Book Launch: Form Follows Fuel

About

Join authors Barnabas Calder and Florian Urban for the launch of Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age. 

The book examines 14 buildings throughout architectural history from the point of view of energy and provides a very important perspective on how we consider the role of fossil fuel in the practice of architecture, particularly the shift to modern architecture, and how we re-examine the way architectural history has been written, largely in the absence of energy. 

This event is hosted jointly by Architecture MSci, Architecture and Historic Urban Environments MA, Architectural History MA, and Situated Practice MA. There are two intentions for collaboration in this book launch: for the Architecture MSci, it is an event that joins up all its streams—History and Theory, Technology, and Practice—to show a coherent understanding of architecture.

For the Architecture and Historic Urban Environments MA, it presents an opportunity to address an important, yet often overlooked, perspective on the historical urban environment that is embedded with fossil fuel energy.

Presentations will be followed by Q&A and a reception. 

Speakers

Barnabas Calder is a historian of architecture and Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool, specialising in the relationship between architecture and energy throughout human history. He is the author of Raw Concrete: The Beauty of Brutalism and Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency.

Florian Urban is an architectural historian. He is Professor of Architectural History and Head of History of Architectural and Urban Studies at the Glasgow School of Art.