Theory for Practice: Architecture in Three Discourses
by
Bill Hubbard |
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Paperback
(September 1996)
MIT
Press; ISBN: 0262581450 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.44 x
8.87 x 5.92 |
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Editorial
Reviews |
Book
Description
"This innocent-looking tome...should be a little gem
of enlightenment to every thinking member of our profession."
-- Patrick Hannay, The Architects Journal
To speak comprehensively about a building today requires that
we think about the building in three different ways - as an instance
of architectural order, as an embodiment of values about living,
and as an instrument for bringing about results. With this insight,
Bill Hubbard offers architects a useful new way of thinking about
the work they do. He looks at all of the groups with an interest
in a work of architecture - owners, inhabitants, customers, community
groups, critics and historians, architecture schools -- and presents
a conceptual framework in which those disparate interests are
not just given a place but are honored for providing different
perspectives on the building.
Recalling a time when a building could be encompassed by a single
way of thinking, Hubbard reviews how political, economic, and
philosophical movements have fostered new roles for buildings
and provided new ways of thinking about them. How can these ways
of thinking talk to each other, much less have a conversation
that can produce a building? To find a language for such conversation
is the task Hubbard takes on, through an exploration of the concept
of a sense of place.
In the book's closing chapters Hubbard describes the varieties
of place that we can feel, and proposes a way to characterize
such feelings and render them usable by designers. In so doing,
he raises a fundamental question about the practice of architecture;
he proposes that a theory for practice founded on the idea of
creating a sense of place is not a radical departure for architects
because the acts of creating place are the acts architects do,
for themselves, in their daily lives.
About the Author
Bill Hubbard Jr., is an associate professor in the Department
of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He practiced architecture for a number of years and is the author
of a previous book about perceiving and conducting architecture,
Complicity and Conviction. |
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