Architekturführer / Architectural Guide – serie

Founded in the fifteenth century, planned and rebuilt by the French, and then modernised and expanded in the era after independence, the city of Phnom Penh displays a diverse mix of styles. Here, early religious and vernacular buildings, the glittering structures of the Royal Palace, and colonial buildings of the French Protectorate (1863–1953) coexist with the gems of the ‘New Khmer Architecture’ of the 1960s. After the destructive period under the Khmer Rouge, the city went through a rebirth. It has seen rapid modernisation and economic development in recent years, and its urban landscape is transforming at a breathtaking pace.This guide offers a comprehensive overview of Phnom Penh’s built heritage, highlighting its history and architectural layers. In addition to covering better-known masterpieces, it also takes readers through the city’s ‘everyday architecture’, revealing places off the beaten track. Illustrated with contemporary photographs and historical images, the book presents more than 140 works that illuminate the four major phases of development in the city’s ever-changing urban history. It thus makes an important contribution to current debates on heritage preservation in the booming metropolis. Interviews with local experts present their individual perspectives on the city and place the buildings in a broader context.

A city famous for its rapid growth and high cost of living, London is not a place one immediately associates with social housing. Yet the British capital has a long history of such projects: from Henry Roberts’ works for the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes in the nineteenth century to the contemporary, RIBA-award-winning Dujardin Mews. Divided by period rather than architectural style, this guide focuses on the developments in this often-overlooked field, beginning at the close of the nineteenth century and finishing at the present day. Twentieth-century buildings thus make up the bulk of the guide: the pre-First World War Hampstead Garden Suburb, quintessentially English Mock-Tudor estates, and brutalist icons such as the Barbican are all included.Alongside these well-known works, there are lesser-known works. The urban planner Tjerk Ruimschotel showcases residences in both the heart of the metropolis and its outer suburbs. Location details, tube stations and maps accompany the projects for easy navigation, and a comprehensive reading list provides inspiration for further investigation. Architectural Guide: London offers an alternative way to view the city’s diverse architecture – where remarkable buildings are frequently hidden in plain sight.

Lima has many more sunny days than its inhabitants claim. The urban layout of its historic centre – the famous checkerboard – is the most perfect Cartesian grid in South America, yet the suburbs are the global capital of informality. Lima society lives in a permanent state of commercial frenzy, yet it has preserved the oldest traditions in the continent. The best-known works of architecture are viceregal and republican, yet pre-Columbian ruins are scattered around the city in a manner that can only be found elsewhere in Cairo. Its modern movement is more cheerful than that of the old continent, midway between Brazil and California. And the invasions, a heterodox and radical phenomenon, have generated an astonishing form of urban development. The book describes more than 160 works, organised in routes that range from the territorial to the neighbourhood scale and are designed to explore the city by boat, car, train, bus, bicycle or on foot. It covers the predominant styles of architecture in each period as well as the remains of the pre-existing landscape and the infrastructures that articulate the city today. Interspersed in the texts are references to the civilising mechanisms that have underpinned the construction of the works, the economic activities that have made them possible, and their public administration.Until now, Lima has shown the world a gloomy, unattractive ambience. Herman Melville described it as 'the strangest, saddest city thou can'st see', César Moro as 'Lima la horrible', and Héctor Velarde as 'Lima la gris'. This guide offers a different picture, one of a vibrant, cheerful and insanelyglorious city, with bright colour photographs inviting visitors and residentsto see it in a new light.

For many centuries horse-riding peoples populated the steppes to the north of today’s Almaty and the green hills to the south, but the city itself – formerly known as ‘Alma-Ata’ – is not even 180 years old. Its initial development was closely linked to the expansion of the Russian Empire. Today Almaty is Kazakhstan’s largest metropolis, a vibrant milieu where the encounter between different cultures is also reflected in the architecture.Orthodox cathedrals and mosques, Soviet Neoclassicism and monumental mosaic art, Brutalism and brand-new skyscrapers: this book presents more than 100 buildings from the past and present. Author Edda Schlager has spent two decades in Almaty, covering the transformation of the city and the country as a journalist for international media. Critical essays by and interviews with local actors contribute to her broad, kaleidoscopic panorama of one of the most fascinating Central Asian metropolises.

Discover the architectural gems of Dhaka, the bustling capital of Bangladesh, in the first-ever architectural guide to Dhaka. More than 150 buildings and projects have been handpicked by architect and author Sayed Ahmed to illustrate the more-than-1000-year history of this vibrant city. From Louis Kahn’s world-famous Parliament Building to the modern residential high-rises of its evolving urban culture, Dhaka offers a rich tapestry of architectural heritage stretching far beyond the 200 years of British colonialism. So, get ready to explore the best of Dhaka’s architectural landscapes, such as Gulshan and Banani, which have developed a modern urban character in the past two decades. QR codes and detailed maps will help you navigate the concrete jungle of this metropolis with its population of 22 million. Lavishly illustrated, this guidebook is a must-read for architecture enthusiasts, travellers, and residents alike.

Known as ‘the city of dreams’, a place where everyone is welcome and everything is possible, Mumbai is the second most populous city in India, a curious melting pot of cultures, the arts, religious traditions, and architectural legacies, and one of the greatest nerve centres of the Indian sub-continent. This unique guide shows some of the architectural threads that have contributed to make Mumbai the cosmopolitan metropolis that it is today, including rock-cut caves (important UNESCO World Heritage sites which are considered one of the cradles of civilisation), Indo-Islamic architecture, colonial heritage, hidden gems of Art Déco (including Modernist cinemas – a threatened species) and stunning contemporary architecture that is emblematic of the difficult historical period the city is going through for both economic and socio-ethical reasons.Featuring almost 150 buildings, Architectural Guide Mumbai will give the reader an understanding of how Mumbai’s present is layered with its fascinating past and of the development challenges facing the city as it strives to provide more sustainable living conditions for its inhabitants.

From the Arab conquest to the Arab Spring: in its capacity for architectural and social transformation and in its tension between religious tradition and modern glitter, Cairo is like no other city in the Islamic world.In this book, Swiss architect Thomas Meyer-Wieser explores the idea of the North African city that was once the heart of ancient civilisation and is now the capital of modern Egypt. As well as looking at more than 300 buildings, he takes the reader on 20 walks and excursions.• The Arab conquest: 7th to 10th centuries • Fatimid rule: 10th to 12th centuries • The Golden Age: 12th to 15th centuries • Ottoman provincial city: 16th to 18th centuries • ‘Paris on the Nile’: Cairo in the 19th century • The modern metropolis: 20th to 21st centuries

From Māori meeting houses to colonial villas, from Brutalist landmarks to cutting-edge sustainable design – this architectural guide offers a comprehensive overview of Aotearoa’s resp. New Zealand’s built environment. Covering more than 200 buildings across both the North and South Islands, it presents the diversity of architectural expression in a country better known internationally for its breathtaking landscapes. Yet the architecture of Aotearoa is no less remarkable: it reflects centuries of cultural exchange, the resilience of a society shaped by migration and biculturalism, and the challenges of building in earthquake-prone terrain. Structured by region, the guide introduces historic highlights and contemporary works, from Auckland’s waterfront regeneration to the cultural institutions of Wellington, from Māori architecture in Rotorua to experimental timber constructions in Canterbury and Otago. Essays and interviews with leading practitioners and scholars provide further insights into the politics of identity, the legacy of colonialism, and the search for sustainable solutions in the 21st century.A must-have companion for architects, planners, and travellers alike, this volume situates New Zealand architecture within the global discourse while remaining attentive to its unique local traditions and innovations.

When Hawaii became the 50th state of the USA in 1959, a period of intense construction and a growing tourism industry followed. Luckily, this coincided with the most creative phase of the mid-century modern masters, who designed buildings that took full advantage of the archipelago’s unique, consistently pleasant climate. Tropical modernism is therefore one of the main focuses of this guide, which presents the architectural history of Honolulu – Hawaii’s capital city on the island of Oahu – through almost 150 buildings. The selection ranges from vernacular architecture and nineteenth-century churches right through to war memorials, iconic 1960s hotels, and recent exclusive and inclusive condominiums and apartments, concluding with evolved proposals addressing the climate and housing crisis.Compiled by four leading experts and longtime Honolulu residents, this book is more than just a reliable travel companion. With extensive map material, a large number of archive images and color photos, in-depth essays, and extra YouTube viewing material, it also invites armchair travelers to dream of Hawaii.

This Architectural and Cultural Guide East Polynesia challenges the romanticised visions of the South Pacific by critically examining the built environment through the lens of architecture, history, and cultural resilience. Across over 400 richly illustrated pages, it traces how traditional knowledge systems, ecological adaptation, and colonial ruptures have shaped architectural practices from the Cook Islands via French Polynesia and Pitcairn to Rapa Nui in Chilean Polynesia. With contributions from local experts, architects, geologists, and historians, the guide foregrounds the complex entanglements of place, power, and memory. Rather than offering a conventional typological catalogue, it maps networks of meaning: from sacred stone platforms (marae) and climate-responsive vernacular dwellings to the infrastructural legacies of nuclear testing and space-age geopolitics. The Pacific is not portrayed as a void but as a stage of cultural innovation and architectural intelligence.This publication is a carefully curated, research-based exploration of a region where architecture emerges not as monumentality, but as method: flexible, bioclimatic, and socially coded. Aimed at critically minded travellers, scholars, and architects, this volume invites readers to reconsider what architecture can mean in contexts defined not by permanence, but by rhythm, movement, and relational space.

Graz is widely deemed Austria’s capital of architecture. The Alpine country’s second largest city boasts both an Old Town that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the experimental Graz School buildings of the late 20th century. As the UNESCO City of Design since 2011, Graz fascinates with outstanding examples of historical and contemporary architecture that range from the Renaissance Eggenberg Palace to the Kunsthaus, otherwise known as the “Friendly Alien.”The updated second edition of the Architekturführer Graz—now also available in English translation—has been expanded to include 60 additional buildings. The book covers all relevant architecture from the 12th to 21st centuries. Twelve tours lead the reader to over 300 buildings, streets, and squares. The accompanying texts provide an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the building activities and embed this knowledge in the appropriate artistic and cultural-historical context.

For much of its history Katowice in southern Poland was just a village in the Silesian Highlands. It only became a city in the second half of the nineteenth century, when it developed into an important Prussian industrial centre. However, it is the political developments and urbanist ideas that followed World War Two that have left the deepest mark on the city’s face. The Polish communist state launched an ambitious plan to redevelop and expand Katowice as a model of a modern, progressive urban organism. Over the next 45 years, as this idea was put into practice, Katowice acquired modern architecture that attracted great national interest. Since Poland’s profound political and economic transformation in the 1990s and 2000s, however, the city’s reputation as an architectural hotspot has only grown, spreading well beyond the country’s borders. This book presents highlights from this eventful and contradictory history. Jakub Bródka, architect and lecturer at Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, has selected 120 buildings from eight decades. They range from the socialist realist Palace of Youth from the late 1940s through the iconic Spodek (Saucer) multipurpose arena, completed in 1971, to the two skyscapers of the KTW office complex, built between 2016 and 2022.