A WORLD HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE In about 40 BCE the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius declared
firmitas, utilitas, and
venustas -- firmness, commodity, and delight -- to be the three essential attributes of architecture. These qualities are brilliantly explored in this book, which uniquely comprises both a detailed survey of Western architecture, including Pre-Columbian America, and an introduction to architecture from the Middle East, India, Russia, China, and Japan. Written in a clear and engaging style, the text encourages readers to examine closely in photographs and line drawings the pragmatic, innovative, and aesthetic attributes of buildings, and to imagine how these would have been praised or criticized by contemporary observers. Architecture is discussed in various contexts -- artistic, economic, environmental, political, social, and technological -- so as to determine the extent to which buildings met the needs of clients, society at large, and future generations.
This book also examines the unique methods of great architects past and present. Among them are Alvar Aalto, Robert Adam, Leon Battista Alberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Gustave Eiffel, Peter Eisenman, Antonio Gaudi, Frank Gehry, Walter Gropius, Imhotep, Le Corbusier, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Michelangelo, Glenn Murcutt, Andrea Palladio, Eero Saarinen, Koca Sinan, Louis Sullivan, Christopher Wren, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
The global reach of the text is matched by a rich assortment of photographs from the world over and a greater array of detailed line drawings than can be found in any architectural survey. The authors have created a formidable body of work that ranges over much of the world's architectural heritage and testifies to some of the greatest achievements of the human spirit.
Marian Moffett (Knoxville, Tennessee) earned a B.Arch. at North Carolina State University (1971) and the M.Arch. and PhD. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1973 and 1975, respectively). Since 1975, she has taught architectural history at the University of Tennessee, where she has collaborated with Lawrence Wodehouse in producing exhibitions and catalogs on the architecture of the Tennessee Valley Authority and cantilever barns, as well as co-authoring A History of Western Architecture and East Tennessee Cantilever Barns. Her research includes work on wooden architecture in eastern Europe and town planning in Tennessee. She is active with the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and has served as President of the UT Faculty Senate and as an academic administrator in the Office of the Provost.
Michael Fazio (Mississippi State University) is an architect and architectural historian. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture Degree from Auburn University, a Master of Architecture Degree from The Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. in the History of Architecture and Urban Development from Cornell University. He practices architecture in the southeast region, most often as a preservation consultant preparing historic structures reports. He teaches architectural design studios and architectural history in the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University. He is also an actively publishing scholar whose articles have appeared in the Society of Architectural Historians Journal, Arris (the journal of the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians), and the Journal of Architectural Education. His book (with co-author Patrick Snadon of the University of Cincinnati), Inventing the American House: the Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, will be published in 2003 by The Johns Hopkins University Press and will be accompanied by an exhibition at The Octagon and Decatur House in Washington, D.C.
Lawrence Wodehouse (Knoxville, Tennessee; Emeritus) received a Diploma in Architecture from the University of Durham (1959), a diploma in Town Planning from London University (1962), an M.Arch degree from Cornell University (1963), and a Ph.D. in architectural history from the University of St. Andrews (1980). He taught architectural history at Texas Technological University, North Carolina State University, Pratt Institute, the University of Dundee, and the University of Tennessee until his retirement in 1993. Known for his research on nineteenth and twentieth American architecture, he is the author of many books, including East Tennessee Cantilever Barns (1993), The Roots of International Style Architecture (1991), A History of Western Architecture (1989), White of McKim, Mead and White (1988), Ada Louise Huxtable: A Bibliography (1981), and British Architects, 1841-1976 (1980), and numerous scholarly articles. He is a registered architect in the United Kingdom and a founding member of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.