Architecture From Prehistory to Climate Emergency

Architecture From Prehistory to Climate Emergency

A groundbreaking history of architecture told through the relationship between buildings and energy.

The story of architecture is the story of humanity. The buildings we live in, from the humblest pre-historic huts to today's skyscrapers, reveal our priorities and ambitions, our family structures and power structures. And to an extent never explored until now, architecture has been shaped in every era by our access to energy, from fire to farming to fossil fuels. In this ground-breaking history of world architecture, Barnabas Calder takes us on a dazzling tour of some of the most astonishing buildings of the past fifteen thousand years, from Uruk, via Ancient Rome and Victorian Liverpool, to China's booming megacities. He reveals how every building - from the Parthenon to the Great Mosque of Damascus to a typical Georgian house - was influenced by the energy available to its architects, and why this matters.

Today architecture consumes so much energy that 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from the construction and running of buildings. If we are to avoid catastrophic climate change then now, more than ever, we need beautiful but also intelligent architecture, and to retrofit - not demolish - the buildings we already have.

Reviews

Provocative, enlightening... Calder is the perfect guide around some of mankind's most substantial achievements, but never swerves away from asking hard questions -- Best Books of 2021 ― Herald

[An] engaging study... It has something of the appeal of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel - that of grounding historical mysteries in material facts... Partly a hymn or elegy to the world that fossil fuels made, partly a warning of the disasters they are bringing... Calder makes a simple and important point, often with engaging and unexpected detail: architecture is indeed made by energy, which makes crucial the next stage of its evolution -- Rowan Moore ― Observer

A survey of construction and its entanglement with energy use... Superb ― Financial Times

An essential read: clarifying, alarming, but hopeful ― Architects' Journal

An insightful, often impassioned journey through the history of buildings -- Simon Ings ― New Scientist

[A] powerful, disturbing account of architecture and energy since ancient times -- Andrew Robinson ― Nature

Calder has written an energetic global history of architecture - energetic both in the vim he brings to a colossal subject, and in its particular focus... For the general reader, it's an entertaining and original introduction to the history of architecture. For the architect, it helpfully sets the daunting challenges of our day in lively and inspiring context

-- Will Wiles ― RIBA

A highly readable world history of architecture... This book will help to reinforce the crucial role of architecture in tackling the climate crisis -- Catherine Croft ― RIBA Journal

Calder's brilliant book [...arises from] a truly astonishing depth and breadth of research [...and] develops a new frame for architectural writing which frankly makes some of the previous architectural histories look at best parochial, or at worst irrelevant in the face of the global climate crisis -- Professor Jeremy Till ― Buildings and Cities

Brave and brilliant, Barnabas Calder's Architecture is a global history and a call to arms -- William Whyte, Professor of Social and Architectural History, University of Oxford

Finally a book to replace Pevsner's standard history of architecture. Calder retells the story of architecture for the climate change generation. A dazzling tour of the history of architecture told through the lens of energy use -- Dr. James W. P. Campbell, Head of Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge

With this fascinating deep dive into the energy economies behind buildings, from bone huts to the Barbican, Calder reframes the entire history of architecture for the age of climate emergency. Through this prism, our time of crisis suddenly makes so much sense -- Joe Giddings, Architects Climate Action Network

About the author

Barnabas Calder is a historian of architecture and Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool, specializing in the relationship between architecture and energy throughout human history. He also works on British architecture since 1945, and is the author of Raw Concrete: The Beauty of Brutalism.