Netsurfer Recommendations

Why Buildings Stand Up: The Strength of Architecture
Mario Salvadori
W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 0393306763

We've always liked those little tidbits of terribly obvious facts that suddenly take on a fascinating significance when someone actually mentions them. The tall building, for instance, even the very modest early ones, could not have been built until someone invented the elevator. Of course! We knew that all along; we just didn't know we knew it until someone told us that we did. So, along comes Columbia University's Mario Salvadori, who, much as James Burke does, lays one brick of knowledge on another to build a body. He introduces us to the earliest architects for whom, as he puts it, "a permanent hearth became the center of the home". He notes that the dome of the Hagia Sophia, Constantinople's glorious church, fell twice before its builders found the formula that has held it in place for 15 centuries. The soaring cathedral vaults raised nearly a thousand years later were also built on trial and error. Intriguingly, errors still happen, revealing all too clearly the physics that we trust every day in our towns and cities, from lowly frame home to the low-rise that houses our doctor's office, from Kuala Lumpur's Petronas towers to the ice hockey rink in rural Minnesota or the sectional roof of Toronto's Skydome. Every shelter depends on our recognition of physical principles and their predictability. This classic text reminds us of all the things we take for granted and all the wonders hidden in them.