Alison Lurie's new book in the Wall St. Journal

The Language of Houses by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and reigning NYS Author Alison Lurie (who visits us on Thurs. 9/18) is reviewed in the Wall St. Journal:

Le Corbusier may have decreed that the house should be "a machine for living," but Alison Lurie knows architecture carries a far greater moral charge than such minimalist efficiency implies. In "The Language of Houses," she takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the social and psychological significance of private and public structures: schools, churches, government buildings, museums, prisons, hospitals, hotels, restaurants and of course homes. She makes a powerful argument that how we choose to order the space we live and work in reveals far more about us, our place in the world and our preoccupations than we know. Architectural design is both a mirror and molder of human experience.... The Language of Houses is a mine of adroit observation, uncovering apparently humdrum details to reveal their unexpected, and occasionally poignant, human meaning.

More in the Wall St. Journal:  http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-language-of-houses-by-alison-lurie-1409345436

More about Lurie's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/lurie_alison14.html

More on the upcoming Visiting Writers Series:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html