Material and Mind

This eloquent book demonstrates the ways that imagination and creativity are intertwined with physical material. Framing the problem of creativity through enactive cognition, it vindicates the precedence of the maker's embodied engagement with materials across disciplines and historical perspectives, revealing both shortcomings and possibilities for our age of technological obsessions.

Alberto Perez-Gomez, School of Architecture, McGill University; author of Attunement

Do we make our materials or do our materials make us? Architect, author, and academic Christopher Bardt takes the reader on a thrilling and poetic journey through time to deconstruct meaning, making, and what it truly means to be a creative thinker. Material and Mind is a remarkable book from an utterly original mind; it will fundamentally change the way you think about how humans create.

Debbie Millman, Chair, School of Visual Arts, Masters in Branding; podcast host, Design Matters

Chris Bardt examines the interactions between material and mental phenomena and the essences of the creative process—turning ideas, feelings, and intuitions into material forms. The author draws from the histories of the arts as well as literature and poetry, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, and the realities of various artistic practices. He does not attempt to simplify the complexities of the existential and experiential world, but presents the internal interactions and tensions, as well as their inherent uncertainties. An erudite and enticing exploration into the intriguing realm between matter and mind.

Juhani Pallasmaa, architect; Professor Emeritus, Helsinki University; author of The Thinking Hand and The Embodied Image

As digital tools expand formal possibilities and revolutionize construction techniques, Chris Bardt's Material and Mind is a deeply reasoned meditation on the push and pull between creativity and physicality. Bardt argues that the digital and material should be equal and integrated, reciprocal and balanced. In his view, the very soul of architecture is at stake.

Deborah Berke, FAIA, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture

Bardt's Material and Mind is an inspiring read that allows us to see the agency and potential in materials and the interactions we have with them.

Academic Chatter Review of Books