Clear, understandable, and illustrative, Renate Kastorff-Viehmann traces the history of architecture: Accompanied by well-researched portraits of different eras, 83 representative monuments of architectural art, architects, styles, and cityscapes illustrate the history of architecture. Beginning with the early high cultures, through antiquity, Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo, Classicism, and the various movements that shaped the 19th century, the author reaches the characteristic styles of the turn of the century, the avant-gardes, and not least the style of totalitarianism in the 20th century, and finally to postmodernism and late modernism, which continue to this day. Numerous illustrations, indexes, and a bibliography support the text. Styles take on distinct forms, architects gain faces, and buildings become newly visible, whether as an introduction to architectural history or as a reference work.