CONTENTS Preface xii 1. Architecture Discovers Fire 2 Construction and Combustion in the Oven and the Hearth On matter and energy 3 architecture between mud and breath The building as an exosomatic artifact 5 a process containing processes The hut and the bonfire 7 built order, combustible disorder Fire in the childhood of architecture 9 myths of origin, foundation rites Fire in the architecture of childhood 15 nostalgias and dreams Besides the fire that dwells in buildings, the fire that builds the dwelling 17 The clockwork sun and the unpredictable fire 22 cosmologies and cosmogonies A philosophical building and two building philosophies 24 Solar Le Corbusier, igneous Wright 2. The Heating of the World, from Newton to Carnot 34 From Celestial Mechanics to Eanhly Thermodynamics The mechanistic paradigm and thermodynamics35 trajectories and processes Newtonian architectures 38 cenotaph and Panopticon, symbol and function of mechanism The challenge of a strange science 39 necessity and chance in the face of fire and orbits Thermodynamics of the first principle 47 Joule and the culture of energy Thermodynamics of the second principle 49 Clausius and the culture of entropy Time and entropy w irreversibility and duration Entropy, order, probability, information 55 Darwin versus Carnot? 3. Architecture, Memory, and Entropy: Amnesia or History 62 Morphological Persistence: Lazy Forms and Obstinate Time Energy that accumulates as information63 the memory of matter From the amnesia of modernity to architecture as a support for memory 61 The transmission of information 70 the genetic and the cultural channels The Lamarckian evolution of culture and the fallacy of biological analogies 72 Architectural genotypes and phenotypes 76 power and risks of the metaphor The energy that flows to maintain conformation 79 the heteronomy of the built domain Architecture and entropy 87 for a theory of rehabilitation Obstinate time and the restoration of buildings, according to Alberti 92 The consistence of form 94 homeostasis and hysteresis 4. Paradigms of Life and Thermodynamic Architectures 100 Heliotechnology, Bioclimatism, Rehabilitation : Between Energy and Entropy The architecture of energy 101 new organicism, or new functionalism? Life and entropy102 organisms as open tbermodynamic systems The architecture of the first principle 104 heliotechnic mechanicism Cultures of entropy 112 Georgesaispessimism and Prigogine's optimism The debate on dissipative structures as a new paradigm 114 Architectures of the second principle119 bioclintatism and rehabilitation Thermodynamic architectures confronting time and function 124 5. Organisms and Mechanisms, Metaphors of Architecture128 Mechanical, Thermal and Cybernetic Machines versus the Living and the Built On the fraternity between buildings, living beings, and machines129 Mechanical organisms 131 from the bete machine to the automaton From the clock to the steam machine 139 thermodynamic Freud From the engine to the servomechanism 141 a cybernetic anthropology Organic mechanisms 145 mechanical machines and mechanizing machines Living machines 152 benveen the golem and the cultural fact Mechanical Weight, organic Le Corbusier158 the biotechnical unanimity Mechanical cathedrals164 the functional machine and the symbolic machine Environment and form 173 between tabula rasa and the memory of place 6. Energy as the Currency of Nature: A Genealogy180 From Social Energetics to the Construction of an Ecological Economy Energy accounting, from myth to tool181 The prehistory of calculation182 Physiocrats and the tableau oeconomique Energy equivalences, from Rumford to Joule 183 energy, currency of physics Awareness of scarcity and waste in Jevons's Coal Question 187 The heyday of energy theories, from Rankine to Ostwald191 Between physical and biological economics 194 Geddes and the vital budget Social energetics, from Soddy to Mumford197 Energy flows in the ecosystem, between Lotka and Lindeman 202 Toward an ecological economy 207 Georgescu's entropy and Odum's power 7. Thermal Space in Architecture 272 Construction and Combustion, from Vitruvim to Le Corbusier The silent place and the silent hearth 213 from primitive fire to thermal muteness From the central hearth and the brazier to the chimney 214 thermal comfort and private space Smoke doctors and glass doctors 220 fireplaces, stoves, greenhouses Panopticon or panthermicon226 homogenization and quantification Prisons and parliaments 233 practical developments and theoretical contributions Visual homogeneity, thermal homogeneity 241 the age of the tube and the exile of fire Functional neutrality and symbolic eloquence 251 thermal space in Wright and Le Corbusier The cultural crossroads 257 excess and entropy Notes 262 Bibliography 306 Index of names 314