Artificial Love: A Story of Machines and Architecture

Aphoristic, caffeinated observations on machines as architecture; personal meditations on the birth of a son and the senescence of a father; and an annotated index that reads almost like an oddball poem make up the three parts of this""club sandwich"" of a book by British architect Shepheard (The Cultivated Wilderness). His points here are relatively simple--e.g.,""architecture is rearranging material for human purposes,"" and therefore sculptures, jets, cars and landscapes are also architecture--but his presentation is a wild hodgepodge of theory, memoir and fact. It's human destiny to be technological, Shepheard argues; what we make reflects our desires, and""the change that humans have wrought in the world is a wonderful thing."" This may sound a bit optimistic for some, but Shepheard's ideas are compelling, and the playfulness of their presentation may charm.