Modern Architecture and Climate: Design Before Air Conditioning

Barber (House in the Sun), a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design, documents in this erudite work the ways modern architecture was used to shape climate control before the development of air conditioning. Heavily illustrated and deeply researched, the first half of the book examines the work of such architects as Le Corbusier (Unité d’Habitation, Briey, France, 1963), Richard Neutra (Northwestern Mutual Fire Insurance Building, Los Angeles, 1951), and Frank Lloyd Wright (Solar Hemicycle House in Middleton, Wis., 1948) and how they employed shading systems, louvers, and indoor/outdoor space to “acclimatize the interior... and thereby to improve the quality of life that would happen within.” Barber argues that future design must focus on alleviating climate change with carbon neutral buildings, and in the book’s second half he examines the evolution of new technologies for more comfortable living, including the Climate Control Project by House Beautiful and the American Institute of Architects, whose purpose was to aid architects in their work by presenting only visualizations of the complexities of climate, and the theoretical, scientific work of the Olgyay brothers and their dome-like Thermoheliodon climate control system. Academics, urban planners, and environmental designers will most appreciate this thought-provoking and detailed volume. (Apr.)