
Bricks & Mortals
Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made
Tom Wilkinson(Author)
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published on 22. October 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-1-4088-4367-3 (ISBN)
Description
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)
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 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> * 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> *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 38 mm
Weight
400 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-4367-3 (9781408843673)
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
07/2014
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Press
€18.99
Available for download

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.