The Old Way of Seeing

This fresh and provocative book answers a question that countless people have asked about our man-made world: How did things get so ugly? We have all admired the natural grace of old buildings and wondered why modern architects seem to have such a hard time creating their equal. We live in a time when only a few gifted and dedicated teams of designers can produce buildings that approach the beauty of these that eighteenth-century carpenters created all by themselves. What went wrong? In this fascinating tour of our buildings and our social history, Jonathan Hale examines the historical moment in the 1830s when builders and architects began to lose their sense of surety about what they were doing. He explores the societal pressures that turned buildings from pure efforts at expression into structures laden with symbols. Most important, he uncovers - in terms the lay reader can easily understand - the principles that animate great architecture, no matter what its style or period. In The