Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture

Academic discourse are the words that immediately come to mind when reading this work. Forty (history of architecture, Bartlett Sch. of Architecture, UK) is keenly interested in the relationship between architecture and language as complex social practices. Part 1 consists of six original essays inquiring into "the spoken and written language of modern architecture." These essays consider the language of modernism, language and drawing, masculine and feminine architecture, language metaphors, science in architecture, and the social properties of architecture. Part 2 is a "dictionary" of essays exploring the historical framework and theoretical meaning of 18 words that form the "core vocabulary of modernist architectural criticism." The scholarly text is well documented with footnotes and black-and-white illustrations. Recommended for large academic and specialized library collections.