This building invokes the past to solve a set of contemporary problems: can you reproduce the grandeur of the past without any of the inconveniences that annoyed Mumford?
In one respect it elevates a building, invoking the classical past that the founding fathers had also looked to for inspiration; the place is meant to be imposing, worthy of allegiance and devotion.
The building invokes reason, proportion and balance, but you stand on a man-made plateau that seems to hover in space, open to the sweep of clouds and the distant mountains.
Throughout the eighties, she fashioned plaster and concrete sculptures resembling the walls and the recesses of ruined buildings, surely invoking memories of bomb devastation in Hamburg and Berlin.
In the case of St . Vincents, the commission initially rejected the hospital's plan, objectheg to the height and bulk of the new buildings and invoking the aestheticommission the old ones.
Photographs of George Washington High School on Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights, built in 1925, and Benjamin Franklin High School on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive in Manhattan, built in 1941, show buildings that invoke the colonial past not just with their names but also with porticos resembling pillared Greek temples, topped by cupolas meant to echo small-town churches and city halls.
The reign of Artaxerxes II saw a revival of the cult of Anahita and Mithra, when in his building inscriptions he invoked Ahuramazda, Anahita and Mithra and even set up statues of his gods.
The Mayor – in a speech yesterday – invoked the building boom that followed the Second World War: he announced plans to construct 160,000 more homes, to build them taller, and build them denser; this, he said, would make life in the city more affordable for all residents.
In eminent domain, which municipalities often invoke in building roads, the government takes private land for the public good, in return for "just compensation".
The goal of building new life forms also invokes a cortège of societal and ethical issues that young scientists must be willing to stand up to.
