THE OLD WAY OF SEEING: How Architecture Lost Its Magic (And How to Get It Back)

by Jonathan Hale ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 1994

An architect and critic elaborates on what most of us see when we look at much of modern architecture: buildings that are lifeless and just plain ugly. Hale laments the current state of architecture and the loss of ""harmonious design,"" an art that involves play and intuition. ""A great building can give us the same exhilaration we experience in a natural landscape,"" he writes. He urges architects and designers to rediscover the beauties of natural law and geometry, to abandon the fragmentation he sees as characteristic of postmodern architecture. He offers a historical summary of how building strayed, in the middle of the 19th century coincident with the Industrial Revolution, from the intuitive verities of harmony and balance, forsaking meaningful patterns for crude symbolism or somber functionality. Photos.

Pub Date: June 20, 1994

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1994

Categories: NONFICTION