Buildings shape our lives and our health. They affect how we sleep, work, socialise and even breathe. They can isolate us, make us sick or put us in danger, but they can also heal. We, in turn, make our buildings an extension of ourselves: our hopes, fears and vanities. The structures we choose to inhabit absorb our histories and leave traces for future generations to read. In Living With Buildings Iain Sinclair embarks on a series of journeys - through London, Marseilles, the Outer Hebrides and Sweden - to explore the conflicted relationship between sickness and structure. He investigates the connection between art, architecture, social planning and health, and considers the notion that we refine our own pathologies until we locate the buildings in which to place them. A father and his daughter, who suffers from a rare syndrome, return to the estate where they once lived. A whalebone box, a fetish made for contemplation of mortality, is carried back to the Isle of Harris with unexpected consequences. Part travelogue, part polemic, part poem, Living With Buildings brings Sinclair's writing to new and exciting places.

Author Biography

Iain Sinclair was born in South Wales. He went to school in the west of England and university in Dublin. He lives, walks and writes in East London. His books include Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Prize), Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, American Smoke and The Last London. Living with Buildings is published in association with Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we think and feel about health. Inspired by the medical objects and curiosities collected by Henry Wellcome, it connects science, medicine, life and art. Wellcome Collection exhibitions, events and books explore a diverse range of subjects, including consciousness, forensic medicine, emotions, sexology, identity and death.