Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The making of shadows is an act as old as architecture itself. From the gloom of the medieval hearth through to the masterworks of modernism, shadows have been an essential yet neglected presence in architectural history. Shadow-Makers tells for the first time the history of shadows in architecture. It weaves together a rich narrative - combining close readings of significant buildings both ancient and modern with architectural theory and art history - to reveal the key places and moments where shadows shaped architecture in distinctive and dynamic ways. It shows how shadows are used as an architectural instrument of form, composition, and visual effect, while also exploring the deeper cultural context - tracing differing conceptions of their meaning and symbolism, whether as places of refuge, devotion, terror, occult practice, sublime experience or as metaphors of the unconscious.Within a chronological framework encompassing medieval, baroque, enlightenment, sublime, picturesque, and modernist movements, a wide range of topics are explored, from Hawksmoor's London churches, Japanese temple complexes and the shade-patterns of Islamic cities, to Ruskin in Venice and Aldo Rossi and Louis Kahn in the 20th century. This beautifully-illustrated study seeks to understand the work of these shadow-makers through their drawings, their writings, and through the masterpieces they built.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In 1923, the architect Le Corbusier defined architecture as the magnificent play of forms defined by light and shadow. While much of the historiography of architecture and design has focused on the importance and control of light, there has been little discussion of the role and meaning of shadows. Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows (Japanese, 1933; Eng. tr, 1977) provided a poetic vision of the contrasts and meanings of darkness and light, but form and composition have been hitherto neglected in the literature. Providing an important exploration on how shadows have been used for a variety of purposes (religious, psychological, spatial), Kite (Welsh School of Architecture, UK) looks at architecture from the Baroque, through 19th-century Gothic revival, to early and late modernity. In a chapter on the architecture of Louis Kahn, Kite highlights the centrality of shadows to the compositional and organizational systems that Kahn employed to define his architecture, its space, and its discourse. This book abounds with black-and-white illustrations supporting and highlighting the nuances of Kite's ideas. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. --Luis E. Carranza, Roger Williams University