Link up to design and
architectural resources
Joffre Essley's
House
Design Coffee. A friendly exploration of residential
design, including architectural criticism and advice, building dictionary and style
guide, and musings on architecture and the home.
Shannon Kyle's
Ontario
Architecture website. A general architectural
style guide from a Canadian perspective. Includes an exceptional illustrated
glossary of building terms.
Chuck LaChiusa's
Illustrated
Architectural Dictionary. A great resource, with
excellent examples taken from historic buildings in Buffalo, New
York. Part of the his Buffalo
Architecture and History website.
Ann Whitehead's
Dictionary of
Architectural Terms. A concise dictionary
of basic architectural terms, prepared for the Utah Heritage Foundation.
The
American
Institute of Architects official website.
A general resource for architects and those wanting to learn more
about them and the services that they provide. Features an architect
finder, industry news, educational resources, A.I.A. contract
documents, publications, and more.
The
Preservation
Directory. Covers historic preservation,
cultural resources, heritage tourism, urban planning, and historic real
estate in the United States & Canada
The
Society
of Architectural Historians. Beyond
being the official site for this group, this website offers some
interesting architectural study tours,
digital
resources including brief biographies of American architects and an
architectural
image exchange, and more. Based in Chicago, Illinois.
The
Architectural
Index. Designed mainly for architectural
research, this site is a periodical index of architectural
publications. Offers a free area covering older magazines (1982 -
1988), otherwise one must pay for the service. You'll still need to
find the magazine, since only the name of the magazine, date, and page
numbers of each article are listed at the site.
Sólo
Arquitectura. One of the larger and
better directories of architecturally related websites. In
Spanish only.
The
Vitruvio website.
An architectural web guide that focuses on architectural history, theory,
and design.
The
Architectural
Review. An English magazine whose website
offers information on architectural competitions, exhibitions,
book reviews, articles, links and more.
The
Old
House Journal website. An informative and
entertaining magazine for old house lovers.
Slide Libraries and Architectural Databases:
The
American
Memories Project. An impressive photographic
database covering a broad range of American subjects, including a huge
collection of historic architectural drawings and building images.
Archiguide. Online
guide to contemporary architecture and urban art from around the
world. In French and English.
The
ArchInform
website. An international architectural database containing
thousands of buildings indexed by architect or location. Has a 20th
century architectural emphasis. Some pictures, but most entries just
have simple building data.
The
Great
Buildings Online website. A CAD software
company's fairly comprehensive encyclopedia of famous architects and their
buildings throughout history. Has a searchable index of architects,
buildings, and places.
The
Images
of England website. An extensive photographic survey of
historical buildings and monuments in England. Affiliated with the
English
Heritage website.
The
North
American and European Architecture and Sculpture site.
Mary Ann Sullivan's very large collection of works by notable architects
and sculptors throughout history. Site indexed by artist or
architect, location, or date. Be sure to scroll down after selecting
an index type to view the results, or you may think nothing happened.
The
Online
Archive of California. Part of the
California Digital
Library. Similar to the American Memories Project in some ways, except
with a California emphasis. Features oodles of historic building
and other photos. One of their more dramatic collections features
photos of the great
San
Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 (well worth the wait for the
entire page to load).
La
Poder de La Palabra (The Power of the Word). A
vast art and culture website, available in Spanish only. Its
architectural
galleries include buildings from all over the world,
categorized by architect, location, and period.
The
Spiro
Architectural Slide Database website. A
searchable index of slides from the University of California,
Berkeley. Offers an extensive collection of thumbnail (slide-sized)
images of historically significant buildings and their descriptions.
The site is more geared toward research on a particular architect or
building than general browsing.
The University of Washington's
City/
Buildings Database. An image database of
historic architecture around the world. Sorted by country, then
city. Easy to browse. They also host a large, searchable
collection
of architectural images on another site.
Fantastic
Places. Tom Palmer's architectural and
travel photography site includes a fine pastiche of American architecture
in its architectural
sampler. Photos organized by state and city.
Recent History and Modernism:
The
Pritzker Prize
website. Run by the organization that awards the architectural
equivalent of the Nobel prize. A
list
of former prize winners features short a biography of each architect
and examples of their work. It includes some of the most prominent
names in contemporary architecture.
Hans Netten's
High
Rise Pages. All about the tallest structures in
the world.
The
Building
Big website. An excellent architectural
primer, chronicling the history and design of some of the world's biggest,
tallest, most awesome structures. WGBH of Boston produced the site
to supplement their five part public television series of the same name.
Modernism and its Roots:
The
American
Built Environment course slides. Eleanor
Weinel, an Associate Dean at the University of Oklahoma, provides a photographic
overview of American architecture. Focuses on the shapers of
modernism between 1870 and 1960.
The
Arts
and Crafts Home. A commercial site
specializing in Arts and Crafts, Gothic Revival, and Aesthetic Movement
home furnishings. It is an exceptional design resource on these
styles. It achieves this through its impressive research sections
and product catalogue. The site also features extensive Art Nouveau,
Art Deco, and Mission Style coverage as part of its ambitious
International
Arts and Crafts documentation project.
Decopix. Randy
Juster's sleek photo gallery of Art Deco architecture from all over the world.
The
Eichler
Network. All about Eichler homes and
their California Modernist connections.
The
Galinsky
website. With its photo essays on selected buildings of the
last century, this site provides a great overview of the modern movement in
architecture.
The
Julia
Morgan Index. A rather plain site, but loaded
with images of Julia Morgan's work. Morgan was among America's first
woman architects. Part of Mary Ann Sullivan's huge
Digital
Imaging Project site.
The
San
Francisco Bay Area Arts and Crafts home page.
San Francisco may be better known for its Victorian architecture, but it
is also the centre of an exceptionally fine and sophisticated collection
of American Arts and Crafts architecture. This site profiles its chief
practitioners.
Kilrush Design's
Walter
Burley Griffin site for PBS online. A handsome
site describing the life and works of an exceptionally gifted Prairie
School architect, who, before a falling out, had once headed up Frank
Lloyd Wright's Oak Park studio.
The
Frank
Lloyd Wright in Oak Park website. Offers
pictures and history of Wright designed structures in Oak Park, Illinois,
where he opened his first office. This link tends to go offline for
extended periods, but when available, it offers good coverage of his Oak
Park practice.
Mark Hammons'
Organica
website. Covers the impressive Prairie Style legacy of
Purcell and Elmslie, an early 20th century architectural firm based out of
Minneapolis, Minnesota. Well put together, and exceptional
detail. Also, when operational, it offers a good overview of other
Prairie School participants.
The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts
Unified
Vision website. Beautifully crafted online
exhibit on Prairie Style architecture in Minnesota, including works by Louis
Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Washington Maher, and the partnership of
William Gray Purcell, George Grant Elmslie, and George Feick. Includes detailed
tour maps for those interested in visiting the sites in person, as well as an
excellent virtual tour of the Purcell's
own
house in Minneapolis.
The
Prairie
School Traveler. John Panning's ambitious
project to locate and document every extant Prairie Style work in the
United States and Canada. The states of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota,
and Wisconsin are well represented here.
The
Prairie
Styles website. Offers excellent biographical
material on some of the lesser known members of the Prairie School, as
well as its more famous leaders, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Once you select an architect or artist, pick the "Commissions"
button to view samples of their work.
The
House
for an Art Lover site. Mackintosh and his wife,
Margaret MacDonald, designed this handsome house for a 1901 competition. It
remained un-built until 1996, when an interpretation of their design was completed
in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park. This site has recently become quite graphics
intensive and really requires a fairly speedy connection to enjoy its
offerings. It also has shown a tendency to go offline for hours at a
time, so try again later if unavailable at the moment.
The
Hunterian Art
Gallery at the University of Glasgow. The
largest single repository of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Its Mackintosh House exhibit has placed the reassembled interiors of the architect's
demolished Glasgow home on permanent display.
The
Gaudi
and Barcelona Club. Covers Antoni Gaudi, the famous
Art Nouveau architect from Barcelona, Spain. Includes a Gaudi biography
and a gallery of his works. Another good resource on the architect is Pedro
Uhart's Gaudi Designer
site, available in French, English, and Spanish.
Le
Cercle Guimard. Celebrates the work of Hector
Guimard, the architect behind the design of those exotic Paris Metro stations
entrances and THE driving force behind Art Nouveau architecture in
France. In French, but an English version is in the works. The
Hector Guimard website
archive offers another good view of this influential designer in English.
Frank Derville's
World
Wide Art Nouveau server. Documents many of the
artists
and architects behind the Art Nouveau movement, with photos and
links
to other Art Nouveau related sites. Wonderful collection of some
Art
Nouveau doors.
Jalf Flach's
Rondom1900. A
marvellous photographic collection of European Art Nouveau architecture,
including many fine works not often seen elsewhere. Features
architectural galleries organized by country, with accompanying commentary
in both Dutch and English.
Victorians and Revivals:
David
Taylor's
Victorian House
site. It offers a
rather nice
Gallery of Victorian Homes
in several North American
cities that still retain
some of their 19th Century
charms. These include:
Galena, Illinois; Evanston,
Illinois; St. Paul,
Minnesota; and Port
Townsend, Washington; and
several others. The
site also offers a good
primer on
Victorian House Styles,
briefly describing the most
important ones and providing
an example of each.
Representing the mid 19th
century octagon house craze
is the impressive
Armour-Stiner house, a domed
octagon, complete with a
killer cupola, in Irvington,
New York.
The
Biltmore Estate
official website. The
largest privately owned home
ever built in America.
Designed for George
Washington Vanderbilt and
his family by architect
Richard Morris Hunt in
Chateauesque style, and
landscaped by Frederick Law
Olmsted, the designer of
many of America's finest
parks, including New York's
Central Park. Very
nice QuickTime movie tours
showing parts of the house
and grounds.
Kirkbride Buildings.
Focuses on the picturesque
American design of hospitals
for the mentally ill in the
last half of the 19th
century.
18th
Century back to the
Renaissance:
Vaux le Vicomte,
the chateau that set the
stage for the Palace of
Versailles.
Medieval
back to the Fall of Rome:
The
Castles on the Web
site. Great site on
castles, palaces, abbeys,
and cathedrals from around
the world. Offers an
impressive collection of
photos and medieval links.
Includes information on
heraldry, castle
accommodations, castle
terms, medieval legends,
weapons, and more.
James
Dupont's
Castles of the United States
website. A fun site
featuring various American
castles, displaying both
historically correct and
campy interpretations of the
medieval metaphor.
Professor
Alison Stone's
Medieval Art and
Architecture
site. Offers an
extensive collection of
English and French medieval
building pictures.
Edward G.
Kane's
Roads to Ruins.
Fine site on medieval German
castles, specializing in
those built mostly before
1500 A.D.
The
Stave Church
tour. Pictures and
descriptions of many of
these exceptional medieval
wooden structures.
Part of the
Ancient Worlds
site.
Ancient Architecture:
James Q.
Jacob's
Photo Galleries.
Feature some of best
coverage of ancient Indian
Ruins in the Americas on the
Net. Part of a larger,
personal site.
David
Moore's
Roman Concrete
website. Discusses
concrete in ancient Roman
construction. Includes
a chapter on the
construction and history of
the Pantheon in Rome, built
circa 100-125 A.D. Its
dome was unsurpassed in
clear span for more than a
millennium. It still
stands today, an incredible
feat of ancient engineering.
The
Seven Wonders of the Ancient
World
website. I'll bet you
can't name them all without
a visit to this site.
Only one has survived.
In the summer 2007, The
New7Wonders Foundation
announced the results of
their world-wide poll to
name the
New 7 Wonders of the World,
a mix of ancient and more
modern structures still
standing today.
Other Historic or Regional Architectural Sites:
Geir Tandberg Steigan's handsome
Arc!
website. Highlights some of the historic
architecture of Oslo, Norway; Brussels, Belgium; Bordeaux, France; and a
few other places. Text in Norwegian only.
The
Belarusian
Architecture pages. Documents the rich
architectural history of this former Soviet state located adjacent to the
Baltic States. Part of the
Virtual
Guide to Belarus website.
Belgiumview.
A photographic survey of historic and contemporary architecture in Belgium. Nice big
images. Viewable in Dutch, French, or English.
Chicago
Landmarks. Highlights the Windy City's
extraordinarily rich history of late 19th and early 20th century
architecture.
The
Eiffel
Tower. All about the widely loved but once controversial
Paris landmark, created for the Paris Exposition of 1889.
Lowell Boileau's
Fabulous
Ruins of Detroit. Beautifully photographed
and compellingly narrated, this haunting site focuses on a shrinking
metropolis's architectural cast offs. The
table
of contents seems the best way to navigate this vast site.
Finnish Pumpkin.
Showcases Finnish architecture, focusing more on older, historic buildings than modern ones.
The
Folly
Fellowship. What's an estate garden without a
little architectural staging? British towers, ruins, and other monuments built
to the whims of eccentric landowners are the focus of this site.
Many on view under its Google Folly Map.
Tom Rinaldi & Rob Yasinsac's
Hudson
Valley Ruins. Showcases some of the
decaying architectural treasures of the "American Rhine", the
Hudson River Valley in New York State.
The
Images
of Rome website. A handsome site offering
quality pictures and drawings of historic Roman Structures. The
St.
Peter's Basilica (the Vatican) page has some excellent old drawings
and good modern shots, including ones looking out from the roof and
cupola.
The
National Trust.
The British organization that protects and makes publicly accessible some
of Great Britain's most spectacular historic buildings and gardens.
Pictures and descriptions of most of the properties are available on site.
The
National
Trust for Historic Preservation. The
American version of the much larger British National Trust. They
operate over 25 historic properties across the United
States. Pictures
and descriptions of each are available on site. If interested in
preservation in the U.S.A., this is a great organization to join for
learning more.
Portmeirion.
All about the delightful Welsh resort that provided the village setting for the
Kafkaesque British TV series.
The
Third
Reich in Ruins. Using historic and contemporary photos, Geoff
Walden provides an extensive tour of what remains of Nazi construction in Germany.
You-are-here.com.
Great photographic coverage of Los Angeles architecture. The site also
includes another fine photo section that highlights modern architecture
in selected.
Landscape Architecture:
The
Enchanted
Gardens of the Renaissance.
Marvelous annotated
tours through three of Italy's most incredible gardens. Not quite
like being there, but they'll probably inspire you to plan a visit
someday. This is part of the excellent
World
Art Treasures website. Note: this link has a history of going
offline, but usually is back up within the next business day.
The
History
of Landscape Architecture site. Images used in a
course by professor Kenneth Helphand of the University of Oregon.
Covers landscape and garden design throughout the ages.
The
Longwood
Gardens site. Take a virtual tour of Pierre S.
du Pont's magnificent gardens and conservatory, located near Kennett
Square, Pennsylvania. American landscape design on a palatial scale.
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