The monumental impulse
Subtitle: architecture's biological roots
By: George Hersey.
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 244
Subjects: Architecture -- Philosophy; Architectural design; Nature (Aesthetics); Architecture and society
Description: Humans owe an immense architectural debt to other species. The first hexagons humans saw may have been in honeycombs, the first skyscrapers termitaries (termite high-rises), and the first tents those of African weaver ants. In The Monumental Impulse, art historian George Hersey investigates many ties between the biological sciences and the building arts. Natural building materials such as wood and limestone, for example, originate in biological processes.

Much architectural ornament borrows from botany and zoology. Hersey draws striking analogies between building types and animal species. He examines the relationship between physical structures and living organisms, from bridges to mosques, from molecules to mammals.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [207]-232) and index.