Key Moments in Architecture: The Relationship Between Man, Buildings and Urban Growth As Seen in the Metropolis Through the Ages

Rating:
Summary: Evolution of the city
Review: This book offers a fairly comprehensive overview of the development of the city from the first stepping stones of Jericho, the Ziggurat at Ur, and Babylon, to the city of the future and the never ending search for utopia. It's a broad history and it's also the foundation for the understanding of ourselves. Cities are "a curiously potent compound of buildings and people. The way people create, use and interact with the fabric of their urban concentrations make for a single entity." This book uses the "medium of architecture" to take a very informative look at that single entity. It's also a well illustrated look with over 200 photographs and drawings - at least one per page and most in full color.

There are chapters on Greek, Roman, and Islamic styles which touch on domes, columns, vaults, arches, and the first attempts at urban planning. Next we see the contrasts of dark Medieval architecture and its Gothic cathedrals with Renaissance Italy where churches were less grand but the vaulted domes were no less glorious. Emerging from classicism we look next at style and Baroque architecture and then comes an emphasis on the importance of structure. Other chapters look at how the experience of empire influenced style. This is the period beginning in the early 19th century when many of the great cities were laid out and some of the worlds best known landmarks were erected. Finally there is discussion of the International styles of Expressionism and Modernism and following that Post-modernism. Add in short fact files on architectural details as well as mini profiles on some important names in the field (Brunelleschi, Bernini, Wren, Frank Lloyd Wright, Gropius, Mies, Graves, and Sir Norman Foster) and you have here a well planned and thoughtful book.

Urban planners, geographers, designers, and of course architects will thoroughly enjoy this book. So will those of us who simply want to know more about the built environment we see around us everyday. The book says it best: "architecture is the visible and tangible expression of our society's taste, culture, politics and preoccupations. City architecture, quite simply, is a continuing monument to what we are."