[Ebook PDF] Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning, 3rd Edition

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Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning, 3rd Edition

ISBN-13: 978-0813349039
ISBN-10: 0813349036

Author: Leland M. Roth (Author)

This widely acclaimed, beautifully illustrated survey of Western architecture is now fully revised throughout, including essays on non-Western traditions. The expanded book vividly examines the structure, function, history, and meaning of architecture in ways that are both accessible and engaging.

PREFACE
This book is about learning to understand our human-made environment. It is about architecture as a physical vessel, a container of human activity. But since architecture is a social activity, building is also a social statement and the creation of a cultural legacy. Moreover, every building, whether a commanding public structure or a private shelter—whether a cathedral or a bicycle shed—is constructed in accordance with the laws of physics in ways that crystallize the cultural values of its builders. This book is an introduction to the artistic urge that impels humans to build, as well as to the structural properties that enable buildings to stand up. It is also an introduction to the silent cultural language that every building expresses. This book, then, might be thought of as a primer for visual environmental literacy.
I should clarify that this is not a history of architecture in the normal sense of the word. There is historical information in the second part of the book, but the first part focuses on how the aesthetics of architecture influence our perception.
The first edition of Understanding Architecture was published in 1993, and numerous additions were made in 2005 for the second edition. In this third edition, the material is brought up to date, including developments since the opening of the new millennium. This restructuring, however, necessitated rethinking how to tell the story of twentieth century architecture. Hence, there are now revised chapters on the development of Modernism: how it was defined in Europe in the first third of the twentieth century, then how it was exported around the globe in the second third of the century, and, finally, how reactions to Modernism proliferated and have diverged in the last third of the century and have continued into the opening of the twenty-first century. Up to the mid-twentieth century, architects tended to work primarily in their native countries, aside from those who were obliged by political or religious persecution to flee their homelands and seek refuge elsewhere, such as Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Erich Mendelsohn.
Discussion of this late-twentieth-century international dimension to contemporary architectural practice has brought into focus the realization that global cultural influences have been in effect for more than twenty-five hundred years—a period in which early trade and exploration brought various parts of the world together. As it seems appropriate to examine these global interactions and the architecture outside of the Western world, we have interspersed the main text with special essays that sketch how other cultures first began to interact with Western culture. And just as the original chapters with their Western focus never aimed to examine the full breadth of architectural history, even less do the new essays try to cover the breadth of architecture outside the West; rather, the endeavor has been to explore the encounters and interchanges, conflicts and accommodations between the disparate global communities. Since limited space precludes providing an illustration of every building mentioned, readers are encouraged to avail themselves of the various encyclopedias and search engines available online to locate images for review. Since the Protestant Reformation, the West has preferred to stress the written cultural record,
whether historical or literary, and to give little serious attention to the meaning of visual imagery. In the United States, in most community schools (other than some private academies) there are no courses in the history of art, much less on architectural history. It is usually not until college that students first encounter art history and perhaps the history of architecture. Hence, very few young people are taught how to “read” or otherwise interpret the physical environment in which they wil live and work. In a very few secondary schools, students are offered classes in the visual arts, music, and dance, even though only a fraction of them will put such knowledge to use explicitly when they enter the work world. In fact, because of worsening public budget constraints, even these few classes are increasingly being cut. As a result, most people are taught next to nothing about the architecture they will encounter throughout life; they learn very little about the history of their built environment or how to interpret the meaning of the environment they have inherited. What they know is—literally—what they learn “in the street.” This environmental illiteracy has long been accepted as the normal state of affairs.