Why We Build - Hardcover

Moore, Rowan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330535579 ISBN 13: 9780330535571

Publisher: Picador, 2012

Synopsis

Architecture, good and bad, is shaped by emotions. In Why We Build Rowan Moore shows how buildings are driven by human emotions and desires -- such as hope, power, money, sex, and the idea of home -- and how buildings then shape our experiences. He explores the making of buildings from conception to inhabitation, and reveals the paradoxical power of architecture: it looks fixed and solid, but is always changing, in response to the lives around it. Moore takes us on a personal journey, moving freely across the globe and through history, through works of folly, beauty, spectacle, and subtlety. He uncovers the doomed mansion of an Atlanta multimillionaire, the phenomenally successful High Line in New York, and the remarkable Museu de Arte in Sao Paulo. He discusses baroque churches and Egyptian pyramids alongside works of the moment. We meet extraordinary characters: Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai, the lecherous Stanford White, and Lina Bo Bardi, the most underrated architect of the twentieth century. Refusing to bow to fashion or reputation, Moore gives a provocative and iconoclastic view of what makes architecture, why it matters, and why we find it fascinating. After reading Why We Build you will never look at a building in the same way again.

About this title

About the Author

Rowan Moore is the architecture critic for the Observer and previously for the Evening Standard. He is also a
trained architect, and was formerly the Director of the Architecture Foundation. His award-winning book Why We Build was published by Picador in 2012. In 2014 he was named Critic of the Year by the UK Press Awards.

Edition details

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0330535579
• ISBN 13: 9780330535571
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432