Eccentric Spaces [Paperback]

Robert Harbison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0262581833 | ISBN-13: 978-0262581837

Like all of Robert Harbison's works, Eccentric Spaces is a hybrid, informed by the author's interests in art, architecture, fiction, poetry, landscape, geography, history, and philosophy. The subject is the human imagination--and the mysterious interplay between the imagination and the spaces it has made for itself to live in: gardens, rooms, buildings, streets, museums and maps, fictional topographies, and architectures. The book is a lesson in seeing and sensing the manifold forms created by the mind for its own pleasure.Palaces and haunted houses, Victorian parlors, Renaissance sculpture gardens, factories, hill-towns, ruins, cities, even novels and paintings constructed around such environments--these are the spaces over which the author broods. Brilliantly learned, deliberately remote in form from conventional scholarship, Eccentric Spaces is a magical book, an intellectual adventure, a celebration.Since its original publication in 1977, Eccentric Spaces has had a devoted readership. Now it is available to be discovered by a new generation of readers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" Eccentric Spaces... makes me want to rush out in every direction at once and reexamine all I have ever seen. You can hardly ask a book to do more than that." Anatole Broyard , New York Times"It awakens the reader to the space around him, and it is a reminder of how much we want from the world." Richard Todd , Atlantic Monthly

" Eccentric Spaces ... makes me want to rush out in every direction at once and reexamine all I have ever seen. You can hardly ask a book to do more than that." Anatole Broyard , New York Times "It awakens the reader to the space around him, and it is a reminder of how much we want from the world." Richard Todd , Atlantic Monthly

About the Author

Robert Harbison has lectured widely on architecture at the Museum of Modem Art in New York, the University of Toronto, Stanford University, Cornell University, and the Architectural Association, London. His previous books include Eccentric Spaces, Deliberate Regression, and Pharaoh's Dream.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (March 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262581833
• ISBN-13: 978-0262581837
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #642,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mysterious, February 6, 2004

By 

A Fan of the Fon (Wauwatosa, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eccentric Spaces (Paperback)

One of the oddest and most beautiful books I have ever read

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What is it about?, August 9, 2004

By 

John Lacey (San Luis Obispo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eccentric Spaces (Paperback)

I've read this book three times. After the first two readings, I still had no clue what the book was even about. I mentioned this to my sister, and she found that rather mystifying. So I tried again, with not much more luck. I am giving this four stars because there must be something here, since I keep re-reading it. I've even got it on my Wish List to buy it and try it for a fourth time.