How buildings and cities shape our lives, from ancient Rome to Hong Kong today
Architectural scholar Stefan Al compresses 2 million years of human habitation into 258 pages in his new book, Dwelling on Earth
When Winston Churchill stood in the House of Lords in October 1943 and made the case to rebuild the bomb-ravaged House of Commons exactly as it was, he had just the thing to say: “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”
The dogged British leader was no architectural scholar, but he was a master of the turn of phrase. His quote has lingered ever since as a concise reflection of how we relate to our built environment.
In that particular case, Churchill believed the oppositional layout of the lower house was responsible for the very nature of British parliamentary democracy. He did not want it to be rebuilt in a more modern – and potentially more conciliatory – U-shape.
For Stefan Al – an actual architectural scholar – Churchill captured the essence of a broader truth: “Our homes are not just where we live. They are how we live,” he writes in his new book, Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home.
A former director of the University of Hong Kong’s urban design programme and now based at Hunter College in New York, Al has made a productive sideline in writing sharp, accessible books about cities and their buildings. His previous titles include Mall City: Hong Kong’s Dreamworlds of Consumption and Supertall: How the World’s Tallest Buildings Are Reshaping Our Cities and Our Lives.
The breadth of his latest subject might suggest that he has delivered a dense tome on the nature of domestic architecture. But it is just the opposite. Dwelling on Earth brings together archaeology, social history, architecture and environmental science in a brisk, entertaining survey that manages to compress 2 million years of human habitation into 258 pages.