During the Tang Dynasty, there was a world that was separated from earth. There was a kingdom ruled by a dragon king who was born with incredible power, yet it was also dangerous as well. His name was Shangji Long; he lived in a crystal palace. There lay the Pearl of Fucanglong, a special jewel that contained unlimited power. However, another kingdomwhere yao guai livedhave come and invaded Shangji Longs kingdom to steal the pearl. He wouldnt let that happen; thus a war began. When the bat...

The Golden Gate Bridge links the urbanity of San Francisco with the wildheadlands of Marin County, as if to suggest the paradox of Californiaand America itself-the place that Fitzgerald saw as the last spotcommensurate with the human capacity for wonder. The bridge, completedin 1937, also announced to the world America's engineering prowess andfull assumption of its destined continental dominance. The Golden Gateis a counterpart to the Statue of Li...

It is 1846 when twelve-year-old street urchin Ian Walsh and his eleven-year-old drummer friend Danny Higgins decide to abandon their hardships and travel from Ireland to America. With hopes of landing jobs building a railroad in California and finding the lost cities of gold, Ian and Danny board a cargo ship bound for New York. As the ship sets sail on the sea, Dannyaffectionately nicknamed Smiles by the crewis happier than he has ever been. Once Ian finds his sea legs, he contentedly spen...

Since the publication of Edward Said's groundbreaking work Orientalism 35 years ago, numerous studies have explored the West's fraught and enduring fascination with the so-called Orient. Focusing their critical attention on the literary and pictorial arts, these studies have, to date, largely neglected the world of interior design. Oriental Interiors is the first book to fully explore the formation and perception of eastern-inspired interiors from an orientalist perspecti...

Ireland in Brick and Stone takes 50 buildings and other man-made constructions from different parts of Ireland and uses them to illustrate the history of the island over 1,500 years. All but three of the buildings are still surviving and they offer us a very personal way into history by teasing out the context in which each building was constructed, the uses to which it was put and the people associated with it.For example, Rockfleet Castle is a tower house in Co. Mayo, ty...

This substantive yet easy-to-use guide to selected French gothic churches and cathedrals provides profiles of fourteen important religious buildings. They are located in different parts of France, were constructed at different times and in different styles, and include both well-known and less well-known churches and cathedrals. They range from the tiny church of Saint Maclou in Rouenperhaps the best example of flamboyant designto the worlds most visited Gothic cathedral, Notre Dame in Par...

Palermo – the capital of Sicily – is a destination with a difference. The city is a treasure trove of original monuments and works of art, combined with architecture of grand proportions. Yet it also has a grittier side, shown by the continuing influence of the mafia. Jeremy Dummett here provides a concise overview of Palermo's long history, together with a survey of its most important monuments and sites. He looks at the influences of the city's various ancient rulers – the Phoenicians, R...

Now synonymous with the single storey home, when the bungalow was introduced to Britain in the late 1860s it had more elaborate connotations.Appropriated by colonial officials in Bengal, this humble dwelling was transformed upon its arrival on the Kent coastline into a new type of holiday home, complete with veranda and servant quarters. These first Western examples became very popular amongst the upper middle-class and the elderly, and crucially also attracted art...

The idea that architecture can be portable is one that grabs the imagination of both designers and the people who use it, perhaps because it so often forecasts a dynamic and creative solution to the complex problems of our contemporary mobile society, while at the same time dealing with issues of practicality, economy and sustainability.Architecture in Motion examines the development of portable, transportable, demountable and temporary architecture from prehistory to the ...

Buildings surround and affect us all. In this clear and concise introduction to buildings Thom Gorst demystifies the culture of architecture and shows how an interest in our environment - whatever our cultural position - can be of great value to us.

This is the fifth volume of a projected translation into English of all twelve of Jean Racine’s plays. Geoffrey Alan Argent’s translations faithfully convey all the urgency and keen psychological insight of Racine’s dramas, and the coiled strength of his verse, while breathing new vigor into the time-honored form of the “heroic” couplet.Complementing this translation are the Discussion and the Notes and Commentary—particularly detailed and extensive for this volume, Britannicus...

The history of British architecture since 1930 has been one of frequently heated controversy between the old idiom and the new and between various social and technological viewpoints. The battle is by no means over; indeed it is spreading to wider issues and outside what was previously a largely professional sphere. A book like this one, which spells out the issues and describes how they arose, is therefore of interest not only to architects and students of architecture but to the growing ...