Architecture - the universal language of place-making - is a rich and diverse subject. It is not possible to contain its many facets in one volume. Supplementing the chapters in Analysing Architecture, each of the volumes of the Analysing Architecture Notebook series is devoted to a theme that benefits from a more lengthy treatment than could be covered in a short chapter of the foundation book. So far, the series has four volume: Metaphor - an exploration of the metaphorical dimensions and potential of architecture: Shadow - the architectural power of withhholding light: Children as Place-Makers - the innate architect in all of us: and Curve - possibilities and problems with deviating from the straight in architecture. Metaphor is the most powerful component of the poetry of architecture. It has been a significant factor in architecture since the earliest periods of human history, when people were finding ways to give order and meaning to the world in which we live. It is arguable that architecture began with the realisation of metaphor in physical form, and that subsequent movements - from Greek to Gothic. Renaissance to Modern Victorian to Vernacular.
- have all been driven by the emergence or rediscovery of different metaphors by which architecture might be generated. Shadows may be insubstantial but they are an important element in architecture. In prehistory times we sought shade as a refuge from the hot sun and chilling rain. Through history, architects have used shadows to draw, to mould form to paint pictures, to orchestrate atmosphere, to indicate the passing of time. as well as to identity place. Shadows vary in character in different climates and play a variety of roles in the ways architects design. Shadows move with the sun and have been used to tell the time of day and season of the year. Sometimes shadow can be the substance of architecture.
As children we make places spontaneously: on the beach, in woodland, around our homes. Those place are evidence of a language of architecture we all share Beginning with the child as seed and agent of the places it makes, initial sections illustrate the key 'verbs' that drive that language of architecture. Later sections look at the core importance of the circle of place, how as children we are drawn to inhabit boxes, and the narrative possibilities that arise when place is linked with imagination. The first step in becoming a professional architect is to re-awaken the innate architect inside each of us. Curve is a divisive issue in architecture. Some architects see curves as expensive and decadent; others as an expression of transcendence - a way that the human mind can express its freedom from everyday pragmatic and economic constraints. Ye others use curves to emulate some of the most beautiful forms in nature or to create astonishingly unnatural curves. This Notebook considers the various authorities to which architects refer for the generation of their curves and the methods they use to create them.
It also considers the aspirations manifest in curvaceous architectural form. Book jacket.