The Monumental Impulse – Architecture′s Biological Roots - Hardcover

Hersey, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262082748 ISBN 13: 9780262082747

Publisher: MIT Press, 1999

Synopsis

We humans owe an immense architectural debt to many other species. Indeed, the first hexagons humans saw may have been in honeycombs, the first skyscrapers termitaries (termite high-rises), and the first tents those of African weaver ants. In The Monumental Impulse, art historian George Hersey investigates many ties between the biological sciences and the building arts. Natural building materials such as wood and limestone, for example, originate in biological processes. Much architectural ornament borrows from botany and zoology. Hersey draws striking analogies between building types and animal species. He examines the relationship between physical structures and living organisms, from bridges to mosques, from molecules to mammals.

Insects, mollusks, and birds are given separate chapters, and three final chapters focus on architectural form and biological reproduction. Hersey also discusses architecture in connection with the body's interior processes and shows how buildings may be said to reproduce, adapt, and evolve, like other inanimate or "nonbiotic" entities such as computer programs and robots. The book is both learned and entertaining, and is abundantly illustrated with fascinating visual comparisons.

About this title

Review

-- Norman Crowe, Department of Architecture, University of Notre Dame

" In this engaging, eminently readable, and frequently surprising exploration of the human urge to build, Hersey invites us to view architecture from an unaccustomed perspective--the perspective of biology. . . . With this coupling of architecture and biology, Hersey is fully engaged in that Enlightenment spirit biologist E. O. Wilson calls ‘ the quest for the unity of knowledge.’ " -- Norman Crowe, Department of Architecture, University of Notre Dame

& quot; In this engaging, eminently readable, and frequently surprising exploration of the human urge to build, Hersey invites us to view architecture from an unaccustomed perspective--the perspective of biology. . . . With this coupling of architecture and biology, Hersey is fully engaged in that Enlightenment spirit biologist E. O. Wilson calls & lsquo; the quest for the unity of knowledge.& rsquo; & quot; -- Norman Crowe, Department of Architecture, University of Notre Dame

"In this engaging, eminently readable, and frequently surprising exploration of the human urge to build, Hersey invites us to view architecture from an unaccustomed perspective--the perspective of biology. . . . With this coupling of architecture and biology, Hersey is fully engaged in that Enlightenment spirit biologist E. O. Wilson calls 'the quest for the unity of knowledge.'"--Norman Crowe, Department of Architecture, University of Notre Dame

About the Author

George Hersey is Emeritus Professor of Art History at Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Evolution of Allure: Sexual Selection from the Medici Venus to the Incredible Hulk (MIT Press, 1996) and The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture: Speculations on Ornament from Vitruvius to Venturi (MIT Press, 1988).

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262082748
• ISBN 13: 9780262082747
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 260