Images of the Body in Architecture: Anthropology and Built Space - Couverture rigide

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 3803007313 ISBN 13 : 9783803007315

Editeur : Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, 2015

Synopsis

The human body has a fundamental impact on the organization and interpretation of the world, and the built environment has accordingly been conceptualized in terms of the human body since ancient times, in theory and in practice. From Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man to Le Corbusier's "Modulor" (Corbusier's attempt to unite the imperial and metric measuring systems through a scale based on the figure of a man with his arm raised), the human body has inspired and confounded attempts to rationally construct the world. Since the 19th century, the findings of the human sciences, like physiology and psychology, have produced new understandings of the body and its relationship to the environment. The contributors to this volume aim to stimulate research in the anthropology of architecture by contributing to a critical history of the body and its cultural constructions.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The essays collected in this volume are intended to stimulate research in the anthropology of architecture on the basis of a critical history of the body and its cultural constructions. The analogy between architecture and the human body is rooted in the fundamental impact the latter has on ordering, symbolising, and interpreting the world. Correspondingly, the metaphorical conceptualisation of the built environment in terms of the human body was already practiced in early cultures and has determined architectural theory since antiquity. While the architectural treatises of early modern times vividly imagine anthropomorphic and anthropometric figures, they seem to be overcome by an architectural theory that is based on purely rational as well as mechanical laws. However, these figures were never totally abandoned, and Le Corbusier's Modulor is only one, if not the most prominent example, for their ongoing reception and transformation in modern times. The human sciences of the 19th century played a significant role in this process. Physiology and psychology brought about not only new experimental devices for analysing the human body and its physiological functions, but also new images of the body that directly went into aesthetics, art history, and architectural theory. This new understanding of the body had a large impact on the production and reception of modern architecture. Due to this background the arts eventually became anthropologically grounded. The book includes contributions from: Tobias Cheung, Scott Drake, Gunter Feuerstein, Tanja Jankowiak, Eckhard Leuschner, Harry Francis Mallgrave, Indra Kagis McEwen, Irene Nierhaus, Philipp Osten, Heleni Porfyriou, Paolo Sanvito, Christoph Schnoor, Sven-Olov Wallenstein, Frank Zollner, Beatrix Zug-Rosenblatt, and others.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Ernst Wasmuth Verlag
• Date d'édition: 2015
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 3803007313
• ISBN 13: 9783803007315
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 404
• Éditeur: Wagner Kirsten, Cepl Jasper
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible