Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning

Daniel A. Barber

Published by Princeton University Press 2020

Modern Architecture and Climate

Design before Air Conditioning

Daniel A. Barber

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691204949

Overview
Contents

About this book

How climate influenced the design strategies of modernist architects

Modern Architecture and Climate explores how leading architects of the twentieth century incorporated climate-mediating strategies into their designs, and shows how regional approaches to climate adaptability were essential to the development of modern architecture. Focusing on the period surrounding World War II—before fossil-fuel powered air-conditioning became widely available—Daniel Barber brings to light a vibrant and dynamic architectural discussion involving design, materials, and shading systems as means of interior climate control. He looks at projects by well-known architects such as Richard Neutra, Le Corbusier, Lúcio Costa, Mies van der Rohe, and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and the work of climate-focused architects such as MMM Roberto, Olgyay and Olgyay, and Cliff May. Drawing on the editorial projects of James Marston Fitch, Elizabeth Gordon, and others, he demonstrates how images and diagrams produced by architects helped conceptualize climate knowledge, alongside the work of meteorologists, physicists, engineers, and social scientists. Barber describes how this novel type of environmental media catalyzed new ways of thinking about climate and architectural design.

Extensively illustrated with archival material, Modern Architecture and Climate provides global perspectives on modern architecture and its evolving relationship with a changing climate, showcasing designs from Latin America, Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa. This timely and important book reconciles the cultural dynamism of architecture with the material realities of ever-increasing carbon emissions from the mechanical cooling systems of buildings, and offers a historical foundation for today’s zero-carbon design.

Author / Editor information

Daniel A. Barber is associate professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. He is the author of A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War. He lives in Philadelphia.

Reviews

"A significant contribution to architectural history and theory."—Jiat-Hwee Chang, author of A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonial Networks, Nature, and Technoscience

"Barber raises important issues regarding modern architecture and its relationship with climate control. This is a book that every architect, architectural historian, and interior designer should read."—Fernando Luiz Lara, coauthor of Modern Architecture in Latin America: Art, Technology, and Utopia

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Architecture, Media, and Climate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	2
Part I. The Globalization of the International Style
1. Obstacles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
2. Risks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
3. Tests Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
Part II. The American Acceleration
4. Control Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
5. Calculation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
6. Conditioning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	246
The Planetary Interior Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	270
Acknowlegments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	276
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	298
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309
Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317

Language: English
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Audience: General/trade;Professional and scholarly;College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 328
Illustrations
- Other: 76 color + 196 b/w illus.
Keywords: global warming; climate change; Greta Thunberg; Kiel Moe; Convergence; sustainable design; eco design; ecological design; ecofriendly; urban design; landscape architecture; heating and cooling; cold climate house design; house design for tropical climate; passive design strategies; LEED; Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design; H-VAC; HVAC; climate responsive design; Seagrams Building; UNESCO building; fossil fuels; energy efficiency

eBook

Published: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 9780691204949