San Antonio College Library

"The fine arts are traditionally seen to have intrinsic value: that is, they are valuable in themselves. But this poses a problem for architecture: its works are designed to serve our purposes, and therefore it is classed as functional. Carving out a new space, Edward Winters argues why architecture is a fine art and finds a place for the fine art of architecture in the cultural environment in which we structure our lives. Winters reconciles intrinsic...

"Through hundreds of images and numerous contemporary case studies, the book shows that where structure is thoroughly integrated into the making of architecture, it adds layers of richness to a design and enhances the realization of architectural design concepts. New insights into the role of structure arise by focusing upon the intersection where the technical and the aesthetic meet to create the discipline of 'architecture'."--Jacket.

A study of architecture examines how we both shape and are shaped by our private homes and public edifices and explains how our stylistic choices can be used to increase our chances of happiness. "The Architecture of Happiness is a dazzling and generously illustrated journey through the philosophy and psychology of architecture and the indelible connection between our identities and our locations. One of the great but often unmentioned causes of...

"This book brings together for the first time the work of four Swiss engineers and their teachers who form the most impressive group of structural artists in the twentieth century: Wilhelm Ritter (1847-1906), Robert Maillart (1872-1940), Othmar Ammann (1879-1965), Pierre Lardy (1902-1956), Heinz Isler (b. 1926), and Christian Menn (b. 1927)." "David P. Billington, who pioneered the integration of the liberal arts into engineering education, argues...

"In Home from Nowhere Kunstler explores the growing movement across America to restore the physical dwelling place of our civilization. Picking up where The Geography of Nowhere left off, Kunstler describes precisely how the American Dream of a little cottage in a natural landscape mutated into today's sprawling automobile suburb in all its ghastliness, and why "we are going to run shrieking from it to a better world." He locates in our national psychology...

"The engraver and designer Giovanni Battista Piranesi published this lively three-part defense of Roman architectural "invention" in 1765, just as the "beautiful and noble simplicity" of ancient Greek art was becoming a tenet of Western aesthetics. An impassioned plea for a Roman-Style eclecticism that draws freely on all artistic forms and traditions, Piranesi's Observations anticipates the contemporary debate between devotees of a rational, minimal...