{"product_id":"concrete-stephen-parnell-9781501383700","title":"Concrete","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eConcrete has an image problem. Portrayed as boring, cheap, and thoughtless, it is often considered synonymous with bad architecture. For many, concrete is architecture gone wrong - dogmatic, ugly, and as miserably grey as English drizzle. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Stephen Parnell's \u003ci\u003eConcrete \u003c\/i\u003eis an apologia of concrete, second only to water as the world's most consumed material. From the personal, intimate scale of jewelry to the monumental scale of Brutalist architecture, Parnell explores the personality of concrete and how it is embedded and embodied in everyday and familiar objects. He revels in concrete's ambiguity and contradictory qualities, from its sensitivity to the tiniest imprint to its immense compressive strength in hydroelectric dams, and traces how concrete is both the ultimate unaesthetic material as well as the quintessential building block of modernity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Stephen Parnell\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1501383701\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781501383700\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Bloomsbury Academic\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/03\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 176\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.00lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 6.50h x 4.75w x 1.00d","brand":"Stephen Parnell","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48520267497727,"sku":"9781501383700","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_608dbe0f-1688-4a3d-b41e-5830a0c5197c.jpg?v=1778741734","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/concrete-stephen-parnell-9781501383700","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}