This unique architecture atlas shows the most remarkable buildings in the world. Children and adults will marvel in amazement. Mali, in North Africa, is home to the largest building made out of clay; the structure only took one year to complete. For the construction of Neuschwanstein Castle, 465 tons of marble were hefted to the Alps to the building site. The Atomium in Brussels boasts the longest escalators in Europe. The largest mosque in the world is as big as 56 football fields. The Illustrated Atlas of Architecture and Marvelous Monuments presents a world of breathtaking buildings and their incredible stories through illustrated maps and engaging factsheets. Sarah Tavernier and Alexandre Verhille have already deftly shown with Legendary Routes of the World that they are experts in showcasing the biggest and the best. Now, for The Illustrated Atlas of Architecture and Marvelous Monuments, they researched the longest bridges, tallest towers, the most impressive cultural sites, and plenty of curiosities. Exciting facts are woven together with a myriad of architectural styles; the material feats are skillfully and artfully placed upon bold maps, situating the constructions within a geographic context.

Some buildings take years or even centuries to construct! But the buildings in this book take much less time. This title teaches paper architects how to fold origami versions of some of the world’s most famous structures, as well as teaching them facts and history about each building. Tips and tricks sidebars help readers hone their paper folding skills!

Hendrik Petrus Berlage, the Dutch architect and architectural philosopher, created a series of buildings and a body of writings from 1886 to 1909 that were among the first efforts to probe the problems and possibilities of modernism. Although his Amsterdam Stock Exchange, with its rational mastery of materials and space, has long been celebrated for its seminal influence on the architecture of the 20th century, Berlage's writings are highlighted here. Bringing together Berlage's most important texts, among them "Thoughts on Style in Architecture", "Architecture's Place in Modern Aesthetics", and "Art and Society", this volume presents a chapter in the history of European modernism. In his introduction, Iain Boyd Whyte demonstrates that the substantial contribution of Berlage's designs to modern architecture cannot be fully appreciated without an understanding of the aesthetic principles first laid out in his writings.

It's time to get off the beaten path. Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura celebrates over 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world. Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders—the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England. Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, ATLAS OBSCURA revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveler as the die-hard adventurer. Anyone can be a tourist. ATLAS OBSCURA is for the explorer.

The great medieval necropolis of Cairo, comprising two main areas that together stretch twelve kilometers from north to south, constitutes a major feature of the city's urban landscape. With monumental and smaller-scale mausolea dating from all eras since early medieval times, and boasting some of the finest examples of Mamluk architecture not just in the city but in the region, the necropolis is an unparalleled--and until now largely undocumented--architectural treasure trove. In Architecture for the Dead, architect Galila El Kadi and photographer Alain Bonnamy have produced a comprehensive and visually stunning survey of all areas of the necropolis. Through detailed and painstaking research and remarkable photography, in text, maps, plans, and pictures, they describe and illustrate the astonishing variety of architectural styles in the necropolis: from Mamluk to neo-Mamluk via baroque and neo-pharaonic, from the grandest stone buildings with their decorative domes and minarets to the humblest--but elaborately decorated--wooden structures. The book also documents the modern settlement of the necropolis by families creating a space for the living in and among the tombs and architecture for the dead.

Twenty-one essays examining the relationship of surrealist thought to architectural theory and practice.

The land and people -- Egypt during the Old Kingdom -- The Middle and New Kingdoms -- Nubians, Greeks, and Romans, circa 1200 BCE-632 CE -- Christian Egypt -- Egypt within Islamic empires, 639-969 -- Fatimids, Ayyubids, and Mamluks, 969-1517 -- Ottoman Egypt, 1517-1798 -- Napoleon Bonaparte, Muhammad Ali, and Ismail : Egypt in the nineteenth century -- The British period, 1882-1952 -- Egypt for the Egyptians, 1952-1981 : Nasser and Sadat -- Mubarak's Egypt -- Conclusion: Egypt through the millennia

Takes children on a culinary journey around the world, teaching them about new cultures and landscapes through different foods. This illustrated non-fiction book explains facts with interesting references and stories that spark curiosity about the different history and cultures of the world. As children learn about foods, they also understand how the environment and cultural practice can shape the way we eat. By the end, they will have learned about different cuisines and cultures with a thought about how we all share these widely today.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.