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CREATIVITY :: DESIGN :: SCIENCE :: HISTORY :: PSYCHOLOGY :: ART
“‘Ideas’ that really change the practical art of architecture are not just the relatively few grand philosophical bodies of thought that shape civilizations, but frequently altogether more humble ideas like a brick or reinforcing concrete with rods of steel. Everything that humans make begins, ultimately, with an idea: not, perhaps, those we think of as patentable — the kind cartoonists like to represent as a bulb flashing in a scientist’s head — but as a guiding concept that, for example, tells a stonemason how to shape and place stone on stone to create an arch which, as if by magic, makes it possible to defy gravity and make an opening in a wall.”
RIchard Weston traces the most influential cornerstones of architectural ideology and practice, arranged chronologically, from the fireplace (idea #1) to the term “the everyday” (idea #100), by way of the arch (idea #10), symmetry (idea #25), utopia (idea #32), the elevator (idea #49), empathy (idea #55), “less is more” (idea #74), and sustainability (idea #95).