A fairly speedy overview of the cultural meaning and philosophy of high culture architecture, providing some interesting nuggets of information though being rather chattier and a bit scattered than systematic. It will provoke the reader with practically no prior reading in architecture at all, such as myself, with a better sense of how to look at and appreciate high status architecture. For its gaze is very much at the level of high culture, discussing famous museums and cathedrals and ancient temples and modern high rises, rather than the proletarian commonplace buildings of society one most often actually sees.

Contains 25 black and white photos of buildings discussed, which is nice, but a device capable of looking up photos on Google Images will be very handy to have along. ( )

Don’t really get why some people found this hard to read. I found it a quite pleasant read. I loved how the author makes you think about buildings and their intersection with cultural meanings, which is how he defines architecture. Along the way you learn about the Western architectural canon and the myriad ways this canon influences contemporary building design. Highly recommended. ( )