed and bulldozed, are now treated as precious relics.
With The Secret Lives of Buildings, Edward Hollis recounts the most enthralling of these metamorphoses and shows how buildings have come to embody the history of Western culture.

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Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. Edition: 1

Kindle Book

  • Release date: April 1, 2010

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781429982108
  • Release date: April 1, 2010

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781429982108
  • File size: 2157 KB
  • Release date: April 1, 2010

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Architecture Nonfiction

Languages

English

A strikingly original, beautifully narrated history of Western architecture and the cultural transformations that it represents
Concrete, marble, steel, brick: little else made by human hands seems as stable, as immutable, as a building. Yet the life of any structure is neither fixed nor timeless. Outliving their original contexts and purposes, buildings are forced to adapt to each succeeding age. To survive, they must become shape-shifters.
In an inspired refashioning of architectural history, Edward Hollis recounts more than a dozen stories of such metamorphosis, highlighting the way in which even the most familiar structures all change over time into "something rich and strange." The Parthenon, that epitome of a ruined temple, was for centuries a working church and then a mosque; the cathedral of Notre Dame was "restored" to a design that none of its original makers would have recognized. Remains of the Berlin Wall, meanwhile, which was once gleefully smashed and bulldozed, are now treated as precious relics.
With The Secret Lives of Buildings, Edward Hollis recounts the most enthralling of these metamorphoses and shows how buildings have come to embody the history of Western culture.

Expand title description text
Architecture Nonfiction