Built, Unbuilt and Unbuildable : In Pursuit of Architectural Meaning

Harbison, Robert

ISBN 10: 0500277451 / ISBN 13: 9780500277454

Published by Thames & Hudson, Limited, 1993

About this Item

Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 13229550-6

Bibliographic Details

Title: Built, Unbuilt and Unbuildable : In Pursuit ...

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, Limited

Publication Date: 1993

Binding: Soft cover

Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis:

Robert Harbison has acquired a reputation for looking at architecture in a highly original way. The questions he asks are those deliberately suppressed by conventional architectural historians: What draws me to this building? What meaning intended or unintended - does it have? Has that meaning changed through time? To expound his argument, the author chooses examples of buildings "freed from function", the architectural borderland where use and symbolism overlap: gardens - "places of undeclared war between architecture and its antitype nature"; monuments "how sure of themselves yet how entirely fictional"; historic fortifications - "prompting armies of tourists to assault them"; and ruins - "architecture existing only in the mind or in the eye of the beholder". Finally he enters the realm of the imagination in chapters on the internal space of paintings and on projects that have seen the light only as architects' dreams. Robert Harbison has lectured on architecture at MOMA, New York, the University of Toronto, Stanford University, Cornell University and the Architectural Association, London.

Review:

" In this era of ubiquitous mass media, when today's catchword is tomorrow's cliche Robert Harbison has produced that rarity, a thoroughly personal and original book. "The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable is "a lucid, provocative meditation on architectural meaning, on 'some of the witting and unwitting means by which buildings evade functional necessities, or surpass them even while satisfying them.'" -- Nancy Levinson, Architectural Record

& quot; In this era of ubiquitous mass media, when today's catchword is tomorrow's cliche Robert Harbison has produced that rarity, a thoroughly personal and original book. The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable is a lucid, provocative meditation on architectural meaning, on 'some of the witting and unwitting means by which buildings evade functional necessities, or surpass them even while satisfying them.'& quot; -- Nancy Levinson, Architectural Record

"In this era of ubiquitous mass media, when today's catchword is tomorrow's cliche Robert Harbison has produced that rarity, a thoroughly personal and original book. "The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable is "a lucid, provocative meditation on architectural meaning, on 'some of the witting and unwitting means by which buildings evade functional necessities, or surpass them even while satisfying them.'"--Nancy Levinson, Architectural Record