Bricks & Mortals
Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made
Published on 19. June 2014
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-4088-4366-6 (ISBN)
Description
Longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2014
We don't just look at buildings: their facades, beautiful or ugly, conceal the spaces we inhabit. We are born, work, love and die in architecture. We buy and sell it, rent it and squat in it, create and destroy it. These aspects of buildings - economic, erotic, political and psychological - are crucial if we are to understand architecture properly. And because architecture moulds us just as much as we mould it, understanding architecture helps us to understand our lives and our world. Through ten great buildings across the world Tom Wilkinson reveals the powerful and intimate relationship between society and architecture and asks: can architecture change our lives for the better?
THE TEN BUILDINGS: The Tower of Babel, Babylon (c. 650 BC), The Golden House, Rome (AD 64-68), Djinguereber Mosque, Timbuktu (1327), Palazzo Rucellai, Florence (1450), The Garden of Perfect Brightness, Beijing (1709-1860), Festival Theatre, Bayreuth, Germany (1876), Highland Park Car Factory, Detroit (1909-1910), E.1027, Cap Martin (1926-29), Finsbury Health Centre, London (1938), Footbridge, Rio de Janeiro, London (2010)
We don't just look at buildings: their facades, beautiful or ugly, conceal the spaces we inhabit. We are born, work, love and die in architecture. We buy and sell it, rent it and squat in it, create and destroy it. These aspects of buildings - economic, erotic, political and psychological - are crucial if we are to understand architecture properly. And because architecture moulds us just as much as we mould it, understanding architecture helps us to understand our lives and our world. Through ten great buildings across the world Tom Wilkinson reveals the powerful and intimate relationship between society and architecture and asks: can architecture change our lives for the better?
THE TEN BUILDINGS: The Tower of Babel, Babylon (c. 650 BC), The Golden House, Rome (AD 64-68), Djinguereber Mosque, Timbuktu (1327), Palazzo Rucellai, Florence (1450), The Garden of Perfect Brightness, Beijing (1709-1860), Festival Theatre, Bayreuth, Germany (1876), Highland Park Car Factory, Detroit (1909-1910), E.1027, Cap Martin (1926-29), Finsbury Health Centre, London (1938), Footbridge, Rio de Janeiro, London (2010)
Reviews / Votes
Revealing the extraordinary backstories behind architectures both every day and spectacular, Bricks & Mortals is consistently informed, polemical and surprising * <B>Owen Hatherley</B> * Lively and quirky ... It's hard to imagine a history of buildings design being such good fun. You don't have to be a lover of architecture to enjoy this stimulating book with its mix of social and cultural history ... Fascinating * <b><i>The Times</i></b> * A stunning assembly of ideas, thoughts and perspectives ... It's rare to encounter an accessible book of this intellectual density, and Wilkinson must be given credit for marshalling his thoughts into a relatively brief volume ... A brilliantly accomplished series of often provocative and controversial ideas, and its well-paced narrative is beautifully readable * <b><i>Observer</i></b> * Poses the contrarian modernist belief that it's not people and use that make buildings, but buildings that direct the ideas that make societies. He kicks off with the Tower of Babel, races through mud mosques in Timbuktu and the Ford factory in Detroit, before stopping on Pine Street and Finsbury Health Centre * <b>AA Gill, <i>Sunday Times</i></b> * Impressive ... Bricks and Mortals is shot through with the conviction that architecture is more than just an art form: if done right, it can improve lives * <b><i>Sunday Times</i></b> * 'Wilkinson ... gleefully sets out to undermine previous generations of historians and critics ... The combination of perceptive architectural observation and licentious historical analysis ... is proof that Wilkinson has looked at buildings honestly and can write about them well ... He uses sex to imply that life is, as Niemeyer said, more important than his subject * <b><i>New Statesman</i></b> * The sheer weight of information imparted is delightful ... Mr Wilkinson's method is to select a building and then see where it takes him. It's an approach that depends on the possession of a vast knowledge and on the ability to make audacious connections * <b><i>Country Life</i></b> * A lively combination of scholarship, cultural history and sharp-tongued social commentary ... A scholarly but swiftly flowing text that glistens with attitude * <B><I>Kirkus</I></B> * A stunning antidote to conventional histories ... Wilkinson's writing is informed by an astonishing breadth of knowledge ... Superb storytelling .... A chance to travel the world with a guide of uncommon wisdom and talent to discover how buildings make us who we are * <b><i>Buffalo News</i></b> *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 153 mm
Weight
657 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-4366-6 (9781408843666)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2014
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€12.49
Available for download
Person
Tom Wilkinson is writing a doctoral thesis on art history at University College London, where he teaches an undergraduate course on architectural history. He has lectured on the history of art and architecture at the Courtauld Gallery and the University of Oxford. He has lived in Shanghai and Berlin. Bricks & Mortals is his first book.