Travels in the History of Architecture

Mies van der Rohe, master of modern architecture, declared that “Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together.” In Travels in the History of Architecture, renowned architectural writer Robert Harbison takes a closer look at these bricks, providing an engaging and concise companion to the great themes and aesthetic movements in architecture from antiquity to the present day.

Travels in the History of Architecture beings its journey with the great temples of the Egyptians and the shrines of Classical Greece and Rome and then provides a complete survey of architecture through the present day. Each chapter of this dynamic and approachable volume focuses on a movement in architectural history, including Byzantine, Baroque, Mannerism, Historicism, Functionalism, and Deconstruction. Unique to this work is Harbison’s wide-ranging approach, which draws on references and examples outside of architecture—from literature, art, sculpture, and history—to further illustrate and contextualize the themes and ideas of each period. For example, the travel writing of Pausanias illustrates the monuments of ancient Greece, a poem in praise of marble decoration reveals how the builders of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia viewed their creation, and a French rococo painting speaks to the meaning behind the design of the English landscape garden.

Original, yet authoritative, Travels in the History of Architecture will be in an indispensable guide for everyone curious to know more about the world’s most famous structures, as well as for students of art and architectural history seeking a definitive introduction.