Examining discomfort's physical, emotional, conceptual, psychological and aesthetic dimensions, the contributors to this volume offer an alternate, cultural approach to the study of architecture and the built environment. By attending to a series of disparate instances in which architecture and discomfort intersect, On Discomfort offers a fresh reading of the negotiations that define architecture's position in modern culture. The essays do not chart comfort's triumph so much as discomfort's curious dispersal into practices that form 'modern life' - and what that dispersion reveals of both architecture and culture.

The essays presented in this volume illuminate the material culture of discomfort as it accrues to architecture and its history. This episodic analysis speaks to a range of disciplinary fields and interdisciplinary subjects, extending our understanding of the domestication of interiors (and objects, cities and ideas); and the conditions under which - by intention or accident - they discomfort.

About the Author

David Ellison is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. His research focuses on the literary and cultural histories of Victorian domesticity.

Andrew Leach is Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney, Australia. Among his books are What is Architectural History? (2010), The Baroque in Architectural Culture 1880-1980 (2015, with John Macarthur and Maarten Delbeke) and Rome (2016).

Book Information
ISBN 9781138601543
Author David Ellison
Format Paperback
Page Count 150
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 267g