Western architecture

Eight chapters on the architecture of Europe and North America, from the Greek temples to today’s timber buildings. This is the main track; the countries link back here. The boundaries are approximate: styles overlap, and much happened in several places at once.

• Antiquity
• The Middle Ages
• The Renaissance
• The Baroque
• The Enlightenment
• Industrialisation
• Modernism
• The present day
• Work begins on the Parthenon
• Vitruvius writes on architecture
• The dome of the Pantheon
• Old St Peter’s Basilica
• Hagia Sophia is consecrated
• Charlemagne’s chapel
• The abbey church of Cluny
• Gothic is born at Saint-Denis
• The dome in Florence is completed
• Alberti writes on the art of building
• Michelangelo takes over St Peter’s
• Palladio’s Four Books
• Borromini begins San Carlo
• Vaux-le-Vicomte
• The court moves to Versailles
• The excavations at Pompeii
• Senate Square in Helsinki
• The Altes Museum opens
• The Crystal Palace
• Red House
• The first skyscraper
• The Eiffel Tower
• Art Nouveau is born in Brussels
• The Bauhaus is founded
• Pruitt-Igoe is demolished
• The Centre Pompidou opens
• The Guggenheim in Bilbao
• Tate Modern