This text started out as a revised version of Buildings by the second-named author [53], but it has grown into a much more voluminous book. The earlier book was intended to give a short, friendly, elementary introduction to theory, accessible to readers with a minimal background.Moreover, it approached buildings from only one point of view, sometimes called the “old-fashioned” approach: A building is a simplicial complex with certain properties. The current book includes all the material of the earlier one, but we have added a lot. In particular, we have included the “modern” (or “W-metric”) approach to buildings, which looks quite different from the old-fashioned approach but is equivalent to it. This has become increasingly important in the theory and applications of buildings. We have also added a thorough treatment of the Moufang property, which occupies two chapters. And we have added many new exercises and illustrations. Some of the exercises have hints or solutions in the back of the book. A more extensive set of solutions is available in a separate solutions manual, which may be obtained from Springer’s Mathematics Editorial Department. We have tried to add the new material in such a way that readers who are content with the old-fashioned approach can still get an elementary treatment of it by reading selected chapters or sections. In particular, many readers will want to omit the optional sections (marked with a star). The introduction below provides more detailed guidance to the reader.

This text started out as a revised version of Buildings by the second-named author [53], but it has grown into a much more voluminous book. The earlier book was intended to give a short, friendly, elementary introduction to theory, accessible to readers with a minimal background.Moreover, it approached buildings from only one point of view, sometimes called the “old-fashioned” approach: A building is a simplicial complex with certain properties. The current book includes all the material of the earlier one, but we have added a lot. In particular, we have included the “modern” (or “W-metric”) approach to buildings, which looks quite different from the old-fashioned approach but is equivalent to it. This has become increasingly important in the theory and applications of buildings. We have also added a thorough treatment of the Moufang property, which occupies two chapters. And we have added many new exercises and illustrations. Some of the exercises have hints or solutions in the back of the book. A more extensive set of solutions is available in a separate solutions manual, which may be obtained from Springer’s Mathematics Editorial Department. We have tried to add the new material in such a way that readers who are content with the old-fashioned approach can still get an elementary treatment of it by reading selected chapters or sections. In particular, many readers will want to omit the optional sections (marked with a star). The introduction below provides more detailed guidance to the reader.

This text started out as a revised version of Buildings by the second-named author [53], but it has grown into a much more voluminous book. The earlier book was intended to give a short, friendly, elementary introduction to theory, accessible to readers with a minimal background.Moreover, it approached buildings from only one point of view, sometimes called the “old-fashioned” approach: A building is a simplicial complex with certain properties. The current book includes all the material of the earlier one, but we have added a lot. In particular, we have included the “modern” (or “W-metric”) approach to buildings, which looks quite different from the old-fashioned approach but is equivalent to it. This has become increasingly important in the theory and applications of buildings. We have also added a thorough treatment of the Moufang property, which occupies two chapters. And we have added many new exercises and illustrations. Some of the exercises have hints or solutions in the back of the book. A more extensive set of solutions is available in a separate solutions manual, which may be obtained from Springer’s Mathematics Editorial Department. We have tried to add the new material in such a way that readers who are content with the old-fashioned approach can still get an elementary treatment of it by reading selected chapters or sections. In particular, many readers will want to omit the optional sections (marked with a star). The introduction below provides more detailed guidance to the reader.

This book is addressed to mathematicians and advanced students interested in buildings, groups and their interplay. Its first part introduces - presupposing good knowledge of ordinary buildings - the theory of twin buildings, discusses its group-theoretic background (twin BN-pairs), investigates geometric aspects of twin buildings and applies them to determine finiteness properties of certain S-arithmetic groups. This application depends on topological properties of some subcomplexes of spherical buildings. The background of this problem, some examples and the complete solution for all "sufficiently large" classical buildings are covered in detail in the second part of the book.

This text started out as a revised version of Buildings by the second-named author [53], but it has grown into a much more voluminous book. The earlier book was intended to give a short, friendly, elementary introduction to theory, accessible to readers with a minimal background.Moreover, it approached buildings from only one point of view, sometimes called the “old-fashioned” approach: A building is a simplicial complex with certain properties. The current book includes all the material of the earlier one, but we have added a lot. In particular, we have included the “modern” (or “W-metric”) approach to buildings, which looks quite different from the old-fashioned approach but is equivalent to it. This has become increasingly important in the theory and applications of buildings. We have also added a thorough treatment of the Moufang property, which occupies two chapters. And we have added many new exercises and illustrations. Some of the exercises have hints or solutions in the back of the book. A more extensive set of solutions is available in a separate solutions manual, which may be obtained from Springer’s Mathematics Editorial Department. We have tried to add the new material in such a way that readers who are content with the old-fashioned approach can still get an elementary treatment of it by reading selected chapters or sections. In particular, many readers will want to omit the optional sections (marked with a star). The introduction below provides more detailed guidance to the reader.

This text started out as a revised version of Buildings by the second-named author [53], but it has grown into a much more voluminous book. The earlier book was intended to give a short, friendly, elementary introduction to theory, accessible to readers with a minimal background.Moreover, it approached buildings from only one point of view, sometimes called the “old-fashioned” approach: A building is a simplicial complex with certain properties. The current book includes all the material of the earlier one, but we have added a lot. In particular, we have included the “modern” (or “W-metric”) approach to buildings, which looks quite different from the old-fashioned approach but is equivalent to it. This has become increasingly important in the theory and applications of buildings. We have also added a thorough treatment of the Moufang property, which occupies two chapters. And we have added many new exercises and illustrations. Some of the exercises have hints or solutions in the back of the book. A more extensive set of solutions is available in a separate solutions manual, which may be obtained from Springer’s Mathematics Editorial Department. We have tried to add the new material in such a way that readers who are content with the old-fashioned approach can still get an elementary treatment of it by reading selected chapters or sections. In particular, many readers will want to omit the optional sections (marked with a star). The introduction below provides more detailed guidance to the reader.

This text started out as a revised version of Buildings by the second-named author [53], but it has grown into a much more voluminous book. The earlier book was intended to give a short, friendly, elementary introduction to theory, accessible to readers with a minimal background.Moreover, it approached buildings from only one point of view, sometimes called the “old-fashioned” approach: A building is a simplicial complex with certain properties. The current book includes all the material of the earlier one, but we have added a lot. In particular, we have included the “modern” (or “W-metric”) approach to buildings, which looks quite different from the old-fashioned approach but is equivalent to it. This has become increasingly important in the theory and applications of buildings. We have also added a thorough treatment of the Moufang property, which occupies two chapters. And we have added many new exercises and illustrations. Some of the exercises have hints or solutions in the back of the book. A more extensive set of solutions is available in a separate solutions manual, which may be obtained from Springer’s Mathematics Editorial Department. We have tried to add the new material in such a way that readers who are content with the old-fashioned approach can still get an elementary treatment of it by reading selected chapters or sections. In particular, many readers will want to omit the optional sections (marked with a star). The introduction below provides more detailed guidance to the reader.

This book is addressed to mathematicians and advanced students interested in buildings, groups and their interplay. Its first part introduces - presupposing good knowledge of ordinary buildings - the theory of twin buildings, discusses its group-theoretic background (twin BN-pairs), investigates geometric aspects of twin buildings and applies them to determine finiteness properties of certain S-arithmetic groups. This application depends on topological properties of some subcomplexes of spherical buildings. The background of this problem, some examples and the complete solution for all "sufficiently large" classical buildings are covered in detail in the second part of the book.