In Mechanics and Meaning in Architecture, Lance LaVine shows that in architecture, as practiced and taught today, the technological aspect of the profession -- how weight is distributed, how heat flow is regulated, and how light is permitted to enter -- has been ceded to engineers and other technical specialists. And in doing so, he argues, architects have lost sight of one of architecture's most important purposes, that of providing a literal and figurative window onto the world.

As a technology of habitation, architecture should give people both a practical and a metaphorical...