Boredom is a ubiquitous feature of modern life. Endured by everyone, it is both cause and effect of modernity, and of situations, spaces and surroundings. As such, this book argues, boredom shares an intimate relationship with architecture-one that has been seldom explored in architectural history and theory.

Boredom, Architecture, and Spatial Experience investigates that relationship, showing how an understanding of boredom affords us a new way of looking at and understanding the modern experience. It reconstructs a series of episodes in architectural history, from the 19th century to the present, to survey how boredom became a normalized component of the everyday, how it infiltrated into the production and reception of architecture, and how it serves to diagnose moments of crisis in the continuous transformations of the built environment.

Erudite and innovative, the work moves deftly from architectural theory and philosophy to literature and psychology to make its case. Combining archival material, scholarly sources, and illuminating excerpts from conversations with practitioners and thinkers-including Charles Jencks, Rem Koolhaas, Sylvia Lavin, and Jorge Silvetti-it reveals the complexity and importance of boredom in architecture.

An innovative exploration of boredom in modernity and modern architecture

About the Author
Christian Parreno is Assistant Professor of History and Theory of Architecture at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador.

Reviews
What if architectural creativity is not only grounded in knowledge and skill but equally in a state of mind, a mood? Improbable though the suggestion may be, this original and marvelously well-studied book shows that from the 19th century onward boredom became a force that focused concentration and compelled experimentation. * David Leatherbarrow, University of Pennsylvania, USA *
A fascinating exploration of boredom that builds on 19th-century literary narratives to understand its contemporary spatial manifestations. Parreno meanders through a multitude of boredoms, from the domestic to the monumentally bureaucratic, and from the modern generic to endlessly varied imagery-revealing unexpectedly reassuring aspects of boredom in the process. * Lara Schrijver, University of Antwerp, Belgium *
Parreno liberates scholars from the perils of straightforward interpretations and analysis ... [This book] has the potential to complicate architectural historians' works on use, the user, and the space. It urges architectural historians to historicize not only these categories but also emotions. * Journal of Boredom Studies *



Book Information
ISBN 9781350148130
Author Christian Parreno
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 744g