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Opening Kailasanatha

The Temple in Kanchipuram Revealed in Time and Space

By Padma Kaimal

Stone figures hardened by ascetic discipline and heroic effort face north in deep shadow. There they meet the gazes of the same gods and goddesses but with gentler bodies enacting grace, warmth, seduction, and marriage,...

Building Reuse

Sustainability, Preservation, and the Value of Design

By Kathryn Rogers Merlino

The construction and operation of buildings is responsible for 41 percent of all primary energy use and 48 percent of all carbon emissions, and the impact of the demolition and removal of an older building...

What the Emperor Built

Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming

By Aurelia Campbell

One of the most famous rulers in Chinese history, the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–24) gained renown for constructing Beijing’s magnificent Forbidden City, directing ambitious naval expeditions, and creating the world’s largest encyclopedia. What the Emperor...

China Gothic

The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral

By Anthony E. Clark. Foreword by Leland M. Roth

As China struggled to redefine itself at the turn of the twentieth century, nationalism, religion, and material culture intertwined in revealing ways. This phenomenon is evident in the twin biographies of North China’s leading Catholic...

Where Dragon Veins Meet

The Kangxi Emperor and His Estate at Rehe

By Stephen H. Whiteman

In 1702, the second emperor of the Qing dynasty ordered construction of a new summer palace in Rehe (now Chengde, Hebei) to support his annual tours north among the court’s Inner Mongolian allies. The Mountain...

Shaping Seattle Architecture

A Historical Guide to the Architects, Second Edition

By Jeffrey Karl Ochsner

The first edition of Shaping Seattle Architecture, published in 1994, introduced readers to Seattle’s architects by showcasing the work of those who were instrumental in creating the region’s built environment. Twenty years later, the second...

Landmarks from a Bygone Era

Life and Work of Ed. Cuypers and Hulswit-Fermont, 1897-1927

By Obbe H. Norbruis

Eduard Cuypers (1859–1927) was one of the most celebrated architects in the Netherlands in the 1890s. Known for much of the development of the time throughout Indonesia, yet working from Amsterdam, Cuypers and his firm...

Architecture from the Indonesian Past

Life and Work of Fermont-Cuypers, 1927-1957

By Obbe H. Norbruis

In Architecture from the Indonesian Past, Obbe H. Norbruis tells the story of a celebrated Dutch architecture firm, its unique buildings, and their designers. Fermont-Cuypers designed many buildings significant in Indonesia’s history beginning in 1927...

The Landscape Architecture of Richard Haag

From Modern Space to Urban Ecological Design

By Thaïsa Way. Foreword by Marc Treib

Richard Haag is best known for his rehabilitation of Gas Works Park in Seattle and for a series of remarkable gardens at the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. He reshaped the field of landscape architecture...

Stories in Stone

Travels through Urban Geology

By David B. Williams

Most people do not think to observe geology from the sidewalks of a major city, but all David B. Williams has to do is look at building stone in any urban center to find a...

Sculpture on a Grand Scale

Jack Christiansen’s Thin Shell Modernism

By Tyler Sprague

The Kingdome, John (“Jack”) Christiansen’s best-known work, was the largest freestanding concrete dome in the world. Built amid public controversy, the multipurpose arena was designed to stand for a thousand years but was demolished in...

Improvised City

Architecture and Governance in Shanghai, 1843-1937

By Cole Roskam

For nearly one hundred years, Shanghai was an international treaty port in which the extraterritorial rights of foreign governments shaped both architecture and infrastructure, and it merits examination as one of the most complex and...

Cities That Think like Planets

Complexity, Resilience, and Innovation in Hybrid Ecosystems

By Marina Alberti

As human activity and environmental change come to be increasingly recognized as intertwined phenomena on a rapidly urbanizing planet, the field of urban ecology has risen to offer useful ways of thinking about coupled human...

Architecture and Tourism in Italian Colonial Libya

An Ambivalent Modernism

By Brian L. McLaren

To be a tourist in Libya during the period of Italian colonization was to experience a complex negotiation of cultures. Against a sturdy backdrop of indigenous culture and architecture, modern metropolitan culture brought its systems...

Banaras Reconstructed

Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City

By Madhuri Desai

Between the late sixteenth and early twentieth centuries, Banaras, the iconic Hindu center in northern India that is often described as the oldest living city in the world, was reconstructed materially as well as imaginatively,...

Repairing the American Metropolis

Common Place Revisited

By Douglas S. Kelbaugh

Repairing the American Metropolis is based on Douglas Kelbaugh’s Common Place: Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design, first published in 1997. It is more timely and significant than ever, with new text, charts, and images on...

Building the Golden Gate Bridge

A Workers' Oral History

By Harvey Schwartz

Silver Award Winner, 2016 Nautilus Book Award in Young Adult (YA) Non-Fiction

Moving beyond the familiar accounts of politics and the achievements of celebrity engineers and designers, Building the Golden Gate Bridge is the first book...

Kirtland Cutter

Architect in the Land of Promise

By Henry C. Matthews

In the early years of the twentieth century, Spokane was singled out for praise in the West for the quality of its architecture and the impressive way it had rebuilt after the devastating fire of...

Plantation Houses of Curaçao

Jewels of the Past

By Ellen Spijkstra

Curaçao’s historic plantation houses showcase unique architecture that resulted from the use of European, especially Dutch, building styles adapted to local tropical construction methods and available building materials. With the arrival of the oil industry...

The Merchant Houses of Mocha

Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port

By Nancy Um

Gaining prominence as a seaport under the Ottomans in the mid-1500s, the city of Mocha on the Red Sea coast of Yemen pulsed with maritime commerce. Its very name became synonymous with Yemen's most important...