SALE ON NOW! PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science by Alberto Pérez-Gómez (Saidye Rosner BronfmanProfessor Director of the History and Theory of Architecture Program, McGill University) at Abbey's Bookshop,
Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science
— —
Alberto Pérez-Gómez (Saidye Rosner BronfmanProfessor Director of the History and Theory of Architecture Program, McGill University)

Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

Alberto Pérez-Gómez (Saidye Rosner BronfmanProfessor Director of the History and Theory of Architecture Program, McGill University)

$130

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?
English
MIT Press
11 April 1985
Theory of architecture
Series: Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science
This important book, which won the 1984 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, traces the process by which the mystical and numerological grounds for the use of number and geometry in building gave way to the more functional and technical ones that prevail in architectural theory and practice today.

Between the late Renaissance and the early nineteenth century, the ancient arts of architecture were being profoundly transformed by the scientific revolution. This important book, which won the 1984 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, traces the process by which the mystical and numerological grounds for the use of number and geometry in building gave way to the more functional and technical ones that prevail in architectural theory and practice today. Throughout, it relates the major architectural treatises of successive generations to the larger culture and the writings of philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, and engineers.

The book leads the reader through the controversy that was generated by Claude Perrault in the seventeenth century. His writings began to cast doubt on the absolute aesthetic value of the classical orders and the ""perfect"" proportions that were architecture's legacy from Pythagorean times. Thus the once immutable ""invisible"" system lost its special status forever. The book focuses in particular on eighteenth-century developments in the science of mechanics and emerging techniques in structural analysis which slowly entered the architectural treatises and found their way into practice, often by way of civil and military engineers. And by the nineteenth century, the book notes, even architectural rendering and drawing were radically changed through the introduction of new descriptive and projective geometries.

Tracing these fundamental changes in architectural intentions, Perez-G mez challenges many popular misconceptions about the theory and history of modern architecture. At the same time, he suggests an intangible loss, that of a culture's power to express through a building its total mathematical, mystical, and magical world-view.
By:  
Imprint:   MIT Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 28mm
Weight:   658g
ISBN:   9780262660556
ISBN 10:   0262660555
Series:   Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science
Pages:   400
Publication Date:  
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational ,  A / AS level ,  Further / Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Alberto Perez G mez directs the History and Theory of Architecture Program at McGill University, where he is Saidye Rosner Bronfman Professor of the History of Architecture. He is the author of Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, Built upon Love- Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (both published by the MIT Press), and other books.

Reviews for Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

""Geometry was demoted from its regal status as the generator of forms to being the servant of surveyors and engineers. It is a paradox that this happened as techniques of mensuration and construction, as well as geometrical speculation, intensified. Perez-Gomez has placed this paradox in its proper context, scientific and philosophical. But most important to me, he has shown how much that is done and written about architecture nowadays is a direct consequence of that demotion. This book is essential for anyone who believes that architecture must reaffirm its role as the theatre of memory and metaphor-that there is no such thing as a meaningless structure."" Joseph Rykwert


  • Winner of <PrizeName>Winner, Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, Society of Architectural Historians</PrizeName>.
  • Winner of Winner, Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, Society of Architectural Historians.
  • Winner of Winner, Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, Society of Architectural Historians</PrizeName>.

See Also

Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

Digital Monuments

The Dreams and Abuses of Iconic...

Simone Brott (Queensland University...

Paperback

$59.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

Modernity Unbound

Architecture Words 7

Detlef Mertins

Paperback

$27.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

After Art

David Joselit

Hardback

$44.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

101 Things I Didn't Learn In Architecture...

And wish I had known before my first...

Sarah Lebner

Paperback

$30.95 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

The Language of Architectural Classicism...

From Looking to Seeing

Edward McParland

Hardback

$99.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science

Humanise

A Maker’s Guide to Building Our...

Thomas Heatherwick

Paperback

$29.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +