An exploration of technology’s role in architecture and humanity’s understanding of nature.

In Mechanics and Meaning in Architecture, Lance LaVine shows that in architecture, as practiced and taught today, the technological aspect of the profession—how weight is distributed, how heat flow is regulated, and how light is permitted to enter—has been ceded to engineers and other technical specialists. And in doing so, he argues, architects have lost sight of one of architecture’s most important purposes, that of providing a literal and figurative window onto the world.