Ten years in the making, A History of Architecture ranges from the first prehistoric environments on record to the most recent examples of urban design. A landmark work of impressive scope, the book is enhanced by 700 halftone illustrations and 150 drawings especially prepared by architect Richard Tobias. Kostof's range of study includes not only the monumental religious, governmental and upper-class structures around which architectural history has usually been written but also the diversity of ordinary domestic, rural, and urban buildings, and landscapes which surround them. Moreover, Kostof evaluates Western achievement in the context of contemporary cultures elsewhere. Thus he duscusses the high points of imperial Rome along with Buddhist stupas and Han palaces, compares medieval Florence with medieval Cairo, and introduces Inca and Aztec cities as the Spanish conquistadores would have seen them. The author's premise is that buldings are conditioned by the social, economic, and political frame of their time; in this sense, Kostof concludes, the history of architecture can be considered an aspect of the history of human institutions. "Architecture, in the end," he writes, "is nothing less than the gift of making places for some human purpose." About the Author: Spiro Kostof is Professor of Architectural History at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a former president of the Society of Architectural Historians and is the author of several books, among them Caves of God and The Third Rime, 1870-1950: Traffic and Glory, and editor of The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession

A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals

Arts & Photography

Kostof, Spiro

Architecture

Oxford University Press

History of Architecture, A: Settings and Rituals by Kostof, Spiro. 4to. 1st ptg.

Engineering & Transportation

Engineering

How did architects get to be architects in any given period in history? How were they trained? How did they find their clients and communicate with them? What did society think of them? Spiro Kostof's The Architect, a collection of essays by historians and architects, explores these and other intriguing questions about the profession of architecture. The first book in more than fifty years to survey the profession from its beginnings in ancient Egypt to the modern day, it is the most complete synthesis to date of our knowledge of how the architect's profession developed. Included are a major study of the Beaux-Arts, a vivid memoir by the distinguished architect Josephy Esherick, and an excellent chapter on women which demostrates how the ethic of professionalism has contributed to the exploitation of women in this as in many other professions. The Architect places the current dilemma about the architect's role in society in historical perspective and offers a good overview of the development of one of the world's oldest professions.

The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession

History

Military

What is the pattern of America? How did we mark our land throughout our history with towns and farms, factories and railroad lines? And what does all this activity say about who we are and what we have been? In this book, a beautifully illustrated companion volume to a new PBS series, one of our most highly acclaimed architectural historians confronts these questions as he takes us on a thoughtful and wonderfully engaging tour of America's built environment. _____In preparing the series and the book, Spiro Kostof set out to see America as one design, made from a whole cloth, and to review the enduring themes that determined the main features of its landscape. Each chapter, like each program in the series, focuses on one of these themes: the house, the workplace, the street, the public realm, the shape of the land. Kostof's curiosity touches on everything from suburban tracts to canal systems, from company towns to office towers. His aim throughout is to help us see America and not to take anything we see for granted. With Kostof as our guide, such apparent banalities as factory windows and street pavements take on a new significance, as do more obvious monuments, from state capitols to dams and long-span bridges. Embracing a truly democratic view of his subject, Kostof regards all buildings, the standard and the fancy, as worthy of study, and his consistent emphasis is on their social importance--who uses them and how they are used. From first chapter to last, Kostof brilliantly conveys the processes of designing, building, and using by which we have imprinted the landscape throughout the course of our long tenancy. _____"In the ways we use what is designed and built, in the demands we make and the changes we bring about," Kostof writes, "we are all designers of America. On us all falls the blame for what is ugly in our surroundings, what is inhumane and derelict. To us all belongs the credit for the beauty we fashion and the love, the excitement, the grace we allow it to contain."

America by Design

There exists perhaps no site more arresting than the strange rockscape of Cappadocia in central Turkey. Buried within the heart of this incredible vision of shapes and colors lie hundreds of monasteries and churches where Christian communities lived and prayed for the greater part of two millennia. This comprehensive study explores the land and hidden monuments of Christian Cappadocia. Spiro Kostof has written a readable, general introduction to the rockcut architecture of Cappadocia and its painted decoration and a critical review of the current state of scholarship on the subject. Focusing on the physical setting, the buildings, and painting programs in the context of their creation, he discusses the nature and historical background of monasticism in Cappadocia; depicts the builders, artists, and patrons who created the monuments; and describes the sources and meaning of the particular types of buildings and painting programs. This detailed account of the region and its monuments also includes revealing line drawings of plans, elevations, and cross sections, a glossary of terms, notes, a bibliography, and an index, as well as a new introduction for this edition.

Caves of God: Cappadocia and its Churches

When the late Spiro Kostof's A History of Architecture appeared in 1985, it was universally hailed as a masterpiece--one of the finest books on architecture ever written. Now, updated and expanded, this classic reference continues to bring to readers the full array of civilization's architectural achievements. Insightful, engagingly written and graced with close to a thousand superb illustrations, the Second Edition of this extraordinary volume offers a sweeping narrative that examines architecture as it reflects the social, economic, and technological aspects of human history. The scope of the book is astonishing. Kostof examines a surprisingly wide variety of man-made structures: prehistoric huts and the TVA, the pyramids of Giza and the Rome railway station, the ziggurat and the department store. Kostof considered every building worthy of attention, every structure a potential source of insight, whether it be prehistoric hunting camps at Terra Amata, or the caves at Lascaux with their magnificent paintings, or a twenty-story hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

History Of Architecture: Settings And Rituals

Oxford Univ. Pr.

Spiro Kostof's groundbreaking work, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals, helped to reshape the study of architectural history. His book extended beyond the discussion of great monuments to find connections with ordinary dwellings, urbanism, and different cultures from around the world. World Architecture: A Cross-Cultural History is an entirely new, student-friendly text by Richard Ingersoll. Building on Kostof's global vision and social context, Ingersoll integrates extensive coverage of world and contemporary architecture in order to provide the most comprehensive survey in the field. Presented chronologically, each chapter now focuses on three unique architectural cultures, which gives instructors the flexibility to choose which traditions are the most relevant to their courses. The text also provides students with numerous pedagogical tools, including timelines, comparative maps, a glossary, and text boxes devoted to social factors and specific issues in technology and philosophy. The result is a comprehensive method for understanding and appreciating the history, cultural significance, and beauty of architecture from around the world. FEATURES ** Stunning full-color visuals: More than 800 color photographs, hundreds of original graphics, architectural drawings, and maps, and meticulous diagrams demonstrate how classic buildings were created ** Helpful learning and study tools: New timelines, chapter introductions, text boxes with fascinating case studies, bibliographies, review questions, and a glossary help students identify key information and better prepare them for exams and class assignments ** Free Instructor's Resource CD: PowerPoints and 80% of the 1200 photos and architectural drawings from the text ** Free companion website resources (www.oup.com/us/ingersoll): Chapter summaries, review questions, self-exams, and Google Earth maps with the location of key structures further enhance the text

World Architecture: A Cross-Cultural History

Ingersoll, Richard

A History of Architecture: International Second Edition

Castillo, Gregory

Tobias, Richard

OUP USA

Cappadocia, a province in central Turkey, offers the traveler a startling rockscape whose cones, pleats, and folds conceal hundreds of monasteries and churches carved from the soft, porous "tuff" and used by Christian communities over nearly two millennia for shelter, burial, and sanctuary. This region in the Turkish hinterland is recognized as one of the centers of Byzantine mural painting. However, numerous hermitages, monasteries, and independent chapels dating from the seventh century onward reveal it also as one of the most concentrated areas of Eastern monasticism.This book serves a double purpose: it provides a thorough and lucid introduction to the rockcut churches and monasteries and their painted decorations, while it critically examines current scholarship on the monastic environment of Byzantine Cappadocia--particularly in regard to the architecture, which has been generally neglected by art historians.Scooped out rather than constructed, this anonymous architecture has its own unique appeal. Kostof writes: "The Cappadocian carver-architect was not inhibited... by statics or the nature of materials. His structure stood, a monolith, before he started to work on it. And he could cut into this monolith quickly, effortlessly. It might take a single man about a month to carve out a large room of two to three thousand cubic feet. Loads and thrusts were negligible. One was free to try any structural symbol with little concern for structural safety. Cupolas could bubble from flat ceilings, or be placed over square bays by means of the most cavalier transition elemenis. No shape need be perfect: extemporaneous geometry is everywhere the rule. Wall lines sag, one half of an arch doesn't quite match the other, carefree deviations, here and there, mark the general outline of the building."Following an account of the region, its environmental, political, and religious history, the author discusses in detail the building types and painting programs in the context of their creation--answering such questions as what was the nature of monasticism in Cappadocia, and who were the builders, the artists, their patrons? The author was born and educated in Turkey, and his personal knowledge of the monuments is a convincing factor in his handling of chronological and stylistic uncertainties. Throughout, Kostof's mind's eye never leaves the total environment, observing the inseparability of landscape, buildings, paintings, and the ritual that informs them.

Caves of God: The monastic environment of Byzantine Cappadocia

Religion & Spirituality

MIT Press]

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Books by Kostof, Spiro

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kostof, Spiro. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals

A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals

The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession

America by Design

Caves of God: Cappadocia and its Churches

History Of Architecture: Settings And Rituals

World Architecture: A Cross-Cultural History

A History of Architecture: International Second Edition

World Architecture: A Cross-Cultural History

Caves of God: The monastic environment of Byzantine Cappadocia