Space Architecture

Journeying through time and place, from the ancient Egyptian pyramids to the soaring skyscrapers of Manhattan, renowned architectural historian Dan Cruickshank explores the most impressive and characterful creations in world architecture. His selection includes many of the world’s best-known buildings that represent key or pioneering moments in architectural history, such as the Pantheon in Rome, Hagia Sophia in Turkey, the Taj Mahal in India and the Forbidden City in China.

Transcending Architecture considers the mysterious, profound, and real power of designed environments to address the spiritual dimension of our humanity. The book offers a wide, critical, and nuanced understanding of the lived relationship between the built and the numinous worlds. It examines phenomenological, symbolic and designerly ways in which the holy gets fixed and experienced through buildings, landscapes, and urban forms, and not just in institutionally defined religious or sacred places. Transcending Architecture brings together a stellar group of scholars and practitioners to share their insights: architect Juhani Pallasmaa and philosopher Karsten Harries, comparative religion scholar Lindsay Jones and architectural theoretician Karla Britton, sacred architecture researcher Thomas Barrie and theologian Kevin Seasoltz, landscape architect Rebecca Krinke and Faith & Form magazine editor Michael Crosbie, are among the illustrious contributors.

It’s not your fault. In today’s fast-paced world, architects are expected to be experts in everything. But lighting? It’s one of the most misunderstood, under-taught, and under-appreciated tools in your design toolbox. And it’s not just you—most architects feel they’re winging it when it comes to lighting. Meanwhile, your designs are getting value-engineered by people who don’t understand how light shapes experience. You spend months crafting beautiful forms, only to watch them fall flat in poor lighting. And the worst part? You know it could’ve been different.