What Is Architecture" An Essay on Landscapes, Buildings, and Machines by Paul Shepheard
MIT Press, 1994
Paperback, 132 pages

Buildings: Between Living Time and Rocky Space by Paul Shepheard
Circa Press, 2016
Hardcover, 180 pages

"There is a scale of things all to do with the land, at on end of which are the forces of nature, the perception of which, at any given place, I would call landscape. At the other end of the scale are the local difficulties solved, and the opportunities opened, by our use of machines ? and somewhere in between are the buildings, which, if conceived grandly and accurately enough, can extend outward to embrace each end of the scale. Landscapes, buildings, and machines."This quote falls on page 41 of What Is Architecture" and it serves as a decent encapsulation of the three subjects Paul Shepheard tackles in the popular book. The book came out in 1994, when I was in the middle of earning my architecture degree, and it became a popular text for discussion in classes, particularly before and after Shepheard gave a lecture at our school, an event I've referred to in the past. These three subjects ? landscapes, buildings, machines ? were not just fodder for his first book; they served as topics for three of his subsequent books: The Cultivated Wilderness" Or, What is Landscape" (MIT Press, 1997), Artificial Love: A Story of Machines and Architecture (MIT Press, 2003), and, most recently, Buildings: Between Living Time and ...