Architecture as Cosmology examines the precedents, interpretations, and influences of the architecture of one of the great buildings in the history of architecture, Lincoln Cathedral. It analyzes the origin and development of its architectural forms, which were to a great extent unprecedented and were very influential in the development of English Gothic architecture and in conceptions of architecture to the present day. Architecture as Cosmology emphasizes the relation of the architectural forms to medieval philosophy, focusing on the writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1235-53). The architecture is seen as a text of the philosophy, cosmology, and theology of medieval English culture. This book should be useful to anyone interested in architecture, architectural history, architectural theory, Gothic architecture, and medieval philosophy.

The work of Tokyo-based architect Takasaki Masaharu, one of the most exciting and original architects working today, has captivated those interested in individual and animated design. Although his work is not widely known outside his own country, for twenty years he has been creating unusual structures throughout Japan. He recently received an award from the Japan Institute of Architects as the most outstanding young architect in the country. Takasaki's designs combine the organic and the mythological. He describes his architecture as an "environmental being" that connects humanity with the cosmos. These philosophies manifest themselves in his use of egg-shaped forms, diffused light to create mystical interiors, and skewed columns and planes. The eight projects explored in this monograph include Crystal Light in Tokyo, Tamana City Observatory Museum in Kumamoto, Earth Architecture in Tokyo, and Kihoku-cho Astronomical Museum in Kagoshima. Each building is thoroughly described through text, photographs, and drawings. Also included is an illustrated list of the architect's projects and a critical text by Botond Bognar, author of "The Japan Guide".

This fascinating interdisciplinary study reveals connections between architecture, cosmology, and mysticism. Samer Akkach demonstrates how space ordering in premodern Islamic architecture reflects the transcendental and the sublime. The book features many new translations, a number from unpublished sources, and several illustrations. Referencing a wide range of mystical texts, and with a special focus on the works of the great Sufi master Ibn Arabi, Akkach introduces a notion of spatial sensibility that is shaped by religious conceptions of time and space. Religious beliefs about the cosmos, geography, the human body, and constructed forms are all underpinned by a consistent spatial sensibility anchored in medieval geocentrism. Within this geometrically defined and ordered universe, nothing stands in isolation or ambiguity; everything is interrelated and carefully positioned in an intricate hierarchy. Through detailed mapping of this intricate order, the book shows the significance of this mode of seeing the world for those who lived in the premodern Islamic era and how cosmological ideas became manifest in the buildings and spaces of their everyday lives. This is a highly original work that provides important insights on Islamic aesthetics and culture, on the history of architecture, and on the relationship of art and religion, creativity and spirituality.

One of the most fundamental questions asked throughout human history is, “How did the universe come into existence?” Throughout the ages spirituality has provided answers to that question through various mystical cosmologies. Today, science has an answer—the Big Bang theory. But can scientific and spiritual explanations, which are normally considered to be incompatible, co-exist? Is it possible to construct a single comprehensive vision that unites these seemingly divergent approaches to knowledge?The Architecture of the Universe attempts to do just that by extending a contemporary mystical cosmology and merging it with modern-day physics. The result is a new theory of physics, which proposes something more fundamental to the universe than time and space: existence. Emerging out of nothingness, existence serves as the basic component of time and space. Time and space are viewed not just as containers for everything in the universe, but rather as the substance out of which energy and mass arise. This radical viewpoint opens new realms of understanding, shedding light on mysterious aspects of quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity. At the same time the theory creates a vision unifying science and spirituality by linking the infinite transcendent reality with the finite physical universe.Simple explanations along with illustrations make this book easily accessible and an interesting and inspiring read for a wide audience.

Semi-autobiographical discussion of astronomy and astronomers, and history of astronomy and cosmology.--

An exploration of twentieth-century conceptions of time and their relation to artistic form. In Architectures of Time, Sanford Kwinter offers a critical guide to the modern history of time and to the interplay between the physical sciences and the arts. Tracing the transformation of twentieth-century epistemology to the rise of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, Kwinter explains how the demise of the concept of absolute time, and of the classical notion of space as a fixed background against which things occur, led to field theory and a physics of the "event." He suggests that the closed, controlled, and mechanical world of physics gave way to the approximate, active, and qualitative world of biology as a model of both scientific and metaphysical explanation. Kwinter examines theory of time and space in Einstein's theories of relativity and shows how these ideas were reflected in the writings of the sculptor Umberto Boccioni, the town planning schema of the Futurist architect Antonio Sant'Elia, the philosophy of Henri Bergson, and the writings of Franz Kafka. He argues that the writings of Boccioni and the visionary architecture of Sant'Elia represent the earliest and most profound deployments of the concepts of field and event. In discussing Kafka's work, he moves away from the thermodynamic model in favor of the closely related one of Bergsonian duree, or virtuality. He argues that Kafka's work manifests a coherent cosmology that can be understood only in relation to the constant temporal flux that underlies it.