Why We Build

We are living in one of the most dramatic periods in modern architectural history: a time when cityscapes are being redrawn annually, architects are testing the very idea of what a building is, and whole cities are being invented overnight. In this bold and wideranging work, Rowan Moore-former director of the Architecture Foundation and now a leading architecture critic-explores the reasons behind these changes, and how they in turn are changing the way we live, demonstrated through a series of dramatic examples. Moore explores the High Line in New York City; the outrageous island experiment of Dubai; the Covent Garden brothels of eighteenthcentury London; the fetishistic minimalism of Adolf Loos; a software magnate's grandiose mansion in Atlanta; Daniel Libeskind's failed design for the World Trade Center site; and the deeply naturalistic work of Lina Bo Bardi, whom he celebrates as the most underrated architect of the modern era.