A clearly distilled architectural atlas based on 144 major designs
from ancient times to the twenty-first century, showcasing the cultural
dimension of building.
However disparate the style or ethos, beneath architecture's pluralism
lies a number of categorical typologies. In Thinking Design, Austrian
architect Andreas Lechner has condensed his profound typological
understanding into a single book.
Divided into three chapters--Tectonics, Type, and Topos--Lechner's book
reflects upon twelve fundamental typologies: theater, museum, library,
state, office, recreation, religion, retail, factory, education,
surveillance, and hospital. Encompassing a total of 144 carefully
selected examples of classic designs and buildings, ranging across an
epic sweep from antiquity to the present, the book not only explains the
fundamentals of collective architectural knowledge but traces the
interconnected reiterations that lie at the heart of architecture's
transformative power.
As such, Thinking Design outlines a new building theory rooted in the
act of composition as an aesthetic determinant of architectural form.
This emphasis on composition in the design process over the more
commonplace aspects of function, purpose, or atmosphere makes it more
than a mere planning manual. It reveals also the cultural dimension of
architecture that gives it the ability to transcend not only use cycles
but entire epochs. Each example is meticulously illustrated with a newly
drawn elevation or axonometric projection, floor plan, and section, not
only invigorating the underlying ideas but also making the book an ideal
comparative compendium.
