Antiquity Origins, Classicism and the New Rome

Antiquity: Origins, Classicism and the New Rometraces architectural history from its very beginnings until the time when the traditions that shape today's environments began to flourish. The narrative starts with man's earliest settlements in caves and tents and continues through the origins of the Classical tradition in the mountain temples of Sumer, the pyramids of Egypt and the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. The history progresses through the temples, theatres, palaces and council chambers of ancient Greece and Rome, and finishes with the adoption of Classical models to house the institutions of Christian Europe. Excursions along the way include the traditions of Mesoamerica and the Andean littoral, and into Africa.This is the first in a series of five books that describe and illustrate the seminal architectural traditions of the world. It is not simply a catalogue of buildings; it provides their political, technological, social and cultural contexts and explores architecture not only as the development of form and space but as an expression of the civilization within which it evolves. The buildings are analyzed and illustrated with photographs and drawings while the societies that produced them are brought to life through a broad selection of their artifacts.This book functions equally as a detailed and comprehensive narrative, a collection of the world's great buildings, and as an archive of themes across time and place.Tadgell, Christ is the author of 'Antiquity Origins, Classicism and the New Rome', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415407502 and ISBN 0415407508.