Spectacular VernacularSpectacular Vernacular
the Adobe Tradition
Title rated 0 out of 5 stars, based on 0 ratings(0 ratings)
Book, 1996
Current format, Book, 1996, 2nd ed, No Longer Available.Book, 1996
Current format, Book, 1996, 2nd ed, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsSpectacular Vernacular: The Adobe Tradition celebrates the beauty, variety, and efficiency of traditional adobe architecture in West Africa, Southwest Asia, and the American Southwest. In the severe desert climates of these areas, centuries of working with mud in the construction of homes, mosques, and whole villages have given rise to a remarkable range of styles and forms as visually stunning as any fabled city of myth and imagination - or any postmodern metropolis.
By turns delicate and massive, precise and free-form, indigenous adobe architecture displays a formal richness matched by its technical ingenuity. In this abundantly illustrated book, architectural historian Jean-Louis Bourgeois and photographer Carollee Pelos act as guides to a little-known world, interpreting spectacular structures from Mali, Mauritania, and Burkina Faso to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, and elsewhere. In these images, white arabesques dance on red walls, and abacus-like mud colonnades shield farmers from sun and wind; mud is "twisted" into playful columns, sculpted into ornate facade relief, and massed into lofty towers of majestic mosques. This edition's new afterword discusses adobe politics in New Mexico, and illustrates the authors' own adobe home.
Noted Africanist Basil Davidson contributes an introduction that surveys centuries of interplay between Islam, older cultures, and the deserts of Africa and Asia.
Examines the architectural styles of houses, religious shrines, mosques and other buildings in the desert areas of Africa and Asia
By turns delicate and massive, precise and free-form, indigenous adobe architecture displays a formal richness matched by its technical ingenuity. In this abundantly illustrated book, architectural historian Jean-Louis Bourgeois and photographer Carollee Pelos act as guides to a little-known world, interpreting spectacular structures from Mali, Mauritania, and Burkina Faso to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, and elsewhere. In these images, white arabesques dance on red walls, and abacus-like mud colonnades shield farmers from sun and wind; mud is "twisted" into playful columns, sculpted into ornate facade relief, and massed into lofty towers of majestic mosques. This edition's new afterword discusses adobe politics in New Mexico, and illustrates the authors' own adobe home.
Noted Africanist Basil Davidson contributes an introduction that surveys centuries of interplay between Islam, older cultures, and the deserts of Africa and Asia.
Examines the architectural styles of houses, religious shrines, mosques and other buildings in the desert areas of Africa and Asia
Title availability
About
Contributors
- Photographer
Subject and genre
Details
Publication
- New York : Aperture Foundation, c1996.
Opinion
More from the community
Community lists featuring this title
There are no community lists featuring this title
Community contributions
Community quotations are the opinions of contributing users. These quotations do not represent the opinions of Pima County Public Library.
There are no quotations from this title
Community quotations are the opinions of contributing users. These quotations do not represent the opinions of Pima County Public Library.
There are no quotations from this title
From the community