Architecture

A general category for buildings and monuments. While today, all buildings are generally considered forms of architecture, what elevated the mere “building” to the level of “architecture” historically has been the subject of thousands of years of debate. Vitruvius, for one, wrote in the 1st Century BC that good architecture must be structurally sound, fulfill its function, and be beautiful, thereby surpassing the human need for mere shelter. Given architecture’s ubiquity in our lives, it is no surprise that artists throughout the ages have also taken it as their subject matter in countless paintings, photographs, and other mediums.