You are browsing the archives of 2008 January.

The past four decades have seen one of the largest building programmes in the history of architecture. The world has literally been reshaped. This extensive building programme began with the need to rebuild, renew and reinstate after the ravages of the Second World War. Housing took priority, and from an architectural point of view, it [...]

In the history of Architecture, freedom and liberation were the passwords of the 1960s counter-culture, and that meant freedom to act, sing, draw and design in any way one pleased. This “hippie” era saw the emergence of designers like Buckminster Fuller and Paolo Soleri as cult heroes. Free forms and bright colours were characteristic of [...]

Imperial Roman Architecture in the history of architecture was not only the art of Greece which provided an example to be followed by the Romans. The military conquests of Alexander the Great demonstrated the possibilities of the expansion of a small state on an imperial scale. Like Alexander, the Romans had a trained and disciplined [...]

High Renaissance in the history of architecture is the era when the classical language of architecture at its fullest expression. The works carried out by Donato Bramante in Rome at the beginning of the 16th century established a new outlook which influenced the direction of architecture for the next 100 years. In this Bramante [...]

Renaissance architecture in the history of architecture began in the Republican city of Florence with the revolutionary work of Filippo Brunelleschi at the beginning of the 15th century. His buildings were conceived not so much as a revival of the ancient Roman heritage but rather as a reassertion of Italian values to counter the preference [...]

The pilgrimage church of Vierzehnheiligen, one of the great masterpieces of the Baroque in the history of architecture, was completed in 1772, the same year as the Coalbrookdale iron bridge. Today the bridge must receive nearly as many pilgrims, as it symbolizes the new industrial age - the birth of our times. Although a pioneering [...]

At the same period in the late 1920s, three houses were designed which encapsulated the differing strands within the new view of architecture, by then often called “Modernism”: the Dymaxion House by Richard Buckminster Fuller in the USA; “Les Terraces” outside Paris by Le Corbusier for the Stein and de Monzie families; and Haus Moller [...]

The extraordinary period of invention in the history of architecture ended as the increasingly hot, dry climate burnt the fields and desiccated the northern French vineyards which had funded much of this work. As the population continued to increase in spite of worsening conditions, ordinary people became poorer and wealth was increasingly concentrated among the [...]

The most significant development of Indian architecture in the history of architecture was precipitated by the spread of Islam after AD 1000, although the extent of Moslem dominance varied tremendously. There were many different regional kingdoms, but not all had Moslem rulers, and each region developed its own distinctive style of architecture. Jain and other [...]

Throughout the history of civilization India has commanded a central position in the world trade routes, which acted as arteries for the exchange of ideas and information between East and West. Indian lotus pattern motifs, for example, can be seen in the famous Persian palaces of Persepolis (5th to 6th centuries se) and evidence of [...]

Architectural form combines both instrument and emblem in the history of architecture. Its instrumental role is that of allowing certain human action to take place within it, which the building will either encourage or limit in specific ways. Its emblematic aspect is the way in which the building’s imagery and quality of surface and [...]

In the history of architecture, both grand and domestic Chinese buildings have used the courtyard plan almost universally since the Bronze Age (c. 1700 BC). Temples and palaces consisted of a series of linked courtyards and even the smallest domestic buildings had a single walled courtyard. In domestic architecture the courtyard was important since it [...]