How to Start Understanding Architecture

The book is based on the materials of the lecture cycle "Formulas of Culture", delivered by the author at the Moscow Open Club (2012-2013). The reader will find essential information on the history of architecture and discover non-trivial facts. Architecture is considered in the context of other arts—primarily painting and sculpture. Much attention is paid to the influence of architecture on a person, as any building takes on the task of organizing our living space, contributes to the formation of a sense of beauty, and instills ideas about orderliness, system, public and personal values, and the principle of grouping various elements, including social ones. What we see and perceive affects our character, helping us to determine what is good and what is bad. The planning and mutual placement of buildings symbolically repeat the structure of society. In a "house-ant" people are ants, while in a luxurious mansion, a person feels like the ruler of the world. As a visual event, a building becomes a formula of culture, a visible expression of its main meaning. The analysis of fundamental architectural concepts is conducted in the book based on the history of art in the Ancient World and Western Europe.