Travels in the History of Architecture

by Robert Harbison

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.

Genres: Architecture, History, Travel, Art

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2009

About the author

Robert Harbison taught architectural history for more than 30 years, mainly at the Architectural Association and London Metropolitan University. He became a legendary figure for generations of students and his books earned him an international reputation as a historian and critic. Born in Baltimore, Bob first studied English literature and completed his doctoral thesis on the 19th century English industrial novel at Cornell University in 1969. After moving to London in 1974 he published his first architecture book, Eccentric Spaces, which applied a poetic sensibility to topics as diverse as gardens, maps, machines and ideal cities. It was Bernard Tschumi who, having read the book, invited Bob to lecture at the AA and thereby launched his teaching career.

Eccentric Spaces has become a classic but more architecture books followed, including Ruins and Fragments, Reflections on Baroque and The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable. Bob’s early books benefited from the fact that his wife Esther was an editor. Thirteen Ways, first published in 1997, is typically unconventional. It borrows its title from a Wallace Stevens poem but refuses the obvious implication, consisting of only ten chapters. Bob was a voracious reader and his learning was profound but it was always the direct encounter with works of art and architecture that ignited his passion. He very rarely wrote about buildings he had not seen. His 2009 book Travels in the History of Architecture is in one sense a traditional ‘survey’ with conventional chapter headings: Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, and so on. But it is also, as its title suggests, a travelogue, the written record of a purposeful exploration of the world’s architecture over several decades.

Reviews

[James Weddell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is perhaps the best book on the history of architecture I have read. Harbison's text is concise and insightful. The pictures are indeed small and B&W but they clearly illustrate the points he makes in the text. If the pictures had been large and in color, this would be a coffee table book that people might leaf through, but few would read.

[Sitatunga · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent series of divertissements