With the increasing disappearance of stained glass in medieval churches, the surviving wood carvings on church misericords and bench ends are extremely important in providing an insight into the medieval mind. The carved images were often used to convey the messages of the Christian faith in the Middle Ages but they were not just concerned with religion and religious symbols - they also told stories of mythology, humour and satire, showing illustrations of everyday life and people. This book outlines the history of church seating and discusses the craftsmen and the influences behind their work. Using illustrations, the author then explains the subject matter of these wood carvings, revealing how one can discover so much about medieval life - the spiritualism, moralism and the wit - within the carvings still found in churches today.

This volume focusses on a rarely discussed method of meaning production, namely via the absence, rather than presence, of signifiers. It does so from an interdisciplinary, transmedial perspective, which covers systematic, media-comparative and historical aspects, and reveals various forms and functions of missing signifiers across arts and media. The meaningful silences, blanks, lacunae, pauses, etc., treated by the ten contributors are taken from language and literature, film, comics, opera and instrumental music, architecture, and the visual arts. Contributors are: Nassim Balestrini, Walter Bernhart, Olga Fischer, Saskia Jaszoltowski, Henry Keazor, Peter Revers, Klaus Rieser, Daniel Stein, Anselm Wagner, Werner Wolf

Fabric Structures in Architecture covers the varying ways textiles and their properties are used in building construction, with particular focus given to tensile structures. The text begins with the fundamental principles of textiles, including the origins of fabric architecture, then progressing to a discussion of the modern textiles of today. It covers relevant textile materials and their properties, including coatings and membranes. In addition, a range of design considerations are discussed, with detailed information on installation and failure modes. A series of case studies from around the world accompany the discussion, illustrating the applications of textiles in architecture.

Studio environments can be defined as multi-dimensional integrated production spaces where basic design trainings take place and where design issues including theoretical notions such as sociological, political, phenomenological, and other dimensions are discussed. Present approaches within the literature and social media on this topic gives cause for students to evaluate their future professions over finished and pictorial products rather than ontological and processual means. While there are many resources available on the present approaches of aesthetics and visuality of interior spaces, there is not much research available on new design methodologies, related design processes, and new applied methods in interior arcitecture. Based on different contexts, these methods of design practice have the potential to enrich design processes and create multiple discussion platforms within project studios as well as other design media. These different representations and narration methods for research in the context of interior architecture can be effectively used in design processes. The Handbook of Research on Methodologies for Design and Production Practices in Interior Architecture proposes new design methodologies and related design processes and introduces new applied method approaches while presenting alternative methods that have been used within design studios in the field of interior architecture. The chapters deal with four major sections: the design process and interdiciplinary approaches; then scenario development and content; followed by material, texture, and atmosphere; and concluding with new approaches to design. While highlighting topics such as spatial perception, design strategies, architectural atmosphere, and design-thinking, this book is of interest to architects, interior designers, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students looking for advanced research on the new design metholodologies and processes for interior architecture.

In (Re)using Ruins, Douglas Underwood presents a new account of the use and reuse of Roman urban public monuments in a crucial period of transition, A.D. 300-600. Commonly seen as a period of uniform decline for public building, especially in the western half of the Mediterranean, (Re)using Ruins shows a vibrant, yet variable, history for these structures. Douglas Underwood establishes a broad catalogue of archaeological evidence (supplemented with epigraphic and literary testimony) for the construction, maintenance, abandonment and reuses of baths, aqueducts, theatres, amphitheatres and circuses in Italy, southern Gaul, Spain, and North Africa, demonstrating that the driving force behind the changes to public buildings was largely a combined shift in urban ideologies and euergetistic practices in Late Antique cities.

In The Globalization of Renaissance Art: A Critical Review, Daniel Savoy assembles an interdisciplinary group of scholars to evaluate the global discourse on early modern European art. Over the course of eleven chapters and a roundtable, the contributors assess the discourse's goal of transcending Eurocentric boundaries, reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of current terms, methods, theories, and concepts. Although it is clear that the global perspective has exposed the artistic and cultural pluralism of early modern Europe, it is found that more work needs to be done at the epistemological level of art history as a whole. Contributors: Claire Farago, Elizabeth Horodowich, Lauren Jacobi, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Jessica Keating, Stephanie Leitch, Emanuele Lugli, Lia Markey, Sean Roberts, Ananda Cohen-Aponte, and Marie Neil Wolff.

(The open access version of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.) The book proposes a reassessment of royal portraiture and its function in the Middle Ages via a comparative analysis of works from different areas of the Mediterranean world, where images are seen as only one outcome of wider and multifarious strategies for the public mise-en-scene of the rulers' bodies. Its emphasis is on the ways in which medieval monarchs in different areas of the Mediterranean constructed their outward appearance and communicated it by means of a variety of rituals, object-types, and media. Contributors are Michele Bacci, Nicolas Bock, Gerardo Boto Varela, Branislav Cvetkovic, Sofia Fernandez Pozzo, Gohar Grigoryan Savary, Elodie Leschot, Vinni Lucherini, Ioanna Rapti, Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, Marta Serrano-Coll, Lucinia Speciale, Manuela Studer-Karlen, Mirko Vagnoni, and Edda Vardanyan.

An inspirational sourcebook of innovative and unexpected green design solutions for our homes that address the environmental and social issues facing our world today. Featuring nineteen home-building and design strategies that are direct, original and often surprisingly simple, this inspirational sourcebook presents a mix of new technology and time-tested vernacular methods that will change the way we think about 'home'. With strategies and houses that span the globe, including developing regions in Asia, Africa and South America, the book shines a spotlight on everything from wholly new techniques to creative reuse of existing buildings and materials. Nothing short of a design revolution is underway as we confront climate change, polluting plastics, global migration, rapidly expanding cities and an ageing population. Part handbook, part manifesto, Houses that Can Save the World shows how architects, designers, engineers, self-builders, artists and others are embracing the new challenges the human race is facing. Whether you are planning a self-build or are simply looking for ways to make your home more environmentally friendly and efficient, this book is packed with innovative ideas that can help us to make our homes and the world a better place to be.