The Roots of Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure, Materials (Res Monographs in Anthropology and Aesthetics)

Site, Enclosure and Materials in Architecture is a study in the history and theory of architecture. Challenging the contemporary concentration on style, it argues that site, enclosure and materials are fundamental elements in sound architectural design. Each of the chapters in this study reviews and criticises current assumptions and then provides an analysis of historical texts, by such theoreticians as Perrault, F. L. Wright, and Le Corbusier, in so far as they illuminate current thinking. Considerable discussion is also devoted to significant buildings, both modern and venerable, that provide the basis for the author's argument. Outlining typical thinking in architecture, with reference to rhetoric and the art of memory, Site, Enclosure and Materials in Architecture defines architecture as a form of representation that is caught up in the temporal unfolding of human events.