Architecture - A Very Short Introduction

Buildings can be the most expensive things that civilizations produce. They can absorb any amount of effort and money if they are to compete with the great buildings of rivals, and of the past. It might seem misguided to try to outdo others when the costs are so high, but no one remembers the civilizations that took such a decision, at least not in architectural history. By contrast civilizations such as ancient Egypt and Rome, which built extravagantly, seem unavoidable. The imperishable buildings seem to go hand in hand with an imperishable reputation, which has always been the appeal of monuments for the powerful. When enough time has passed, all human achievements can seem fragile, and Shelley’s famous poem Ozymandias shows both the attraction of the monumental and also how delusory its promise of everlasting glory can be. One of the things that matters about architecture is how it gives us clues to what really mattered to rulers of the past. Another thing is how it makes it possible for us, the living, to live in certain ways, and to demonstrate to each other and ourselves what it is that we really care about, as individuals and as a society. Different civilizations strike different balances between what seems to be owed to the living, and going beyond immediate needs in order to make things that build a reputation in posterity. What this very short introduction tries to do is to explain how architecture goes about doing what it does. Buildings keep us warm and dry, and are closely involved in the practicalities of living, but ‘architecture’ always has a cultural dimension to it, if we choose to pay attention to it. Chapter 1 is about how buildings are involved with our sense of who we are. Chapter 2 looks at the way in which buildings are made to look like one another, so that they carry the right sort of messages to those ‘in the know’ in a particular culture. Chapter 3 considers what it is that makes some works of architecture come to be more culturally important than others. Contents List of illustrations Introduction 1 Buildings have meaning 2 Growth of the Western tradition 3 How buildings become great Timeline Glossary Further reading Index حق تکثیر: انتشار در حریم عمومی اینترنت.