The Life Cycle of Buildings: Structures in Social and Cultural History

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For historians, the perfect source has long been the written text. Yet, it's become apparent that the twentieth century was a visual century, dominated by printing revolutions and moving pictures, by massive skyscraper skylines and the organized spectacle of a Disneyland. Historians have increasingly been forced to abandon their comfortable familiarity with the word in order to integrate visual objects, material culture, and the built environment into their narratives more systematically. While conventions of interpretation and legitimate use ingrained in graduate students gave historians confidence using written texts, those conventions have been much less definable for visual and material culture. The traditional questions asked by art and architectural historians about style, aesthetics, and design, while important, typically don't address the primary concerns of historians. Historical questions about visual culture or the built environment have to do with how