Main entry:

Calder, Barnabas, author.

Title & Author:

Architecture : from prehistory to climate emergency / Barnabas Calder.

Publication:

London : Pelican, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2021.

Description:

xxv, 547 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Series:

A Pelican book

Notes:
Published in paperback 2022.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 464-514) and index.
Life with less energy -- Farming, the city and monumental architecture -- Us and them : the Parthenon and Parsa -- Energy booms : the Roman Empire and Song-dynasty China -- 'A proportional indicator of power'? : tradition, energy and mosques -- Plague and prosperity : medieval and early modern Europe -- The march of bricks and mortar : coal and the city -- 'That which all the world desires' : Victorian Liverpool -- Form follows fuel : industry and construction in the USA, 1850-1920 -- 'The beauty of speed' : the rise of oil and electricity, 1914-39 -- 'Too cheap to meter' : the post-war boom, 1939-90 -- Today's great energy revolution.

Summary:

The story of architecture is the story of humanity. The buildings we live in, from the humblest pre-historic huts to today's skyscrapers, reveal our priorities and ambitions, our family structures and power structures. And to an extent never explored until now, architecture has been shaped in every era by our access to energy, from fire to farming to fossil fuels. In this ground-breaking history of world architecture, Barnabas Calder takes us on a dazzling tour of some of the most astonishing buildings of the past fifteen thousand years, from Uruk, via Ancient Rome and Victorian Liverpool, to China's booming megacities. He reveals how every building - from the Parthenon to the Great Mosque of Damascus to a typical Georgian house - was influenced by the energy available to its architects, and why this matters. Today architecture consumes so much energy that 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from the construction and running of buildings. If we are to avoid catastrophic climate change then now, more than ever, we need beautiful but also intelligent architecture, and to retrofit - not demolish - the buildings we already have. -- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

9780241396735 hardback
0241396735 hardback
9780141978208 paperback
0141978201 paperback
ePub ebook
9780141978215

Subject:

Architecture and energy conservation History.
Architecture History.
Sustainable architecture History.
Climate change mitigation.
Architecture et économies d'énergie Histoire.
Architecture Histoire.
Architecture durable Histoire.
Climat Changements Atténuation.
ARCHITECTURE / General.
Architecture
Architecture and energy conservation
Sustainable architecture

Form/genre:

History

Added entries:

Pelican books ; 39.

From prehistory to climate emergency

Holdings:

Location: Library main 316908
Call No.: 316908
Status: Available