"A refreshingly humane and lucid book from one of our most intelligent architecture critics." —Daily Telegraph
"Vivid and witty... it’s a book about what happens when other non-architectural matter – capital, sex, family life, the caprices of function – barges into a discipline that sometimes likes to think of itself as pure." —Guardian
"Moore has a lot to offer those who like verbal flexibility and thought-provoking aphorisms. There is also a sense of mischief... This is a hard-hitting book with great panache." —Sunday Telegraph
"Moore has conjured a rare feat in producing a work that will be appreciated by professionals and punters alike." —Observer
"Thoughtful and elegantly written, Why We Build will appeal to anyone with an interest in architecture." —Spectator
"A subtle, often eccentric but always entertaining guide... A fascinating work of love, intellectual curiosity and endurance." —Literary Review
"A paean to the way we inhabit, which explains why good architecture changes constantly." —Financial Times
"Intelligent and cultured... packed with passionately held ideas about the epiphanies, farces and humanity in architecture." —Independent
Buildings are driven by human emotions and desires; hope, power, money, sex, the idea of home.
In Why We Build Rowan Moore explores the making of buildings from conception to inhabitation and reveals the paradoxical power of architecture: it looks fixed and solid, but is always changing in response to the lives around it.
Moving across the globe and through history, through works of folly, beauty, spectacle, and subtlety, Moore gives a provocative and iconoclastic view of what makes architecture, why it matters, and why we find it fascinating. You will never look at a building in the same way again.
