The secret lives of buildings : from the ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in thirteen stories /
A highly original history of Western architecture and the cultural transformations that it represents. Little else made by human hands seems as stable as a building--yet the life of any structure is neither fixed nor timeless. Outliving their original contexts and purposes, buildings are forced to a...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Metropolitan Books,
2009.
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| Edition: | 1st ed. |
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Table of Contents:
- Introduction: the architect's dream
- The Parthenon, Athens: in which a virgin is ruined
- The Basilica of San Marco, Venice: in which a prince steals four horses and an empire
- Ayasofya, Istanbul: in which a sultan casts a spell and moves the center of the world
- The Santa Casa of Loreto: the wondrous flitting of the Holy House
- Gloucester Cathedral: in which a dead body brings a building to life
- The Alhambra, Granada: in which two cousins marry each other
- The Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini: in which a scholar translates a temple
- Sans Souci, Potsdam : in which nothing happens at all
- Notre Dame de Paris: in which the temple of reason is restored
- The Hulme Crescents, Manchester: in which the prophecies of the future are fulfilled
- The Berlin Wall: in which history comes to an end
- The Venetian, Las Vegas: in which history is so, like, over
- The Western Wall, Jerusalem: in which nothing, and everything, has changed.