Concrete and Culture (eBook)

A Material History

Adrian Forty (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2012 | 1. Auflage
335 Seiten
Reaktion Books (Verlag)
978-1-86189-933-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Concrete has been used in arches, vaults, and domes dating as far back as the Roman Empire. Today, it is everywhere—in our roads, bridges, sidewalks, walls, and architecture. For each person on the planet, nearly three tons of concrete are produced every year. Used almost universally in modern construction, concrete has become a polarizing material that provokes intense loathing in some and fervent passion in others.

Focusing on concrete's effects on culture rather than its technical properties, Concrete and Culture examines the ways concrete has changed our understanding of nature, of time, and even of material. Adrian Forty concentrates not only on architects' responses to concrete, but also takes into account the role concrete has played in politics, literature, cinema, labor-relations, and arguments about sustainability. Covering Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, Forty examines the degree that concrete has been responsible for modernist uniformity and the debates engendered by it. The first book to reflect on the global consequences of concrete, Concrete and Culture offers a new way to look at our environment over the past century.

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Despite its ancient Roman origins, concrete is considered the ultimate modern material, used everywhere in construction today: the equivalent of three tonnes of concrete per person on the planet is produced each year. Used in our pavements, roads, tunnels and walls, concrete surrounds us wherever we go and polarizes opinion, provoking intense loathing in some and fervent passion in others.Concrete and Culture breaks new ground by charting concrete's effects on culture since its reinvention in the modern period, examining the ways it has changed our understanding of nature, of time and of materiality. This book discusses architects’ responses to and uses of concrete while also taking into account the role it has played in politics, literature, cinema and labour-relations, as well as in present day arguments about sustainability.Crucial to the construction of some of the world’s most avant-garde buildings but also blamed for making all places look alike, concrete continues to be as controversial as ever. In this book Adrian Forty takes the reader across Europe, North and South America and the Far East, reflecting on the global consequences of the material. Concrete and Culture is a uniquely innovative historical account of the part played by an often despised substance in people’s relationships to their physical surroundings.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.2.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Architektur
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Bauwesen
• ISBN-10: 1-86189-933-5 / 1861899335
• ISBN-13: 978-1-86189-933-0 / 9781861899330