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Writing Architecture #7
Fire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy
Architecture and fire, construction and combustion, meet in this poetic treatise on energy in building.
In Fire and Memory, Luis Fernández-Galiano reconstructs the movement from cold to warm architecture, from building fire to building a building with and for fire, through what he calls a metaphorical plundering of disciplines as diverse as anthropology and economics, and in particular of ecology and thermodynamics. Beginning with the mythical fire in the origins of architecture and moving to its symbolic representation in the twentieth century, Galiano develops a theoretical dialogue between combustion and construction that ranges from Vitruvius to Le Corbusier, from the mechanical and organic to time and entropy. Galiano points out that energy, so important to the origin of architectural theory in Vitruvius's time, has been absent from architectural theory since the introduction of the dictatorship of the eye over that of the skin. With Fire and Memory, he reintroduces energy to the discussion of architecture and reminds us that the sense of touch is as necessary to an understanding of the environment as the sense of sight.
In Fire and Memory, Luis Fernández-Galiano reconstructs the movement from cold to warm architecture, from building fire to building a building with and for fire, through what he calls a metaphorical plundering of disciplines as diverse as anthropology and economics, and in particular of ecology and thermodynamics. Beginning with the mythical fire in the origins of architecture and moving to its symbolic representation in the twentieth century, Galiano develops a theoretical dialogue between combustion and construction that ranges from Vitruvius to Le Corbusier, from the mechanical and organic to time and entropy. Galiano points out that energy, so important to the origin of architectural theory in Vitruvius's time, has been absent from architectural theory since the introduction of the dictatorship of the eye over that of the skin. With Fire and Memory, he reintroduces energy to the discussion of architecture and reminds us that the sense of touch is as necessary to an understanding of the environment as the sense of sight.
- GenresArchitecture
325 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 4, 2020
"Fire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy" (Madrid: Alianza Forma, 1991 / Boston MIT Press 2000), by Luis Fernández-Galiano is a captivating book in text and images, in which the author covers the role of fire in the history of architecture, drawing on disciplines as diverse as anthropology and economics, and in particular ecology and thermodynamics. Fernández-Galiano proposes a dialogue between combustion and construction that starts with the hypothesis that the process of visual homogenization that we associate with modernity has a parallel in a process of thermal homogenization, following the transfer from the traditional preponderance of fire as the focus of the room, preserved in Castilian in the idea of "hogar" both a home and a fireplace.
February 26, 2022
Alot of interesting scientific and epistemic history but he jumps around topics way too quickly for much to resonate. It's also still so tiring to pontificate about Corb versus Wright. Still useful as a rapid survey investigation of physical histories and architecture.
August 3, 2011
As a work of history, this book is useful and well-considered. As a work of theory (as which it is billed merely by its inclusion in the "Writing Architecture" series published by MIT Press) it is shallow and quite frankly too long. Fernandez-Galiano gives away the secret too soon (in the first chapter) then loses focus as he grounds it historically.
His argument is here that there are two ways that modern architecture can relate to the thermal homogeneity enabled by advanced climate control systems: (1) the recentering of Frank Lloyd Wright, in which the hearth regains its former prominence in the home, and (2) the approach of Le Corbusier's brise soleil, which sees thermal comfort as dependent upon the sun's movement. Fernandez-Galiano makes this conjecture in the first thirty pages, then spends two hundred more giving it historical grounding.
The conjecture is sound, the storytelling faulted. Leave us in some suspense!
His argument is here that there are two ways that modern architecture can relate to the thermal homogeneity enabled by advanced climate control systems: (1) the recentering of Frank Lloyd Wright, in which the hearth regains its former prominence in the home, and (2) the approach of Le Corbusier's brise soleil, which sees thermal comfort as dependent upon the sun's movement. Fernandez-Galiano makes this conjecture in the first thirty pages, then spends two hundred more giving it historical grounding.
The conjecture is sound, the storytelling faulted. Leave us in some suspense!
January 13, 2015
Difficult to understand through the back and forth rhetoric but once the writing style was better understood the historical study outlined in this book is thought provoking and informative to how we have reached our modern day use of buildings and fossil fuels.
January 12, 2010
I am only a few pages in and I had to stop and say here that this book is a beautiful read. Informative and beautifully written(translated)
September 11, 2012
thoughtful and thought provoking poetic meditations on architecture - if you like Bachelard, you'll like this
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews