A clearly distilled architectural atlas based on 144 major designs from ancient times to the twenty-first century, showcasing the cultural dimension of building. However disparate the styles or ethoses, beneath architecture's pluralism lies a number of categorical typologies. In Thinking Design, Austrian architect Andreas Lechner has condensed his profound typological understanding into a single book. Divided into three chapters ? Tectonics, Type, and Topos ? Lechner reflects upon twelve fundamental typologies: theatre, museum, library, government, office, amenity, religion, retail, fabrication, education, coercion, and health. Encompassing a total of 144 carefully selected examples of classic designs and buildings, ranging across an epic sweep from antiquity to the present, the book not only explains the fundamentals of collective architectural knowledge but traces the interconnected reiterations that lie at the heart of architecture's transformative power. As such, Thinking Design provides a new building theory rooted in the act of composition as an aesthetic determinant of architectural form. This emphasis on design process over the more commonplace aspects of function, purpose or atmosphere makes it more than a mere planning manual, instead revealing the cultural dimension of architecture that gives it its ability to transcend not only use cycles but entire epochs. Lavishly illustrated with newly drawn elevation or axonometric projection, floor plan and section for each example, it does not only serve to invigorate the underlying ideas but make it an ideal comparative compendium.
