Evolution of Designs (Cambridge Urban and Architectural Studies)

Cambridge University Press, 1979. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. Book is clean and has a square, tight binding. Interior pages have rippling and feel a little stiff. Front and back endpapers have light discoloration. interior pages are free from any apparent marks. Dust jacket has wear, small sticker residue on front cover and a price sticker on back cover. This book describes the history of the many analogies which have been made, since the end of the eighteenth century, between biology and the applied arts (with special emphasis on architecture). The first analogies are to do with classification: classificatory methods taken from botany and zoology are applied to the history of architecture. There is then developed an ana-tomical analogy, in which the engineering structure of buildings is compared with the skeleton of the animal. More generally, the idea of the functional coherence or 'correlation of the parts' in the animal body, developed by the anatomist Cuvier, is applied to the same co-ordination which ought to be achieved in 'organic' works of architecture. There is an ecological analogy, which sees the appropriateness of designed objects for their functional purposes as being equivalent to the fitness of animals and plants for their environments. Finally there is a Darwinian or evolutionary analogy, which explains the design of useful objects and buildings, particularly in primitive societies and in the craft tradition, in terms of a sequence of repeated copyings (corresponding to inheritance), with small changes made at each stage ('*variations*), which are then subjected to a testing process when the object is put into use ('selection'). The book lays out these various analogies and examines their effects on architectural and design theory, especially on the theory of the modern movement in architecture. The book you see in the images is the actual book we have for sale. Why pay more? When you buy this book from us, you are helping to support a small brick and mortar family owned store. We have been curating our collection for three generations and currently have over 250,000 volumes in stock. Please feel free to call for more stock.