'Classic Columns' presents the highlights from forty years of writing about architecture. These pieces are thoughtful, original, and cogently expressed. Architecture and the Orders are here, of course – but so are observations on the contemporary world, how people live and how societies are organised. The main themes are tradition, Classicism, place-making, new housing, heritage, and globalisation. All the contributions are characteristically clear-thinking and thought-provoking, and might otherwise be lost in the back numbers of various publications.