Chambers for a Memory Palace

by Lyndon, Donlyn; Moore, Charles W.

• ISBN13: 9780262621052
• ISBN10: 0262621053
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-02-28
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• More Book Details

Summary

This collaboration between two distinguished architects and former colleagues is a joyous celebration of admired places and a thoughtful consideration of the role that design has played in giving these places their memorable qualities. It is also an invitation to readers to inhabit the chambers of the book with their own imaginations to join in the making of the Memory Palace proposed. The authors' informal, witty, and anecdotal style extends to the illustrations - the freehand travel sketches, line drawings, and watercolors of places they have remembered and enjoyed. Chambers for a Memory Palaceconsists of an exchange of letters in which one author recalls and the other responds to the elements considered essential to the art of successful place-making. Each of the book's chapters forms a chamber, and each chamber is inscribed with personal observations on the composition of places and the architectural elements central to each building, garden, court, monument, or open space described. The examples considered in these dialogues range from classic Western tradition to Asian temples and Islamic tombs, from ancient ruins to modern cities. In "Axes that Reach/Paths that Wander," Lyndon and Moore discuss the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, the Taj Mahal in Agra, Vaux le Vicomte in France, the Beverly Hills Civic Center, and the Kimbell Museum in Forth Worth. In "Orchards that Measure/Pilasters that Temper," they consider the rhythmic spacing of elements in the Mosque at Cordoba, the Cathedral at Bourges, the thousand-pillared mandapas of South Indian temples, the facades of Schauspielhaus in Berlin, and the Seagram building in New York City. They use these and many other examples to illustrate the ways in which architecture, experience, and memory intertwine to help us experience events and places.

Author Biography

Charles W. Moore, one of America's best known architects, is O'Neil Ford Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Axes that Reach / Paths that Wander	p. 2
Orchards that Measure / Phasters that Temper	p. 28
Platforms that Separate / Slopes that Join / Stairs that Climb and Pause	p. 50
Borders that Control / Walls that Layer / Pockets that Offer Choice and Change	p. 78
Openings that Frame / Portals that Bespeak	p. 98
Roofs that Encompass / Canopies that Center	p. 122
Markers that Command / Allies that Inhabit	p. 148
Light that Plays / Shadow that Haunts / Shade that Lulls	p. 176
Rooms that Define / Space that Leaks Up Into the Light	p. 192
Types that Recur / Order that Comes and Goes	p. 214
Shapes that Remind / Ornament that Transmits, Transforms, and Encodes	p. 230
Gardens that Civilize	p. 252
Water that Pools and Connects	p. 264
Images that Motivate	p. 282
Postscript: The Castillo de Gargonza	p. 296
Index	p. 311
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