Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is concerned with human interactions with physical geography in the formation of the city. It deals with the section Earth —Calculations, early recordings of geography, which include Immanuel Kant’s lectures on the subject ‘Physical Geography’ at the University of Konigsberg in 1756–96. The book draws on a geological understanding of the Earth and explores the origins of human understanding of geography, where beliefs are devised to form associations with geography. It reviews the storytelling of mythic landscapes of the Earth’s creation—pagan, biblical, spiritual, and cultural—that helped societies formulate a human worldview of the Earth. The book also explores the demise of geography as an omnipotent, physical entity for human survival. It also begins with the 1920s silent film Growth of the Soil, deals with single buildings and looks at urban schemes and buildings that help elucidate the concept of building geography.