Botanical Architecture - by Paul Dobraszczyk (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

An original call to reorient architecture around our relationship to plants.

When we look at trees, we see a form of natural architecture, and yet we have seemingly always exploited trees to make new buildings of our own. Whereas a tree creates its own structure, humans generally destroy other things to build, with increasingly disastrous consequences. In Botanical Architecture, Paul Dobraszczyk looks closely at how elements of plants--seeds, roots, trunks, branches, leaves, flowers, and canopies--compare with and constitute human-made buildings.

Given the omnipresence of plant life in and around our structures, Dobraszczyk argues that we ought to build as much for plants as for ourselves, understanding that our lives are always totally dependent on theirs. Botanical Architecture offers a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture.

Review Quotes

"Botanical Architecture offers an encyclopedic array of material on the relationship between nature and buildings. Dobraszczyk contextualizes his discussion of architecture by drawing together research in the sciences, social sciences, and engineering, as well as literature, philosophy, film, art installations, and video games. His examples span the globe and the ancient world to the present. Recommended."-- "Choice"

"In pursuing a study of "plants, buildings and us," Paul Dobraszczyk leads us through much of the western canon on this large subject, including Vitruvius, Leonardo, Goethe, Ruskin, and on through Joseph Rykwert's treatise on Adam's house in Paradise.

More than this tour of luminaries, however, Dobraszczyk constructs his thesis through instances of "vegetal" architecture since the turn of the century, with chapters organized around the structure of a tree: Seeds, Roots, Trunks, Branches, Leaves, Flowers, and Canopies. Each section is amplified with examples such as Thomas Heatherwick's "Seed Cathedral" pavilion erected in Shanghai in 2010 (seed); David Chipperfield's 2014 "Sticks and Stones" exhibit in Berlin (trunk); Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård's 2010 "Mirrorcube" in a Swedish forest (branches); Patrick Blanc's "Living Wall" on the Athenaeum Hotel in London, installed in 2009 (leaves); and Grimshaw's bubble-like "biomes" for the Eden Project in Cornwall in 2001 (canopy). This is a thrilling read, and every reference sends one off on a search to learn more. A passage on rhizomes and allusions to anarchic growth evokes Lucien Kroll's "La Memé" student dorms in Louvain; a section on mimicry suggests the absurd "Palm Jumeirah" in Dubai."

-- "Places Journal"

"An impressive, compendious book with a great deal to offer the architecture lover and the plant lover alike, including much that will surprise."-- "Literary Review"

"In this fascinating and wide-ranging book Paul Dobraszczyk takes us on a journey through the intersecting realms of botany and architecture. Botanical Architecture is set to be a pivotal contribution to what we might term the 'vegetal turn' that is now spreading across multiple disciplinary fields ranging from art history to materials science."

--Matthew Gandy, University of Cambridge

"Plants are architects! This is what, with admirable lucidity, Paul Dobraszczyk claims in his new book. Focusing by turns on seeds, roots, trunks, branches, leaves, flowers, canopies, and vegetal communities that include all living beings, Botanical Architecture is a tour d'imagination of thinking with plants."

--Michael Marder, author of "Time Is a Plant"

"With Botanical Architecture, Paul Dobraszczyk shows that many architects have been learning not from Las Vegas but from vegetation--and that the lessons of plant life are endless. From ancient forest homes to medieval floral ornament, from modern green roofs to oxygen gardens in space, Dobraszczyk's book is a deep-rooted and exciting compendium."

--Geoff Manaugh, "New York Times"-bestselling author of "A Burglar's Guide to the City"

About the Author

Paul Dobraszczyk is an architectural writer and a lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London. His books include Animal Architecture, also published by Reaktion Books.