THE CULTURAL ROLE OF ARCHITECTURE

Description

The Cultural Role of Architecture: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
Exploring the ambiguities of how we define the word ‘culture’ in our global society, this book identifies its imprint on architectural ideas. It examines the historical role of the cultural in architectural production and expression, looking at meaning and communication, tracing the formations of cultural identities. Chapters written by international academics in history, theory and philosophy of architecture, examine how different modes of representation throughout history have drawn profound meanings from cultural practices and beliefs. These are as diverse as the designs they inspire and include religious, mythic, poetic, political, and philosophical references.

CONTENTS

I. Architecture as Agent of Recovery, a Testimony to Values

• Jane Lomholt: Introduction
• Dagmar Weston: Greek Theatre as an Embodiment of Cultural Meaning
• Chris Siwicki: The Restoration of Memory: Roman Attitudes to Architectural Heritage
• Liana Cheney: Il Corridoio Vasariano: A Resplendent Passage to Medici and Vasari’s Grandeur
• Noe Badillo: Language Beyond Metaphor: The Structural Symbolism of Borromini’s Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza 
• Jane Lomholt: Villa Albani, Repository of Multiple Narratives
• Louise Pelletier: The Space of Fiction: On the Cultural Relevance of Architecture 
• Cristina Gonzalez-Longo: Using Old Stuff and Thinking in a New Way: Material Culture, Conservation and Fashion in Architecture 

II. Architecture as Substance and Sustenance: Cultural Desires and Needs

• Paul Emmons: Introduction
• Marco Frascari: De Beata Architectura, Places for Thinking
• Chris Hay: Sverre Fehn: Materials and Culture
• Harry Charrington: A Persuasive Topology: Alvar Aalto and the Ambience of History 
• Jan Frohburg: Freiraum: Ideas of Freedom and Nature in the Work of Mies van der Rohe
• Alexandra Stara: Architectural Poetics in Alvaro Siza’s Church of Santa Maria
• Paul Emmons: “The Play of Plans: Le Corbusier’s Serious Game of Dominos
• Gerald Adler: Something out of the “Ordinary” 

III. A Time of Aspirations: Cultural Understanding of the Roles of Architecture

• Alberto Perez-Gomez: The Relevance of Beauty in Architecture
• Nikolaos-Ion Terzoglou: Architectural Creation Between ‘Culture’ and ‘Civilization’
• Ashraf Salama: Architectural Identity Demystified: Visual Voices from the Arab World
• Jason Crow: The Fiction of the Digital in the Mediated City
• Mark Cannata: The Memory of Ruins and the Ruins of Memory
• Nader El-Bizri: The Conceptual Bearings of the Intercultural Role of Architecture
• John Hendrix: Architecture as the Psyche of a Culture

Epilogue

• John Hendrix: The Necessity of Architecture

256 pages, b&w ills / 15,5 x 23,5 cm / English