Jeanne Homer

author of Firmitas Utilitas Venustas: Architecture and Society

November 4, 2015

Professor Homer received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and her Master of Architecture at Arizona State University in Tempe. She has been a practicing architect in Chicago and Phoenix, having received her professional registration in Illinois in 1998. While she was practicing in Chicago and Phoenix, she taught at the Art Institute of Chicago and Arizona State University.

Since joining the faculty at Oklahoma State University, Jeanne received the 2007 ACSA/ AIAS New Faculty Teaching Award and the 2006 Halliburton Excellent Young Teacher Award.

In both the first and second editions, architecture is treated as a humanity in the broadest sense of the term. History is used as a framework to examine how architecture reflects the values of societies, past and present. We use historical examples to examine the variety of ways architects have housed us and our activities and given form to some of our aspirations and beliefs.

The audience of both editions consists of non-architects and beginning architecture students. In the second edition, it is still the intention to offer a first glimpse of architecture for the general public. We also remain interested in helping readers enjoy the architecture they may encounter, and, as possible future clients, understand the process of making architecture. The second edition to this book continues to be a brief sketch of architectural history, especially so for the added sections on Asian and pre-Columbian architecture and the expanded section on Islamic architecture. The introduction of non-Western architecture and societies to this book reinforces the predominant idea of the original text: societal values shape architecture. Architecture is evidence of who we are and where our place is in a larger world history.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2011-honorees/jeanne-homer

Last Updated: 14 January 2022