A strikingly original, beautifully narrated history of Western architecture and the cultural transformations that it represents
Concrete, marble, steel, brick: little else made by human hands seems as stable, as immutable, as a building. Yet the life of any structure is neither fixed nor timeless. Outliving their original contexts and purposes, buildings are forced to adapt to each succeeding age. To survive, they must become shape-shifters.
In an inspired refashioning of architectural history, Edward Hollis recounts more than a dozen stories of such metamorphosis,...
A strikingly original, beautifully narrated history of Western architecture and the cultural transformations that it represents
A brilliant, ambitious follow-up to The Secret Lives of Buildings, in which Hollis turns his focus from the great architectural constructions of the past to the now-vanished chambers they once contained. The rooms we live in are always more than just four walls. As we decorate these spaces and fill them with objects and friends, they shape our lives and become the backdrop to our sense of self. one day, the structures will be gone, but even then, traces of the stories and the memories they contained will persist. In this dazzling work of imaginative reconstruction, edward Hollis...
A brilliant, ambitious follow-up to The Secret Lives of Buildings, in which Hollis turns his focus from the great architectural constructions ...