no walls, no ceilings, no floors

February 3, 2006 11:37 AM

Architecture as literary metaphor or theme.

Which recommended novels use architecture/design/construction as a centralized theme? I'm thinking Calvino's "Invisible Cities," Rand's "Fountainhead," and even something like Larson's "Devil In The White City" because it reads like a novel. Can you think of any more?

posted by mochapickle to Writing & Language (40 answers total)

Ken Follet - Pillars of the Earth. The central theme is the design and building of a cathedral over several decades. Extremely interesting.
posted by iconomy at 11:43 AM on February 3, 2006

Ooops - link.
posted by iconomy at 11:44 AM on February 3, 2006

Dante's Divine Comedy, and Eliot's poetry.
posted by ori at 11:46 AM on February 3, 2006

The Names, by Don DeLillo. Helluva book, too.
posted by Dr. Wu at 11:49 AM on February 3, 2006

Sorry -- Novels. Oops.
posted by ori at 11:49 AM on February 3, 2006

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, perhaps.
posted by richard m at 11:51 AM on February 3, 2006

James Michener's Chesapeake is another generation-spanning saga which involves a lot of house building, and innovating the design of a telescoping house (the style where one large building is offshoot by a series of connected buildings which keep getting smaller, to form what looks like a telescope) is a major theme. Another really interesting story.
posted by iconomy at 11:52 AM on February 3, 2006

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton frequently uses livable space symbolically.

Under the Tuscan Sun pop (non?) fiction by Frances Mayes (recently made into a bad movie) is all about refurbishing a house.

I'll think of more.
posted by Packy_1962 at 11:52 AM on February 3, 2006

How about a short story?

The Fall of the House of Usher
posted by ND¢ at 11:59 AM on February 3, 2006

I've always thought Kafka's The Castle is a really architectural novel, and his short story The Burrow is certainly about architecture in both a direct and metaphorical way.
posted by OmieWise at 12:03 PM on February 3, 2006

Oh, and also The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin.
posted by OmieWise at 12:04 PM on February 3, 2006

Not a novel, but Borges writes about Labyrinths a great deal.

Also, Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose.
posted by empath at 12:07 PM on February 3, 2006

Poetry by A.E. HOUSEMAN
posted by Postroad at 12:14 PM on February 3, 2006

Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion.
posted by transient at 12:22 PM on February 3, 2006

"Set This House In Order" by Matt Ruff.
posted by kindall at 12:27 PM on February 3, 2006

"The Bridge" by Iain Banks
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:31 PM on February 3, 2006

Vanishing Point by Michaela Roessner. Short description in this AskMe question I asked.
posted by OmieWise at 12:33 PM on February 3, 2006

62: A Model Kit by Cortázar.
posted by Staggering Jack at 12:38 PM on February 3, 2006

Outside The Dog Museum, Jonathan Caroll, is one of my favourites.
posted by bonehead at 12:39 PM on February 3, 2006

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House - great book. It was originally written in the 40s but this is the updated version.
posted by iconomy at 12:39 PM on February 3, 2006

Life: A User's Manual, by George Perec is structured (plotwise) around the architecture of a Parisian apartment building and the lives of its inhabitants.
posted by Chrischris at 12:46 PM on February 3, 2006

Also, Perdido Street Station and other works by China Mieville have urban/city/decay themes.
posted by Staggering Jack at 12:47 PM on February 3, 2006

Mark Danielewski - House of Leaves. review.
posted by subtle-t at 12:48 PM on February 3, 2006

John Crowley's Little Big uses the metaphor of the house with the big orrery in the attic as a metaphor for the extended family and for the ideas of "home" and "away"

Donald Barthelme's father was an architect and some of his stories [City of Churches comes to mind] use the stability of buildings to create odd juxtapositions with his generally postmodern storylines.
posted by jessamyn at 12:51 PM on February 3, 2006

>because it reads like a novel

A Pattern Language

(well, its got a lotta little chapters and is really a great book)
posted by iurodivii at 1:12 PM on February 3, 2006

The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:15 PM on February 3, 2006

Sorry NDcent
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:16 PM on February 3, 2006

Bartleby, Melville ?
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:21 PM on February 3, 2006

Not to derail, but:

Bartleby? I'm curious, really, not snarkily, what your architectural read on it is.
posted by OmieWise at 1:26 PM on February 3, 2006

Maybe a step or two away from what you're looking for, but Julien Gracq’s Château d’Argol and Jean Ray’s Malpertuis are two fascinating books where the main locale is a building with a kind of life of its own.
posted by misteraitch at 1:31 PM on February 3, 2006

Also not a novel, but Ibsen's The Master Builder.
posted by desuetude at 1:42 PM on February 3, 2006

Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist uses elevators and the architecture around them in a similar way.
posted by maxreax at 1:51 PM on February 3, 2006

Good job, subtle-t. I was wondering when someone would bring up Danielewski.
posted by pomchkn at 2:03 PM on February 3, 2006

Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is a book that uses particular architectures to move the story, but also as extended metaphors. If you've ever seen a Foucault's Pendulum in real life then you'll know that there's a (whole) lotta metaphor in there.
posted by zpousman at 2:36 PM on February 3, 2006

William Golding's The Spire. I'd recommend it even if you despised reading The Lord of the Flies in high school. It's interesting to note that while architects described Golding's novel as accurate portrayal of Medieval archeticture and construction, Golding claimed that he had done no architectural research, but simply envisioned in a logical manner how a church spire would be built.
posted by Kronoss at 2:50 PM on February 3, 2006

Odd concept, but any cyberpunk novel that features the Internet, the Metaverse, etc. The concept that there was a virtual "there" in which people could go, interact, hack programs, etc.
posted by frogan at 5:50 PM on February 3, 2006

Second House of Leaves and Eco, and add a short novel by Art Corriveau, Housewrights and another piece of narrative non-fiction: House by Tracy Kidder. House is perhaps a bit dated now, and Housewrights was not all that great, but the architecture-as-metaphor is pretty undeniable.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:01 PM on February 3, 2006

Bah, writing about architecture is like dancing about music.

Anyhow, not a novel, but perhaps you'd be interested in the works of AG Rizzoli (a link, another link). He drafted drawings of nonexistent buildings meant to represent people in his life.
posted by adamrice at 8:26 PM on February 3, 2006

Hart Crane's epic poem: The Bridge.
posted by juv3nal at 11:21 PM on February 3, 2006

J.-K. Huysmans' The Cathedral.

19th-c. fiction frequently represents domestic interiors as indexes of the character of the people who live in them--Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton, for example. And then there are the symbolic prisons, like the Marshalsea in Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit and the Tolbooth in Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian.
posted by thomas j wise at 7:17 AM on February 4, 2006