Reid, Herder, and Fourier: three pioneers of environmental design

Abstract

Today’s concerns about environmental design come from a long modern tradition that, ultimately rooted in the 19th century, can be associated with three unalike figures: David Boswell Reid (1805-1863), Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), and Charles Fourier (1772-1837). The Scottish physician, chemist, and inventor Reid introduced into architecture the concept of ‘atmosphere’ in the modern sense of the term, and developed a rigorous design method based on formal and technical control of architectural environments. The philosopher Herder, father of European Romanticism, thought of human history as a sort of atmospheric saga and associated modernity with a new science: ‘aerology.’ Finally, the social reformer Fourier, creator of the phalanstery, postulated that the destiny of human civilization was an environmental destiny: absolute control of climate.