Building Bad: How Architectural Utility Is Constrained by Politics and Damaged by Expression

Ochshorn, Jonathan

ISBN 10: 1848224664 / ISBN 13: 9781848224667

Published by Lund Humphries Pub Ltd, 2021

About this Item

232 pages. 9.50x6.75x1.00 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # zk1848224664

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Building Bad: How Architectural Utility Is Constrained by Politics and Damaged by Expression
• Publisher: Lund Humphries Pub Ltd
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1848224664
• ISBN 13: 9781848224667
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.99 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

In this book, the author argues that architectural functionality is often constrained by political and economic forces, while it is also effectively undermined by modes of expression. Utilitarian building elements—for example, windows or skylights intended to bring daylight into offices or factories—may be subject to excessive heat gain, thereby coming into conflict with an evolving politics of energy conservation and global warming mitigation. Yet at the other extreme they may be deployed as part of expressive systems whose value, understood in terms of symbol and metaphor, can overwhelm these utilitarian considerations. Politics and economics, in other words, establish lower and upper bounds for all utilitarian functions, whose costs and benefits are continually assessed on the basis of the profitable accumulation of wealth within a competitive global economy. Simultaneously, an artistic sensibility, also driven by competition, often contorts buildings into increasingly untenable forms.

About the Author

Jonathan Ochshorn is Professor of Architecture at Cornell University, USA. He is a practising architect and is author of the textbook Structural Elements for Architects and Builders.