Fire and Memory

"In Fire and Memory, Luis Fernandez-Galiano reconstructs the historical, theoretical, and contemporary relationship between architecture and energy, calling on disciplines as diverse as anthropology and economics, and in particular on ecology and thermodynamics. Beginning with the mythical fire at the origins of architecture and moving to its symbolic representation in the twentieth century, Galiano develops a theoretical dialogue between combustion and construction that ranges from Vitruvius to Le Corbusier, from the mechanical and organic to time and entropy. Galiano points out that energy, so important to the origins of architectural theory in Vitruvius's time, has been absent from such theory since the introduction of the "dictatorship of the eye" over the other senses. With Fire and Memory, he reintroduces energy to the discussion of architecture and reminds us that the sense of touch is as necessary to an understanding of the environment as the sense of sight."--BOOK JACKET.