Field guide
Architectural styles, explained
The shortest possible primer on the languages buildings speak. One paragraph each, three canonical examples, then jump to real specimens in the atlas.
Style
Brutalism
Raw concrete, massive volumes, honest structure. Post-war optimism turned into a building system. Loud, polarising, often misunderstood.
Canonical: Unite d'Habitation, Habitat 67, Boston City Hall
Style
Modernism
Form follows function. Steel, glass, white planes, free plan. The dominant 20th-century language of the West.
Canonical: Villa Savoye, Barcelona Pavilion, Farnsworth House
Style
Art Deco
Geometric ornament, chrome, terraced setbacks. Hollywood-glamour skyscrapers and ocean liners of the 1920s–30s.
Canonical: Chrysler Building, Empire State, Eltham Palace
Style
Constructivism
Soviet avant-garde of the 1920s. Functional volumes, mass propaganda, architecture as social condenser.
Canonical: Narkomfin, Shukhov Tower, Rusakov Workers' Club
Style
Deconstructivism
Fragmented geometry, controlled chaos. Late-80s response to modernist orthodoxy.
Canonical: Guggenheim Bilbao, Vitra Fire Station, Jewish Museum Berlin
Style
Postmodernism
Irony, historical quotation, scenographic facade. The visual contradiction of the late 20th century.
Canonical: Piazza d'Italia, Portland Building, AT&T Building
Style
Gothic
Pointed arches, ribbed vaults, flying buttresses. Vertical light hunting in medieval Europe.
Canonical: Notre-Dame, Cologne Cathedral, Sainte-Chapelle
Style
Baroque
Drama, motion, gilded curves. 17th-century answer to Reformation austerity.
Canonical: St. Peter's Square, Palace of Versailles, Karlskirche
Style
High-Tech
Structure and services exposed as facade. Engineering as aesthetic.
Canonical: Centre Pompidou, Lloyd's building, HSBC HQ Hong Kong
Style
Organic
Buildings continuous with landscape. Forms derived from biological geometry.
Canonical: Fallingwater, TWA Flight Center, Heydar Aliyev Center