Why Architecture Matters

Paul Goldberger

Nov 2009 · Yale University Press

About this ebook

Why Architecture Matters is not a work of architectural history or a guide to the styles or an architectural dictionary, though it contains elements of all three. The purpose of Why Architecture Matters is to come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually--with its impact on our lives. Architecture begins to matter, writes Paul Goldberger, when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads. He shows us how that works in examples ranging from a small Cape Cod cottage to the vast, flowing Prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, from the Lincoln Memorial to the highly sculptural Guggenheim Bilbao and the Church of Sant'Ivo in Rome, where simple geometries . . . create a work of architecture that embraces the deepest complexities of human imagination. Based on decades of looking at buildings and thinking about how we experience them, the distinguished critic raises our awareness of fundamental things like proportion, scale, space, texture, materials, shapes, light, and memory. Upon completing this remarkable architectural journey, readers will enjoy a wonderfully rewarding new way of seeing and experiencing every aspect of the built world.

Ratings and reviews

If you have ever had strong opinions about public sculpture, you should also have strong opinions about architecture. For the architecture enthusiast, this book gives depth to both the intrinsic and extrinsic elements of architecture. The book may not of much interest to the layperson, with no particular interest in the subject. But if you are curious, the book will not disappoint. Very well researched, and Goldberg's writing is smooth and conversational. While I am an architecture enthusiast, the book was also very useful to me as an artist in terms of the power of context and the abstract meanings that can exist in the different layers of public and private spaces. Goldberg's writing is smooth as silk, and is very conversational.

Did you find this helpful?

Yes

No

About the author

.