Curated category
Architectural history
- Roman architectural revolutionThe Roman architectural revolution goes by another name: the concrete revolution. It describes a transformation in how the ancient world built things, one…
- Baroque architectureBaroque architecture was born from a crisis of faith. When the Catholic Church faced the spread of Protestantism in the late 16th century, its response was…
- Modern architectureModern architecture rested on a single, radical conviction: that a building's shape should emerge from its purpose, not from the decorative traditions of the…
- Renaissance architectureRenaissance architecture was born in Florence in the early decades of the 1400s, and it did not creep into existence the way Gothic had slowly grown out of…
- Gothic architectureGothic architecture took root in a single choir reconstruction at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, near Paris, completed between 1140 and 1144.
- Roman concreteRoman concrete, known in Latin as opus caementicium, has outlasted almost everything else its builders made. Aqueducts, reservoirs, and bridges constructed…
- History of architectureThe history of architecture begins not with a building but with a nest. All great apes weave bundles of branches together for sleeping, and orangutans build…
- ManuelineManueline architecture first took shape in Portugal around 1490, and it spent the next three decades carving ropes, anchors, and seaweed into stone church…
- Italian RenaissanceIn 1550, the Italian historian Giorgio Vasari published Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, and in it he reached for a single…
- Villa rusticaVilla rustica was the phrase ancient Romans reached for when they wanted to name the farmhouse that stood at the heart of their countryside. Not the resort.
- Palladian architecturePalladian architecture began with a stonemason's son born in Padua in 1508. Andrea Palladio looked at the ruins of ancient Rome and saw not rubble but a set…
- VihāraThe Sanskrit word vihara means a form of rest house, temple or monastery in ascetic traditions of India. It particularly referred to a hall that was used as…
- Ancient Roman architectureAncient Roman architecture began its distinctive journey in 509 BC with the founding of the Roman Republic, yet the buildings that would define it for…
- Architecture of RussiaIn 988 AD, a prince named Vladimir stood inside a building in Constantinople and changed the course of Russian architecture forever.