Edward Hollis

The School of Life

How to Make a Home

A strikingly original, beautifully narrated history of Western architecture and the cultural transformations that it represents Concrete, marble, steel, brick: little else made by human hands seems as stable, as immutable, as a building. Yet the life of any structure is neither fixed nor timeless. Outliving their original contexts and purposes, buildings are forced to adapt to each succeeding age. To survive, they must become shape-shifters. In an inspired refashioning of architectural history, Edward Hollis recounts more than a dozen stories of such metamorphosis, highlighting the way in which even the most familiar structures all change over time into “something rich and strange.” The Parthenon, that epitome of a ruined temple, was for centuries a working church and then a mosque; the cathedral of Notre Dame was “restored” to a design that none of its original makers would have recognized. Remains of the Berlin Wall, meanwhile, which was once gleefully smashed and bulldozed, are now treated as precious relics. Altered layer by layer with each generation, buildings become eloquent chroniclers of the civilizations they’ve witnessed. Their stories, as beguiling and captivating as folktales, span the gulf of history.

From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories

The Secret Lives of Buildings

A brilliant, ambitious follow-up to The Secret Lives of Buildings, in which Hollis turns his focus from the great architectural constructions of the past to the now-vanished chambers they once contained. The rooms we live in are always more than just four walls. As we decorate these spaces and fill them with objects and friends, they shape our lives and become the backdrop to our sense of self. one day, the structures will be gone, but even then, traces of the stories and the memories they contained will persist. In this dazzling work of imaginative reconstruction, edward Hollis takes us to the sites of great abodes now lost to history and piecing together the fragments that remain, re-creates their vanished chambers. From Rome's palatine to the old palace of Westminster and the petit Trianon at Versailles, from the sets of MGM studios in Hollywood to the pavilions of the Crystal palace and the author's own grandmother's sitting room, The Memory Palace is a glittering treasure trove of luminous forgotten places and the alluring people who lived in them.

A Book of Lost Interiors

The Memory Palace

A brilliantly original book that takes us from the colossal achievements of antiquity to their ersatz rebuilding in Las Vegas .

From the Parthenon to the Vega Strip in Thirteen Stories

At a time when work and home life are becoming increasingly blurred, and modern technology brings the realm of the public into what used to be a personal and private space, Ed Hollis looks at what it means to make a home in today's world. Exploring the meaning of private and public space, the importance we place on physical objects and the demands we make of our home environment, How to Make a Home challenges us to re-imagine the concept of home and hearth.

From the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories

Secret Lives of Buildings

Sally Stone

Every built structure has an interior: whether it takes the rough form of a rudimentary shelter, the grey walls of a hospital or the finessed decoration of a one-off residence. We spend most of our time inside buildings. Shut your eyes and you will find yourself in your own interior. You will always be inside. Mastering the language, thinking and history of the interior is critical to understanding and designing spaces. This essential primer transcends the boundaries and genres that often define interiors, providing a comprehensive view of the concepts and vocabulary of interior design. Written as an accessible 'treasury' of principal terms and ideas, Inside Information engages with the past, uncovering the future potential of the interior, and its design. Introduces the reader to 26 key terms, from ante- to zeitgeist. Covers areas of study from the very practical - structures, decoration and sustainability - to the philosophical - gender, space and light. Features sources, ranging from: Le Corbusier to Norman Foster; Jacques Derrida to Noam Chomsky; Virginia Woolf to George Orwell. Highly illustrated with over 100 photographs and drawings.

The Defining Concepts of Interior Design

Inside Information

«Hollis combina una actitud iconoclasta con un brillante estilo para crear una especie de contrahistoria de la arquitectura y narra la biografía posterior de esos ;maravillosos y quiméricos monstruos; que son los edificios.» Washington Post «En el libro de Hollis hay pasión y compromiso; tras leerlo volvemos al mundo más observadores y rebosantes de preguntas.» The Times Literary Supplement Un edificio nace con la expectativa de permanecer para siempre, pero un edificio es un ser voluble: es habitado y modificado, y su existencia habla de una constante y curiosa transformación. Edward Hollis vuelve a imaginar la historia de la arquitectura de una forma radical y hace un seguimiento de trece edificios para revelarnos la historia oculta del Partenón y la Alhambra, de la catedral de Gloucester y Santa Sofía, de Sans Souci y Notre Dame de París, del Templo Malatestiano y Loreto. Pero también explora monumentos recientes, desde los legendarios Hulme Crescents de Manchester hasta el Muro de Berlín y los parques temáticos de fibra de vidrio de Las Vegas.

Edward Hollis

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