Interweaving architecture, philosophy and cultural history, Materials and Meaning in Architecture develops a rich and multi-dimensional exploration of materials and materiality, in an age when architectural practice seems otherwise preoccupied with image and visual representation. Table of contents
Introduction
1. Material as Reality Preserve: History, Theory, Design
PART I: Material Theories and Practices
2. John Ruskin (1819-1900): Stones of Architecture
3. Loos (1870-1933): Not the Material but What is Done With It
4. Time Silted Up: Scarpa at the Castelvecchio Museum (1958-64) and Brion Cemetery (1969-1977)
5. Pool and Cave: Zumthor's Thermal Baths at Vals (1996)
6. Terminal Jewel: Williams & Tsien's Folk Art Museum (2001)
7. Tectonic Shifts: Miralles' Arts & Crafts Ecstasy at the Scottish Parliament (2004)
PART II: Narrating Materials and Meaning
8. Words of Desire: Envisaging Architecture
9. Human Touch: The Enduring Warmth of Wood
10. Fire and Wind: The Appeal of Baking Bricks
11. Wild at Heart: Concrete as Liquid Stone
12. Imaging Rationality: The Resolute Modernity of Steel
13. Transparency: A Darker Shade of Glass
PART III: Place and Discipline
14. Form is Content: Against Interpretation
15. Paradoxes of Place and Discipline: Tradition as the Ground of Radical Invention