"Why Architecture Matters" is not a work of architectural history or a guide to the styles or an architectural dictionary, though it contains elements of all three. The purpose of "Why Architecture Matters" is to 'come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually' - with its impact on our lives. 'Architecture begins to matter', writes Paul Goldberger, 'when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads'. He shows us how that works in examples ranging from a small Cape Cod cottage to the 'vast, flowing' Prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, from the Lincoln Memorial to the highly sculptural Guggenheim Bilbao and the Church of Sant'Ivo in Rome, where 'simple geometries...create a work of architecture that embraces the deepest complexities of human imagination'. Based on decades of looking at buildings and thinking about how we experience them, the distinguished critic raises our awareness of fundamental things like proportion, scale, space, texture, materials, shapes, light, and memory.
Upon completing this remarkable architectural journey, readers will enjoy a wonderfully rewarding new way of seeing and experiencing every aspect of the built world.
- ISBN10 030014430X
- ISBN13 9780300144307
- Publish Date 16 October 2009
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 27 July 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Yale University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 288
- Language English