Buildings & Power Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building Types

Buildings and Powershifts the focus of architectural debate from the dominant themes of art and technology to an analysis of meaning in terms of social relations. Buildings are primarily social objects. Their forms provide answers to questions we ask about ourselves questions of power, order, classification and function. Everything about a building has social meaning its form, function, and spatial structure are each capable of analysis. This study focuses on the emergence of new building types during the critical period between the Enlightenment and the French and Industrial Revolutions. The types are divided between those which control relations between people directly, such as schools and institutions, those which reproduce knowledge, such as museums and libraries, and those which are used for production and exchange, such as stores. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, drawings, maps and plans,Buildings and Poweranalyzes architectural form, functionand space to explore the reproduction and the subversion of power in the modern world. It provokes questions about the ways we design, build, and imagine our environment, and the ways in which architecture can confine or liberate our lives.Markus, Thomas A. is the author of 'Buildings & Power Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building Types' with ISBN 9780415076654 and ISBN 041507665X.