Lavishly illustrated, Architecture since 1400 presents key moments and innovations in architectural modernity around the globe. Making clear that visionary architecture has never been the exclusive domain of the West and recognizing the diversity of those responsible for commissioning, designing, and constructing buildings, this book provides a sweeping, cross-cultural history of the built environment over six centuries.

The first global history of architecture to give equal attention to Western and non-Western structures and built landscapes, Architecture since 1400 is unprecedented in its range, approach, and insight. From Tenochtitlan’s Great Pyramid in Mexico City and the Duomo in Florence to Levittown’s suburban tract housing and the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, its coverage includes the world’s most celebrated structures and spaces along with many examples of more humble vernacular buildings. Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 photographs, plans, and interiors, this book presents key moments and innovations in architectural modernity around the globe. Deftly integrating architectural and social history, Kathleen James-Chakraborty pays particular attention to the motivations of client and architect in the design and construction of environments both sacred and secular: palaces and places of worship as well as such characteristically modern structures as the skyscraper, the department store, and the cinema. She also focuses on the role of patrons and addresses to an unparalleled degree the impact of women in commissioning, creating, and inhabiting the built environment, with Gertrude Jekyll, Lina Bo Bardi, and Zaha Hadid taking their place beside Brunelleschi, Sinan, and Le Corbusier. Making clear that visionary architecture has never been the exclusive domain of the West and recognizing the diversity of those responsible for commissioning, designing, and constructing buildings, Architecture since 1400 provides a sweeping, cross-cultural history of the built environment over six centuries.

This book provides a comprehensive, critical overview of the developments in architecture from 1960 to 2010. The first section provides a presentation of major movements in architecture after 1960, and the second, a geographic survey that covers a wide range of territories around the world. This book not only reflects the different perspectives of its various authors, but also charts a middle course between the 'aesthetic' histories that examine architecture solely in terms of its formal aspects, and the more 'ideological' histories that subject it to a critique that often skirts the discussion of its formal aspects.

A groundbreaking history of architecture told through the relationship between buildings and energy The story of architecture is the story of humanity. The buildings we live in, from the humblest pre-historic huts to today's skyscrapers, reveal our priorities and ambitions, our family structures and power structures. And to an extent that hasn't been explored until now, architecture has been shaped in every era by our access to energy, from fire to farming to fossil fuels. In this ground-breaking history of world architecture, Barnabas Calder takes us on a dazzling tour of some of the most astonishing buildings of the past fifteen thousand years, from Uruk, via Ancient Rome and Victorian Liverpool, to China's booming megacities. He reveals how every building - from the Parthenon to the Great Mosque of Damascus to a typical Georgian house - was influenced by the energy available to its architects, and why this matters. Today architecture consumes so much energy that 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from the construction and running of buildings. If we are to avoid catastrophic climate change then now, more than ever, we need beautiful but also intelligent buildings, and to retrofit - not demolish - those that remain. Both a celebration of human ingenuity and a passionate call for greater sustainability, this is a history of architecture for our times.

In this book, prominent architectural historians, who happen to be women, reflect on their practice and the intervention this has made in the discipline. Of particular concern are the ways in which feminine subjectivities have been embodied in the discourses of architectural history. Each of the chapters examines the author’s own position and the disruptive presence of women as both subject and object in the historiography of a specific field of enquiry. The aim is not to replace male lives with female lives, or to write women into the masculinist narratives of architectural history. Instead, this book aims to broaden the discourses of architectural history to explore how the potentially ‘unnatural rule’ of women subverts canonical norms through the empowerment of otherness rather than a process of perceived emasculation. The essays examine the historiographic and socio/cultural implications of the role of women in the narratives and writing of architectural history with particular reference to Western traditions of scholarship on the period 1600–1950. Rather than subscribing to a single position, individual voices critically engage with past and present canonical histories disclosing assumptions, biases, and absences in the architectural historiography of the West. This book is a crucial reflection upon historiographical practice, exploring potential openings that may contribute further transformation of the theory and methods of architectural history. Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Architectural History offers a comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge report on recent developments in architectural production and research. Divided into three parts – Practices, Interrogations, and Innovations – this book charts diversity, criticality, and creativity in architectural interventions to meet challenges and enact changes in different parts of the world through featured exemplars and fresh theoretical orientations. The collection features 29 chapters written by leading architectural scholars and highlights the reciprocity between the historical and the contemporary, research and practice, and disciplinary and professional knowledge. Providing an essential map for navigating the complex currents of contemporary architecture, the Companion will interest students, academics, and practitioners who wish to bolster their understanding of built environments.