Fire and Memory

Luis Fernandez-Galiano has composed an open work that spins history, philosophy, technology, economy, and architecture in interpenetrating orbits around the theme of energy in the discourse of architecture. Architecture as the most consistent consumer of energy is treated as both a symbol of humanity's struggle with nature and the practical object of the daily processes on entropy.

Richard Ingersoll

Design Book Review

Fire and Memory reveals the richness of Fernandez-Galiano's thinking and the breadth of his learning. Using a lively, controversial style, he discusses the relation of architecture to the development of scientific ideas, particularly as they concern energy, from the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth. The continued relevance of this book over twenty years confers the status of a classic on it.

Joseph Rykwert, Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania

Luis Fernandez-Galiano is one of the most knowledgeable and active critics of architecture in europe today. The English translation of his El fuego y la memoria brings to an international audience a book whose modest elngth belies the richness and diversity of its materials. Ostensibly a book dedicated to energy and architecture, it plunges deeply into the whole conflict between traditional notions of architecture as a manifestation of stability and duration and the internal metabolism of the dwelling in its microcosmic relation to that of society at large. The author's insights into the intricacies of industrial organization and the tribulations of doemstic life literally flash from his pages, exhiliarating the reader with the cosmic memories that lie dormant in the mechanical workings of the modern house. Readers from vastly different backgrounds will enjoy their encounter with Fernandez-Galiano's Fire and Memory, for to pore over its contents is akin to taking a vigorous stroll down the avenue that leads from ancient to modern life.

Kurt Forster, Director, Canadian Centre for Architecture