Architecture, Craft and Culture

Book excerpt: "This small book, concerning both material culture and the history of ideas in architecture, recalls the pensive meditations of Alvar Aalto, Peter Zumthor and Alvaro Siza, similar architect-teachers to whom Tuomey refers." "At once philosophical and poetic, Tuomey's argument is bookended by two juxtapositions: firstly, the strange relationship between the autonomous aspects of architecture, such as the discipline of structure, on the one hand, and the vernacular tradition of construction and craft on the other. Secondly, the tension between what Seamus Heany calls, 'two orders of knowledge, the practical and the poetic', which Tuomey seeks to reconcile as a sense of personal duty to the ethical function of architecture."--BOOK JACKET.