The green light

摘要

This is a serious book on ecology, but not one of those printed on recycled paper. Beautifully designed and produced, it has a celebratory tone, rather than the accusatory one of the 'deep' ecologists. The time has come, author James Steele says, for architectural sustainability to be brought into the historical mainstream, now that 'yesterday's eccentricities are today's legal requirements'. Ecological considerations, 'generally excluded from histories of architecture', are evident, he says, in the work of many famous architects, not all of them known for green design. He offers some surprises. Hassan Fathy and Ken Yeang - of course. But Buckminster Fuller? Rudolf Schindler? Le Corbusier?