BOOK
In this engaging anthology, Pennsylvania State University architecture professor Daniel Willis asserts that "architecture's primary role is to imbue the structures and locations around us with meaning." To show the discipline's human side, he highlights the cultural significance of architectural innovations: Central heating came at the expense of the communal hearth and family solidarity; home air-conditioning doomed social rituals such as porch swinging and afternoon walks in the shade.
Willis believes that new construction should be an "engagement with the world, involving ... a creative impotence that accepts the limitations, inconsistencies, and surprises living always brings." Accounting for human idiosyncrasy is a good foundation for deciding how buildings - schools, hospitals, or anywhere else people hope to thrive - should look.
The Emerald City and Other Essays on the Architectural Imagination by Daniel Willis: $19.95. Princeton Architectural Press: +1 (212) 995 9620.
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