Solar Adobe

Energy, Ecology, and Earthen Architecture

Albert Narath

$270

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

University of Minnesota Press
12 June 2024

Environmentally-friendly architecture & design; History of architecture; Conservation of the environment

How a centuries-old architectural tradition reemerged as a potential solution to the political and environmental crises of the 1970s

Against the backdrop of a global energy crisis, a widespread movement embracing the use of raw earth materials for building construction emerged in the 1970s. Solar Adobe examines this new wave of architectural experimentation taking place in the United States, detailing how an ancient tradition became a point of convergence for issues of environmentalism, architecture, technology, and Indigenous resistance.

Utilized for centuries by the Pueblo people of the American Southwest and by Spanish colonialists, adobe construction found renewed interest as various groups contended with the troubled legacies of modern architecture and an increasingly urgent need for sustainable design practices. In this period of critical experimentation, design networks that included architects, historians, counterculture communities, government weapons labs, and Indigenous activists all looked to adobe as a means to address pressing environmental and political issues.

Albert Narath charts the unique capacities of adobe construction across a wide range of contexts, consistently troubling simple distinctions between traditional and modern technologies, high design and vernacular architecture. Drawing insightful parallels between architecture, environmentalism, and movements for Indigenous sovereignty, Solar Adobe stresses the importance of considering the history of the built environment in conjunction with architecture’s larger impact on the natural world.

By: Albert Narath
Imprint: University of Minnesota Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 482g
ISBN: 9781517914066
ISBN 10: 151791406X
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 12 June 2024
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Albert Narath is associate professor of the history of the built environment at the University of California, Santa Cruz.