Collins Need To Know?: How To Read A Building

Learn to analyse and interpret architectural features with confidence.

Ever wanted to be able to tell the difference between tudor and mock-tudor? Do you know what components make a building gothic? Every wondered what has influenced how our towns and cities were built? Want to understand the major traditions of architecture?

Architecture is all around us: it is part of our lives, and its continuing development is a central theme in the history of mankind. Learning to read a building is the route to understanding a major part of our cultural inheritance.

'Collins Need to Know?: How To Read A Building' takes the reader through the process of learning more about the built environment. Starting with the basics of analysing the home, then moving onto looking at public buildings and larger and more well-known structures, Timothy Brittain-Catlin shows the reader how features are inherited and copied, as well as adapted with each new generation.

Whether you live in a small flat or detached house, you can find traces of architectural history -- and learn to interpret the features you see and put them into the wider context of your surroundings. This book will help you start to uncover fascinating aspects of architectural style and history from the buildings you pass every day.