A01=Grant Hildebrand
affect theory
architectural choices
architectural forms
architecture
Author_Grant Hildebrand
built environments
Category=AMX
Category=JM
Category=JMH
concealment
danger
design
enticement
environment
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
evolution
evolutionary biology
instinct
interior space
neuroscience
nonfiction
peril
place
psychology
refuge
space
survival competence
survival instincts
visual arts
Product details
- ISBN 9780520215054
- Weight: 726g
- Dimensions: 178 x 254mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jun 1999
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Do survival instincts have anything to do with our architectural choices - our liking for a certain room, a special stairway, a plaza in a particular city? In this engaging study Grant Hildebrand discusses ways in which architectural forms emulate some archetypal settings that humans have found appealing - and useful to survival - from ancient times to the present. Speculating that nature has 'designed' us to prefer certain conditions and experiences, Hildebrand is interested in how the characteristics of our most satisfying built environments mesh with Darwinian selection. In examining the appeal of such survival-based characteristics he cites architectural examples spanning five continents and five millennia. Among those included are the Palace of Minos, the Alhambra, Wells cathedral, the Shinto shrine at Ise, the Piazza San Marco, Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, a Seattle condominium, and recent houses by Eric Owen Moss and Arne Bystrom. Just what characteristics bestow evolutionary benefits? "Refuge and prospect" offer a protective place of concealment close to a foraging and hunting ground.
"Enticement" invites the safe exploration of an information-rich setting where worthwhile discoveries await. "Peril" elicits an emotion of pleasurable fear and so tests and increases our competence in the face of danger: thus the attraction of a skyscraper or a house poised over a vertiginous ravine. "Order and complexity" tease our intuitions for sorting complex information into survival-useful categories. Gracefully written, with excellent illustrations that complement the text, "Origins of Architectural Pleasure" will open the reader's eyes to new ways of seeing a home, a workplace, a vacation setting, even a particular table in a restaurant. It also suggests important design considerations for buildings with a more pressing mandate for human appeal, such as hospitals, retirement homes, and hospices.
Grant Hildebrand is Professor of Architecture and Art History at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the author of The Wright Space: Pattern and Meaning in Frank Lloyd Wright's Houses (1991).
