1st Edition

Architecture and the Body, Science and Culture

Edited By Kim Sexton Copyright 2018
    280 Pages 50 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    280 Pages 50 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    The relationship of architecture to the human body is a centuries-long and complex one, but not always symmetrical. This book opens a space for historians of the visual arts, archaeologists, architects, and digital humanities professionals to reflect upon embodiment, spatiality, science, and architecture in premodern and modern cultural contexts.

    Architecture and the Body, Science and Culture poses one overarching question: How does a period’s understanding of bodies as objects of science impinge upon architectural thought and design? The answers are sophisticated, interdisciplinary explorations of theory, technology, symbolism, medicine, violence, psychology, deformity, and salvation, and they have unexpected and fascinating implications for architectural design and history. The new research published in this volume reinvigorates the Western survey-style trajectory from Archaic Greece to post‐war Europe with scientifically‐framed, body‐centred provocations.

    By adding the third factor—science—to the architecture and body equation, this book presents a nuanced appreciation for architectural creativity and its embeddedness in other sets of social, institutional and political relationships. In so doing, it spatializes body theory and ties it to the experience of the built environment in ways that disturb traditional boundaries between the architectural container and the corporeally contained.

    Introduction: Architecture, the Body, and Science Kim Sexton 1. Architecture Before the Body? Lian Chang  2. Healing in Motion Ece Okay  3. The Crafted Bodies of Suger Jason Crow  4. Gothic Skins Laura Hollengreen  5. Hybrid Bodies Move to Center Stage in Medieval Languedoc Catherine Barrett  6. Visceral Space Chloe Costello  7. Soaking in Architecture Lisa Tannenbaum  8. Academic Bodies and Anatomical Architecture in Early Modern Bologna Kim Sexton  9. The Eye of Modernity Tobias Teutenberg  10. Body and Space, Gothic and Cubism Frank Bauer  11. Rehabilitating the Invalid Body Wanda Katja Liebermann  12. Sacred Fortresses Paula Burleigh  Epilogue Kim Sexton  Bibliography.  Index

    Biography

    Kim Sexton is an associate professor of architectural history at the University of Arkansas, USA. Her research focuses on the architecture and urban space of Italian city-states in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. She is the author of articles published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians and The Art Bulletin, and the upcoming book, The Loggia: Living on Stage in Early Modern Italy.