The World's Great Architecture: Past & Present FROM THE PUBLISHER
Architecture is the one art form of which everyone has direct experience and on which nearly everyone has an opinion, nowadays frequently critical though not necessarily well informed. Like the other visual arts, modern architecture exemplifies the division between what interests artists and what pleases the public that dates from the beginning if the modern movement.
This is not a history of architecture, still less a guide to what is good and what is not. It is a lavishly illustrated survey of what are generally recognized as great buildings, from the earliest times to the present, and from every culture, including those, the majority of non-Western cultures, where division between art and craft are less likely to be distinguished.