Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning

Title: Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning Editorial: Princeton University Press . ISBN: 9780691170039 When architects have to produce architecture based on climate factors, we may not have enough flexible design tools. Moreover, we mostly miss a historical approach that allows us to confront our ideas within a broader context. The available material about this topic has always been scarce, and we usually need to go through secondary information in books that indirectly deal with it. With this lack of tools, architects tend to face designs with a naïve attitude, aware of its limitations. Cuando los arquitectos nos enfrentamos a la problemática de proyectar en relación al clima podemos carecer de instrumentos proyectuales lo suficientemente flexibles, pero sobretodo nos falta un enfoque histórico que permita confrontar nuestras ideas en relación a un contexto más amplio. El material de análisis disponible sobre este tema ha sido siempre escaso y la única forma de conocerlo es realizando lecturas transversales en libros que lo tratan de un modo tangencial. Con esta falta de herramientas el arquitecto se enfrentaba a los proyectos con una actitud naif, consciente de sus limitaciones. The book Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning , written by Daniel A. Barber and published by Princeton University Press, fills a gap and makes a comprehensive retrospective of design about climate from Le Corbusier to the rise and acceptance of the use of HVAC systems to condition interior spaces in the second half of the XX Century. Barber's proposal is ambitious since it analyzes the modern movement having climate as its cornerstone. The book starts with Le Corbusier, that remains a crucial figure in the first part of the XX Century.