Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning

Barber, Daniel A.

ISBN 10: 0691170037 / ISBN 13: 9780691170039

Published by Princeton University Press, 2020

Book is in Used-Good condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain limited notes and highlighting. 2.9. Seller Inventory # 0691170037-2-4

Synopsis:

How climate influenced the design strategies of modernist architects

Modern Architecture and Climate explores how leading architects of the twentieth century incorporated climate-mediating strategies into their designs, and shows how regional approaches to climate adaptability were essential to the development of modern architecture. Focusing on the period surrounding World War II―before fossil-fuel powered air-conditioning became widely available―Daniel Barber brings to light a vibrant and dynamic architectural discussion involving design, materials, and shading systems as means of interior climate control. He looks at projects by well-known architects such as Richard Neutra, Le Corbusier, Lúcio Costa, Mies van der Rohe, and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and the work of climate-focused architects such as MMM Roberto, Olgyay and Olgyay, and Cliff May. Drawing on the editorial projects of James Marston Fitch, Elizabeth Gordon, and others, he demonstrates how images and diagrams produced by architects helped conceptualize climate knowledge, alongside the work of meteorologists, physicists, engineers, and social scientists. Barber describes how this novel type of environmental media catalyzed new ways of thinking about climate and architectural design.

Extensively illustrated with archival material, Modern Architecture and Climate provides global perspectives on modern architecture and its evolving relationship with a changing climate, showcasing designs from Latin America, Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa. This timely and important book reconciles the cultural dynamism of architecture with the material realities of ever-increasing carbon emissions from the mechanical cooling systems of buildings and offers a historical foundation for today’s zero-carbon design.

About the Author: Daniel A. Barber is professor of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and a Guggenheim Fellow. He is the author of A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Modern Architecture and Climate: Design ...
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Date: 2020
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good