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The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas
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The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories Paperback - 2010

by Edward Hollis

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From the publisher

A strikingly original, beautifully narrated history of Western architecture and the cultural transformations that it represents

Concrete, marble, steel, brick: little else made by human hands seems as stable, as immutable, as a building. Yet the life of any structure is neither fixed nor timeless. Outliving their original contexts and purposes, buildings are forced to adapt to each succeeding age. To survive, they must become shape-shifters.

In an inspired refashioning of architectural history, Edward Hollis recounts more than a dozen stories of such metamorphosis, highlighting the way in which even the most familiar structures all change over time into "something rich and strange." The Parthenon, that epitome of a ruined temple, was for centuries a working church and then a mosque; the cathedral of Notre Dame was "restored" to a design that none of its original makers would have recognized. Remains of the Berlin Wall, meanwhile, which was once gleefully smashed and bulldozed, are now treated as precious relics.

With The Secret Lives of Buildings, Edward Hollis recounts the most enthralling of these metamorphoses and shows how buildings have come to embody the history of Western culture.

Details

  • Title The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories
  • Author Edward Hollis
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 384
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Picador USA
  • Publication date 2010-10-26
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index, Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780312655365 / 0312655363
  • Weight 0.8 lbs (0.36 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.2 in (20.83 x 13.72 x 3.05 cm)
  • Category Architecture
  • Library of Congress subjects Architecture and society, Architecture and history
  • Dewey Decimal Code 720.9

About the author

Edward Hollis is an architect and designer who teaches at the Edinburgh College of Art. Trained at Cambridge and Edinburgh universities, he worked for five years in the United Kingdom as a practicing architect, specializing in alterations to historic buildings. The Secret Lives of Buildings is his first book.
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The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories

by Hollis, Edward

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

by Hollis, Edward

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

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

by Edward Hollis

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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The Secret Lives of Buildings : From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen...
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The Secret Lives of Buildings : From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories

by Hollis, Edward

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

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