Barnabas Calder on Architecture and Energy @AmericanLibraryParis

Uploaded January 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

Evenings with an Author hosted Barnabas Calder in conversation with Alice McCrum. Filmed on 25/01/23 with a live audience on Zoom.

What does it mean to say that “form follows fuel”? Historian Barnabas Calder speaks about the relationship between energy and architecture.

A central question in the climate debate today is that of energy. Yet the problem of energy–how to acquire it, how to wield it–is as old as human civilization. Behind every building, from the Parthenon to the modern home, lies the energy technology used to build it. Barnabas Calder’s project in Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency is to trace out the history of architecture from this perspective. From manual labor and the Parthenon to coal’s impact on Victorian building styles, Calder maps out transformations in built space along the timeline of industrialization. Leading us all the way to the present day, he proposes a new approach to energy, seeking to revolutionize architecture and lead us away from environmental collapse.

About the speaker:

Barnabas Calder is a historian of architecture specializing in the relationship between architecture and energy throughout human history. Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Liverpool, Calder is the author of two works: Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency (2021) and Raw Concrete: The Beauty of Brutalism (2016).

Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.

Barnabas Calder on Architecture and Energy

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