The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories

New
Hardcover
2009
$20.74

The plans are drawn up, a site is chosen, and foundations are dug: a building comes into being with the expectation that it will stay put and stay for ever. But a building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation. In this radical re-imagination of architectural history, Edward Hollis tells the stories of thirteen buildings, beginning with the 'once upon a time' when they first appeared, through the years of appropriation, ruin and renovation, and ending with a temporary 'ever after'. In spell-binding prose, Hollis follows his buildings through time and space to reveal the hidden histories of the Parthenon and the Alhambra, visiting churches that have been carried through the air by angels and ancient palaces recreated by vainglorious dictators, and exploring the monuments of our own day, from souvenir chunks of the Berlin Wall to the fibre-glass theme parks of Las Vegas.

Synopsis

The plans are drawn up, a site is chosen, and foundations are dug: a building comes into being with the expectation that it will stay put and stay for ever. But a building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation. In this radical re-imagination of architectural history, Edward Hollis tells the stories of thirteen buildings, beginning with the 'once upon a time' when they first appeared, through the years of appropriation, ruin and renovation, and ending with a temporary 'ever after'. In spell-binding prose, Hollis follows his buildings through time and space to reveal the hidden histories of the Parthenon and the Alhambra, visiting churches that have been carried through the air by angels and ancient palaces recreated by vainglorious dictators, and exploring the monuments of our own day, from souvenir chunks of the Berlin Wall to the fibre-glass theme parks of Las Vegas.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 448
Publisher: Portobello Books Ltd
Published: 07 Sep 2009
ISBN 10: 1846271274
ISBN 13: 9781846271274

Media Reviews

Scintillating... Every so often, works on the building art capture the public imagination. Now Tracy Kidder and Witold Rybczynski are joined by Edward Hollis, whose new book, The Secret Lives of Buildings, offers an advanced seminar for graduates of Rybczynski's introductory courses... Provides the ground for a reinvigorated public discourse on the role of architecture in contemporary society... Worthy of wide consideration. - Martin Filler, The New York Review of Books What a happy tingle of discovery to come across a book that differs sharply from all the others in its field!... Hollis thinks with such originality and writes with such flair that he is a pleasure to read. -Stanley Abercrombie, The American Scholar A fantasia from the real and the imagined... An unusual sort of speculative history, almost a work of experimental fiction. The buildings, which are its nominal subjects, are onl

Author Bio

Born in London in 1971, EDWARD HOLLIS studied Architecture at the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh before joining a practice, working first on ruins and follies in the lagoons of Sri Lanka and then on Victorian villas, old breweries and town halls in Scotland. He now teaches at Edinburgh College of Art and this is his first book