Hands-On, Hands-Off: Experiencing History Through Architecture

For all those interested in the relationship between the memories that permeate the built forms of the past and the pressures exerted by modern life, Harris Stone offers a richly illustrated examination of the seemingly irreconcilable opposition between action (hands-on) and scholarship (hands-off)—between those who want to preserve the past as a museum of dead relics and those who want to treat it as a part of contemporary life.

Harris Stone (1934-1995) was professor of architecture at the School of Architecture and Urban Design, University of Kansas, and coordinator of the school’s programs of architectural studies in Italy. He is the author of four Monthly Review Press books, each hand-lettered and illustrated: Workbook of an Unsuccessful Architect, Monuments and Main Streets, Hands-On, Hands-Off: Experiencing History Through Architecture, and Dispersed City of the Plains.