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[F]orms abstractedly embody the dynamic that identifies cultures and locates among a culture's products those that are best. Deep informs abides the power by which culture knows, claims, shapes, and [...]

More than 300 depictions of architectural structures appear throughout the Column of Trajan, illustrating both Roman and Dacian fortifications and settlements. Despite the prevalence of architectural depictions on the column, there has been little attention specifically devoted to these important components of the frieze. While recent scholarship has focused on the composition and message of the column as a whole, for the most part this work has not contributed to the interpretation of architecture on tile frieze. Previous discussions of the architectural representations have focused almost exclusively on reconciling the pictorial record with the archaeological record and on explaining away what has been seen as a series of mistakes in the architecture on the frieze. This article demonstrates that the many features traditionally interpreted as misunderstandings actually form consistent patterns that draw a purposeful contrast between a supposedly superior Roman culture and a primitive, barbarian Dacian culture.

Earth architecture is ubiquitous on Palau's volcanic islands, yet by European contact the often massive interior structures lay unoccupied and were conspicuously absent from the archipelago's rich body of oral traditions. To place these structural remains into Palau's cultural sequence, a suite of 131 radiocarbon dates representing 31 interior earthwork sites is combined with paleoenvironmental and material culture data. The resulting chronological model indicates that substantial interior use was underway by ca. 3100 BP with the initiation of earthwork construction by ca. 2400 BP or a little earlier. This marks the beginning of the Earthwork Era, which is divided into Early, Middle, and Late Phases corresponding to the growth, zenith, and decline of interior earthwork occupation. Between ca. 2050 and 1750 BP extensive clusters of modified terrain, each defining a sociopolitical district, contained earth structures reaching monumental proportions. This is centuries before monumental architecture appeared in most other Pacific island societies. By ca. 1200 BE earthwork districts were no longer the cultural focal point, although minor construction of inland earthworks continued into the historic period. Keywords: Palau, earthworks, radiocarbon dating, monumental architecture, paleoenvironment, Babeldaob, the largest island in the Palau archipelago, is dominated by clusters of morphologically diverse earth architecture. At European contact, in the late 18th century, the massive structures in the [...]

Architecture has only a small part to play in the affairs of man. It does, nonetheless, bring together much that is important for society at large: shelter, social function, technology, [...]

Buildings have always played a role in negotiating the boundary between individual expression and social context. Through the lens of architectural history, this article explores the relationships between 'community;' 'culture,' 'craft,' and 'specification'-concepts fundamental to the way people express themselves and develop group behaviors and collective meaning. The article focuses on the tension between 'craft;' as an implicit community practice based on 'skill' and 'knowledge;' and 'specification,' which presumes an explicit and abstract means of communicating 'information.' At the center is the elusive concept of 'design.' But what is design? How does it affect culture at an incremental and substantial level? How do new values, both individual and collective, weigh in to the question of cultural change through design? Coming full circle, the article reflects on how the design of built space is integrated into communicative praxis itself, framing and cultivating particular forms of dialogue while displacing or resisting others. Keywords: design; craft; culture, specification; tradition architecture; construction

Despite growing interest from historians in the built environment, the use of architecture as evidence remains remarkably under-theorized. Where this issue has been discussed, the interpretation of buildings has often been likened to the process of reading, in which architecture can be understood by analogy to language: either as a code capable of use in communicating the architect's intentions or more literally as a spoken or written language in its own right. After a historiographical survey, this essay, by contrast, proposes that the appropriate metaphor is one of translation. More particularly, it draws on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin to suggest that architecture--and the interpretation of architecture-comprises a series of transpositions. As a building is planned, built, inhabited, and interpreted, so its meaning changes. The underlying logic of each medium shapes the way in which its message is created and understood. This suggests that the proper role of the historian is to trace these transpositions. Buildings, then, can be used as a historical source, but only if the historian takes account of the particular problems that they present. In short, architecture should not be studied for its meaning, but for its meanings. As historians we are always translating architecture: not reading its message, but exploring its multiple transpositions.

Terriers were surveys of the sources, chiefly land or 'gleeb', owned by each ecclesiastical parish in England and Wales started in 1604 with an aim to prevent theft. These terriers contain information about crops and field systems, as well as of vernacular architecture, place-names and the personal names of parishioners.

Abstract: In the first three decades of the 20th century, the Bungalow represented the democratization of late-19th century Arts and Crafts ideals, but for most North Americans it was simply [...]

This essay argues that World's Fairs offer important examples of the struggle to craft 'other places' for minority narratives while, simultaneously, ensuring that dominant narratives maintain their power. Employing Foucault's notion of heterotopia, the essay offers an analysis of the 1893 Columbian Exposition's Woman's Building as a site in which overlapping and contradictory narratives served to affirm the dominant rhetoric of 'civilization' as White and male. Representations of the Woman 'S Building provide three principles upon which this process depends: (a) co-opting oppressed groups through 'middling,' (b) enacting hierarchy through opposing narratives, and (c) marginalizing radical voices through 'safe spectacle.' The essay offers a historical parallel to contemporary sites of amusement and ideolocy such as shopping malls and themed communities, contributing to scholarship that addresses the intersection of place, culture, and 'otherness.'

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Yaxcaba, Yucatan, Mexico, the expansion of Spanish-American-owned cattle estates occurred in response to indigenous population growth and the implementation of the Bourbon political reforms. Although clearly described as haciendas in documentary sources, the estates demonstrate an architectural poverty that casts doubt on their ability to generate profits and their role in the transition to a market economy. This article proposes that architectural investment in rural areas may signal changes in entrepreneurial strategies before and after Mexican independence. When architecture is considered an independent variable, its economic role usefully may distinguish processes of market integration from storage of capital under tribute-based economies.

Antoni Gaudi's work on El Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia includes a magic square -- a 4 by 4 mathematical puzzle. Every row of numbers adds up to the same number, 33. The construction of magic squares is explained.

A passage in Vitruvius' Ten books on architecture continues to challenge art historians, as it appears to say that the Greek painter Agatharchus of the fifth century BC was aware of the theory of vanishing point perspective. However there is lack of supporting evidence, but art historians have ignored subtle nuances in extant materials, while seeking images with unified perspectives.

The structures along the west side of the Athenian Akropolis have challenged scholars for generations, and several studies have been published emphasizing different aspects of the approaches to the citadel. However many of the problems relating to the Mycenaean entranceway and its later history are still unanswered, particularly concerning the existence of the Athena Nike bastion and its link to the Mycenaean gate. It is argued that the western approaches were repeatedly influenced by new buildings within the sanctuary.

Prehistoric man's shift from the hunting-gathering mode of economy to village economies has been studied in the light of Neolithic archaeological findings from southern Levant in Palestine. While early agriculture had been ascribed to the Early Neolithic period, the Late Neolithic may have witnessed the decimation of forests which had been cleared for farming. Pastoral practices could have prevented the recovery of the forests. The lack of timber may have prodded the people to start using masonry piers in their houses instead of wooden posts.

The book 'Johannesburg Style: Architecture and Society 1880s-1960s,' by Clive Chipkin discusses the different architectural styles and movements in Johannesburg and surveys the Victorian, Edwardian and modern architectural styles. He shows that these styles were a combination of imported, standardize parts. The various architectural styles were influenced by the racial misconceptions about empire, by religion, and by business and political desires.

The architecture of Italian fascist colonial Libya represented an insecure imperial presence, by its syncretism and stylistic improvisation. Italian architects were faced with a crisis of authority in the wake of the Italian Empire of 1936, and they tried to create new traditions while building from a base of rationalism. Traditional Arabic structures such as mosques were designed in Italian modernism, incorporating decorations such as fasces. The hodgepodge of new buildings were claimed as evidence of glory by those in power.