Architecture : from prehistory to climate emergency / Barnabas Calder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Calder, Barnabas, author.

Contributor:

Adam H. Fetterolf Fund.

Series:

Pelican books

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sustainable architecture.

History.

Architecture and energy conservation.

Architecture and energy conservation--History.

Architecture--History.

Architecture.

Sustainable architecture--History.

Climate change mitigation.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxv, 547 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

From prehistory to climate emergency

Place of Publication:

London : Pelican, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2021.

Summary:

The story of architecture is the story of humanity. The buildings we live in, from the humblest pre-historic huts to today's skyscrapers, reveal our priorities and ambitions, our family structures and power structures. And to an extent never explored until now, architecture has been shaped in every era by our access to energy, from fire to farming to fossil fuels. In this ground-breaking history of world architecture, Barnabas Calder takes us on a dazzling tour of some of the most astonishing buildings of the past fifteen thousand years, from Uruk, via Ancient Rome and Victorian Liverpool, to China's booming megacities. He reveals how every building - from the Parthenon to the Great Mosque of Damascus to a typical Georgian house - was influenced by the energy available to its architects, and why this matters. Today architecture consumes so much energy that 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from the construction and running of buildings. If we are to avoid catastrophic climate change then now, more than ever, we need beautiful but also intelligent architecture, and to retrofit - not demolish - the buildings we already have. -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Life with less energy

Farming, the city and monumental architecture

Us and them : the Parthenon and Parsa

Energy booms : the Roman Empire and Song-dynasty China

'A proportional indicator of power'? : tradition, energy and mosques

Plague and prosperity : medieval and early modern Europe

The march of bricks and mortar : coal and the city

'That which all the world desires' : Victorian Liverpool

Form follows fuel : industry and construction in the USA, 1850-1920

'The beauty of speed' : the rise of oil and electricity, 1914-39

'Too cheap to meter' : the post-war boom, 1939-90

Today's great energy revolution.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 464-514) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Adam H. Fetterolf Fund.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9780241396735

0241396735

OCLC:

1242773890