Rykwert, John — Dancing Column: On Order in Architecture

Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1996. Hardcover. black cloth boards w/ reflective, lime green printing to spine. book xviii, 598 pgs w/ bw illustration. black, green & red illustrated dustjacket. Remains a nice, bright copy. "Joseph Rykwert is one of the major architectural historians of this century, whose full humanistic understanding of architecture and its historical significance is unrivaled. The Dancing Column is certain to be his most controversial and challenging work to date. A decade in preparation, it is a deeply erudite, clearly written, and wide-ranging deconstruction of the system of column and beam known as the "orders of architecture," tracing the powerful and persistent analogy between columns and/or buildings and the human body. The body-column metaphor is as old as architectural thought, informing the works of Vitruvius, Alberti, and many later writers; but The Dancing Column is the first comprehensive treatment to do this huge subject full justice. It provides a new critical examination of the way the classical orders, which have dominated Western architecture for nearly three millennia, were first formulated."--Worldcat. VG (boards have light scratches, scuffs & smudges. light edge-wear & rubbing to corners. light to moderate stain to upper edge of textblock; faint to light remnants to pg edges. dustjacket scuffed & smudged; light interior staining to lower edge & spine, does not affect book; light adhesive residue to lower spine w/ small rubbed spots) .