Ruskin's respected treatise on architectural methods and style is presented here complete, with all of the original edition's images. Writing in the 1840s, John Ruskin set out his architectural beliefs. A man of deep religiosity, Ruskin was convinced that Gothic architecture was at the very height of beauty and achievement in building design. Even during his prime, Ruskin had opponents who felt his staunch, traditionalist take on structural architecture confining. Despite Ruskin's views, this book acts as a well-informed and detailed history of architecture as it stood in the mid-19th century. The Seven Lamps of the title describe seven principles which Ruskin viewed should be reflected in a building: Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, and Obedience. We find within this edition illustrations of the structures and flourishes which Ruskin admires most. His opinions on certain newer designs of the industrial era, and the painstaking restoration of ancient artworks, may be summed up in a single word: desecration. Despite the author's stark views and ornate style, for its context The Seven Lamps of Architecture is a worthy edition to the library of architects and enthusiasts of design. A particular strength from a historic viewpoint is Ruskin's discussions of the material contrasts and conflict between traditional design and newer forms, together with his sometimes apt phrasing: "Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man...that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure."

Classic work by great Victorian expresses his deepest convictions of the nature and role of architecture and its aesthetics. Authoritative edition includes reproductions of 14 plates of Ruskin's architectural drawings.

As Ruskin suggests in his Seven Lamps of Architecture: "We may live without [architecture], and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her." We remember best when we experience an event in a place. But what happens when we leave that place, or that place no longer exists? This book addresses the relationship between memory and place and asks how architecture captures and triggers memory. It explores how architecture exists as a material object and how it registers as a place that we come to remember beyond the physical site itself. It questions what architecture is in the broadest sense, assuming that it is not simply buildings. Rather, architecture is considered to be the mapping of physical, mental or emotional space. The idea that we are all architects in some measure - as we actively organize and select pathways and markers within space - is central to this book's premise. Each chapter provides a different example of the manifold ways in which the physical place of architecture is curated by the architecture in our "mental" space: our imaginary toolbox when we think of a place and look at a photograph, or visit a site and describe it later or send a postcard. By connecting architecture with other disciplines such as geography, visual culture, sociology, and urban studies, as well as the fine and performing arts, this book puts forward the idea that a conversation about architecture is not exclusively about formal, isolated buildings, but instead must be deepened and broadened as spatialized visualizations and experiences of place.

This polemic is essential reading for anyone converned with the state and direction of architecture and urban planning today and will provake wide-ranging discussion.