A Golden Thread: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology

Authors: Ken Butti and John Perlin
Publisher: Cheshire Books, Palo Alto, CA
Year: 1980
Pages: ~289 (confirmed from Joule Heist Libib entry)
ISBN: 978-0-917352-07-2
Acknowledgments: Amory Lovins thanked
PDF: 388MB image-based, OCR’d via ocrmypdf. Searchable text at /tmp/golden-thread.txt (16,604 lines). Scans repo: ~/Projects/elib-a-golden-thread/

Summary

A comprehensive history of solar energy use from ancient Greece through 1979. Covers:

Solar orientation in ancient Greek and Roman architecture (Socrates on ideal house design)
Medieval and Renaissance solar use
19th century solar motors (Mouchot, Ericsson, Shuman)
Early 20th century solar water heaters (California, Florida)
MIT solar house program (1939–1962): four generations of active solar heating
Post-WWII worldwide solar water heater industries (Israel, Japan, Australia)
1970s solar revival: Village Homes (Davis, CA), parabolic trough pumps

Key figures documented

Person	Role	Connection to archive
Harry Tabor	Israeli engineer; invented selective surface coating for solar absorbers	Same Tabor cited in Daniels (1964) Ch. 12 on selective radiation surfaces
George Löf	MIT solar program; built air-type solar houses in Boulder and Denver	Cited in Daniels (1964) as reviewer of UN Conference solar house papers
Bridgers & Paxton	Engineering firm	Built first solar-heated office building in the US, Albuquerque, NM, 1956 — the only New Mexico passive solar reference in the book
Levi Yissar	Founded Israel’s first solar water heater company (Ner-Yah, 1953)	—
H.C. Hottel	MIT solar program director	—

What the book does NOT cover

Steve Baer, Zomeworks, Drop City, Harold Hay, Harry Thomason, the counterculture passive solar movement, and Bliss’s nocturnal radiation experiments are absent. The book represents the mainstream engineering history of solar energy — institutions, universities, and government programs.

This omission is itself evidence for the “why hasn’t passive thermal scaled?” question: a comprehensive 2,500-year solar history published in 1980 does not mention the practitioners (Baer, Hay, Thomason) who were working on passive cooling in the 1960s–1970s. Hay’s Atascadero house (1973) and Baer’s Cool Cell precursors would have been within scope; neither appears.

The counterculture passive solar tradition and the academic/institutional tradition ran in parallel and apparently did not inform each other sufficiently for inclusion in a history written by the academic tradition.

New Mexico references

Page	Content
216	Bridgers & Paxton, first solar-heated office building, Albuquerque, NM, 1956 — active solar air heating also used for summer cooling
252	Parabolic-trough pump, Willard, NM, 1977 — 25 hp engine, 700 gal/min, 404 acres irrigated

Key passage — Chapter 19 (conclusion, pp. 248–253)

On the 1970s solar revival: “Early in the 1970’s a new generation of solar single-family dwellings was built—mostly in the American Southwest.” No specific projects named. On passive: “Solar architecture appeals to many because it requires no major breakthroughs and only a small additional capital outlay.”

The book closes: “The sun still beats down upon us even though the forests of North Africa have long since disappeared. And it will beat down on future generations long after all the oil and gas wells are depleted.”

Harry Tabor connection

The same Harry Tabor cited by Daniels (1964) for selective radiation surface patents appears in Golden Thread as inventor of Israel’s selective absorber coating. Tabor is a bridging figure: present in both the mainstream scientific literature (Daniels) and the international industrial solar energy history (Butti & Perlin). Not directly connected to Baer.

Compile status

Registered: 2026-05-14
Full text: OCR’d and searchable at /tmp/golden-thread.txt (16,604 lines)
Baer references: None found
Key chapters for future compile: Ch. 19 (1970s revival), Bridgers & Paxton section (p. 216)