Harry francis mallgrave biography of abraham

The Architect's Brain: Neuroscience, Creativity, and Architecture is the first book to consider the relationship between the neurosciences and architecture.

He received his PhD in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and has enjoyed a career as a scholar, translator, editor, and architect. He has published more than a dozen books on architectural history and theory, including three considering the relevance of the new humanistic and biological models for the practice of design. Michal Matlon: Nikos Salingaros said that most of what is usually called architectural theory is not really a theory, since it holds no predictive value about the impact of the built environment on people.

And with the increasing introduction of scientific research as an input into the decision making of architects today, do we need to change the definition of architectural theory as such? Rationalization or reasoning explains why something is done in a particular way. The underlying problem, however, is more than semantic. The blight of glass towers that have overtaken our global cities today — and no one will deny that their proliferation has indeed become malignant — is cultural failure, but it is also a professional failure of designers to keep up with the times, as it were.

An Introduction to Architectural Theory: to the Present.

When optical studies and new color theories were proffered in the first few decades of the twentieth century, artists and architects jumped at the chance to explore virgin terrain. Over the last thirty or forty years we have learned more about ourselves and our biological and cultural dimensions than we have in all of human history before us, yet most architectural programs have scarcely taken notice.

Our glass boxes, hard environments, offer not the slightest gesture to human dignity or the quality of life, yet the profession at large seems powerless to challenge present materials or building practices. These gray and mirrored markers pollute our skylines, snarl vehicular traffic, intensify wind gusts, create heat sinks, and bring emptiness to the sidewalks below.

And, as the recent pandemic portends, they will likely never again achieve full occupancy in a society going ever more virtual. Our glass boxes — hard environments — offer not the slightest gesture to human dignity or the quality of life, yet the profession at large seems powerless to challenge present materials or building practices.

Our corporate elites meet each year in Davos and other locales to place their bets on new technologies and so-called smart cities, yet there is one important question that no one has ever thought to ask. Is it not time to consider what our present building practices, materials, and creeds — all predicated on the outmoded aesthetic standards of a century ago — contribute to our current ecological, climate, and social problems?

Technology has limits in what it can bring to the quality of life.