A World History of Architecture

The text encourages readers to examine closely in photographs and line drawings the pragmatic, innovative, and aesthetic attributes of buildings, and to imagine how these would have been praised or criticized by contemporary observers. Architecture is discussed in various contexts – artistic, economic, environmental, political, social, and technological – so as to determine the extent to which buildings met the needs of clients, society at large, and future generations. This book also examines the unique methods of great architects past and present. Among them are Alvar Aalto, Robert Adam, Leon Battista Alberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Gustave Eiffel, Peter Eisenman, Antonio Gaudi, Frank Gehry, Walter Gropius, Imhotep, Le Corbusier, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Michelangelo, Glenn Murcutt, Andrea Palladio, Eero Saarinen, Koca Sinan, Louis Sullivan, Christopher Wren, and Frank Lloyd Wright.