Spatial Perspectives: Essays on Literature and Architecture (Cultural Interactions: Studies in the Relationship between the Arts)

Description

This interdisciplinary collection explores the dynamic relationship between literature and architecture from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Contributions take the reader on a journey through unexplored byways, from Istanbul to New York to London, from event spaces to domestic interiors to the fictional buildings of the novel. Topics include the building of imaginary spaces, such as the architectural models of comic book worlds created by the cartoonist Seth and the Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, which is both novel and building. Real architectural spaces are recontextualized through literature: reading the work of Louis Kahn through his personal library and envisioning the writing haven of James Baldwin through his novels. Another approach links literary style with architectural form, as in the work of the New York School poets, who reformulate the built environment on the page. Architectural landmarks like Robert Stevenson’s Roundhouse (1847), Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition and the 2012 Olympic Park are reconsidered as counter-narratives of postcolonialism and empire, and the New York skyline is examined alongside literature and visual culture. This collection demonstrates the reciprocal exchange that exists between the disciplines of literature and architecture and promotes new ways of understanding these interactions. Cover Contents List of Illustrations Introduction (Terri Mullholland and Nicole Sierra) Part I. Urban Landscapes: Text and Image Tall Stories: New York Skyscrapersin Art and Literature (Douglas Tallack) Comics and the Architecture of Nostalgia: Seth’s Dominion City (Julian Ferraro) Part II. Architecture as National Literary Event Crystallizing Visions: Glass Architecture in Utopian Literature before and after 1851 (Nathaniel Robert Walker) To The Roundhouse: Returning London Psychogeography (Henderson Downing) Literature and Distraction: Poetic Inscription at the 2012 London Olympics and the 1951 Festival of Britain (Lisa Mullen) Part III. Textual Spaces / Spatial Texts Louis Kahn’s Translation of the Fairy Tale: A Study in Literary-Architectural Interaction (Darren R. Deane) Representation, Refuse and the Urban Context in Orhan Pamuk’s "Museum(s) of Innocence" (Esra Almas) The Tower of Babel: Concrete Poetry and Architecture in Britain and Beyond (Greg Thomas) Part IV. Reading the Domestic Interior ‘Room in the room that you room in?’ Ted Berrigan’s Structures (Yasmine Shamma) No House in the World for James Baldwin: Reading Transnational Black Queer Domesticity in St. Paul-de-Vence (Magdalena J. Zaborowska) Notes on Contributors Index