Fire & Memory – On Architecture & Energy (Writing Architecture) - Softcover

Fernández–galia, Luis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262561336 ISBN 13: 9780262561334

Publisher: MIT Press, 2001

Synopsis

Architecture and fire, construction and combustion, meet in this poetic treatise on energy in building.

In Fire and Memory, Luis Fernández-Galiano reconstructs the movement from cold to warm architecture, from building fire to building a building with and for fire, through what he calls a "metaphorical plundering" of disciplines as diverse as anthropology and economics, and in particular of ecology and thermodynamics. Beginning with the mythical fire in the origins of architecture and moving to its symbolic representation in the twentieth century, Galiano develops a theoretical dialogue between combustion and construction that ranges from Vitruvius to Le Corbusier, from the mechanical and organic to time and entropy. Galiano points out that energy, so important to the origin of architectural theory in Vitruvius's time, has been absent from architectural theory since the introduction of the "dictatorship of the eye" over that of the skin. With Fire and Memory, he reintroduces energy to the discussion of architecture and reminds us that the sense of touch is as necessary to an understanding of the environment as the sense of sight.

About this title

Synopsis

Drawing on theories from a range of disciplines, Galiano recontructs the movement from cold to warm architecture, from building a fire to building a building with and for fire. Emphasing the importance of a sense of touch, this book reintroduces the role of energy to architectural debate.

About the Author

ANY Magazine, the director of Anyone Corporation, and a member of the editorial board of the Writing Architecture series (MIT Press).

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262561336
• ISBN 13: 9780262561334
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 340