Library Guides: Architecture: Starting Places

Starting Places

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
An online encyclopedia. Start with a briefing! Major architects and styles, etc.
Oxford Art Online combines several key encyclopedias and dictionaries important for the history of art and architecture. Together these provide the largest and most authoritative list of biographies of artists in English, as well as an excellent collection of scholarly encyclopedia articles on important topics in the visual arts. Included are Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and others.
LionSearch This link opens in a new window
an integrated search of books, e-books, research articles, newspaper articles, and other publications.

Tips for using LionSearch:

try multiple search terms with the Advanced Search option
refine your search using the options on the left side of the results page to limit by...
- Discipline: architecture, engineering, geography, etc.
- Full Text Online
- etc.
see a brief video showing how to find information on designers

Worldwide Building and Landscape Pictures This link opens in a new window
images of historic architecture and landscape design provided exclusively for Penn State users
Tens of thousands of color images of historic and contemporary architecture. Images are selected and sized to support teaching. Multiple shots of each building or landscape are normally provided. These pictures have been gathered for Penn State users from a variety of sources: professional color photography that has been licensed for Penn State use, original color photography provided by university faculty, and some copies from books and similar sources.
Artstor This link opens in a new window
images of art, architecture and artifacts of all cultures and eras
The ARTstor Digital Library is an image database featuring works of art and other cultural heritage from some of the world's leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists in one easily-navigated repository. The library of 2 million images is constantly growing. All images are accompanied by extensive metadata and are rights-cleared for specified educational uses.

Open Access Image Databases

Central Pennsylvania Architecture and Landscape Architecture
images focusing on the buildings and landscape of Central Pennsylvania
Archipedia (SAH Archipedia) (Society of Architectural Historians)
images of American architecture
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scholarly online encyclopedia of the architecture and landscape architecture of the United States maintained by the Society of Architectural Historians
Cities and Buildings Database (University of Washington Libraries)
buildings and cities from around the world
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The Cities and Buildings Database is a collection of digitized images of buildings and cities drawn from across time and throughout the world, available to students, researchers and educators on the web and is maintained by the University of Washington Libraries.
Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress
photos, measured drawings and written histories of historic American buildings
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The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections are among the largest and most heavily used in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Since 2000, documentation from the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) has been added to the holdings. The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and landscape design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes, including examples as diverse as the Pueblo of Acoma, houses, windmills, one-room schools, the Golden Gate Bridge, and buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Administered since 1933 through cooperative agreements with the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, and the private sector, ongoing programs of the National Park Service have recorded America's built environment in multiformat surveys comprising more than 556,900 measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories for more than 38,600 historic structures and sites dating from Pre-Columbian times to the twentieth century. This online presentation of the HABS/HAER/HALS collections includes digitized images of measured drawings, black-and-white photographs, color transparencies, photo captions, written history pages, and supplemental materials. Since the National Park Service's HABS, HAER and HALS programs create new documentation each year, documentation will continue to be added to the online collections. The first phase of digitization of the Historic American Engineering Record collection was made possible by the generous support of the Shell Oil Company Foundation
Gottscho-Schleisner Collection (Library of Congress)
20th Century American Architecture and Interior Design
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The Gottscho-Schleisner Collection is comprised of over 29,000 images primarily of architectural subjects, including interiors and exteriors of homes, stores, offices, factories, historic buildings, and other structures. Subjects are concentrated chiefly in the northeastern United States, especially the New York City area, and Florida. Included are the homes of notable Americans, such as Raymond Loewy, and of several U.S. presidents, as well as color images of the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. Many of the photographs were commissioned by architects, designers, owners and architectural publications, and document important achievements in American 20th-century architecture and interior design.

Literature Review

When beginning to explore a topic, it can be tremendously helpful to read a brief summary of the topic, written by an expert, who also selects and discusses the most important publications on the subject. This not only improves your selections of what to read, but also your understanding of "the big picture" and which part of it you might want to explore. Literature reviews might be found in scholarly encyclopedia entries, sometimes in handbooks, or published separately as articles in journals.

In Encyclopedias

The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory
40 essays by 40+ scholars summarizing major themes in architectural theory in the 21st century. Use the table of contents to locate the recommended readings.
Sustainable Built Environments by Vivian Loftness (Editor); Dagmar Haase (Editor)
Publication Date: 2014
30 entries on key features of the recent practice of sustainable design.
Encyclopedia of the City by Roger W. Caves (Editor)
Publication Date: 2005
Signed articles on people and topics important to the history and recent practice of urban design and city planning. Each article is very brief and recommends from 1 to 4 readings.
The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion by Interboro; Tobias Armborst; Daniel D'Oca; Georgeen Theodore
Publication Date: 2017
50 leading experts describe specific tools that make city resources open or closed to potential beneficiaries - critical analysis and a beautifully designed book.
The Encyclopedia of Housing by Andrew T. Carswell
Publication Date: 2012
Substantial entries on major types of housing and their public policy and social contexts.
The Oxford Companion to Architecture by Patrick Goode (General Editor); Stanford Anderson (Consultant Editor); Colin St. John Wilson (Consultant Editor)
Publication Date: 2009
Entries on people, building types, styles, movements, technologies, decorative motifs, etc. Some super-short, others 10 paragraphs, most with recommended readings. Not much theory or heavy concepts here, but lots of information.

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Best for the names of major designers, the architectural history of a city or country, or other historical subjects.
Oxford Art Online combines several key encyclopedias and dictionaries important for the history of art and architecture. Together these provide the largest and most authoritative list of biographies of artists in English, as well as an excellent collection of scholarly encyclopedia articles on important topics in the visual arts. Included are Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and others.

Oxford Bibliographies Online: Architecture Planning and Preservation
A growing (now about 80) set of high-quality annotated bibliographies on historic topics. Also good for related humanities and social sciences fields (philosophy, cinema, urban studies, public health, critical theory, and more)
SAH Archipedia
This combines an encyclopedia of thematic articles on historic American architecture, with a catalog of significant American buildings. The thematic entries recommend key readings.

As Articles in Journals

In any database, you can use keywords to search for articles that are primarily literature reviews by searching keywords in titles and abstracts such as:

"literature review"

"review of the literature"

"systematic review"

"bibliography"

But, of course, just using "review*" would get too many book reviews and film reviews, etc.

Literature reviews for building sciences can be especially helpful ways of navigating the many highly technical and focused studies published. To locate articles that are primarily literature reviews, some of the specialized indexes for engineering use standard terms (such as "bibliography" or "literature.") But it is important to search these using the advanced search features provided. An important source is

Engineering Village 2 (Compendex) This link opens in a new window
a mix of three major databases for all fields of engineering
Compendex is the most comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering database in the world with over 9 million records referencing 5,000 engineering journals and conference materials dating from 1884.

To search literature reviews, begin by selecting "Expert" on the "Search" drop-down menu. Then select "Treatment" which will display a list of some different methodological types of publications. From that list select both "Bibliography" and "Literature." Then close the Treatment window and click the search icon. You will get a result list of hundreds of thousands of literature reviews. "Refine" this list (on the left) by entering search terms specific to your topic and clicking "Limit."

Other Architecture Databases

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals This link opens in a new window
articles related to architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning
Contains descriptions of articles on the history and practice of architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, historic preservation, furniture, and interior design and decoration in more than 700 international magazines. Most indexing began with 1934, but some titles are indexed to dates as early as 1741. Updated weekly.

British Architectural Library Catalog
a quality, open access, alternative to the Avery database as it combines both books and journals on the subjects of architecture, landscape architecture and other related subjects
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In addition to listing the books and other collections of one of the largest architectural libraries in the world, the Library of the Royal Institute of British Architects, this catalogue contains hundreds of thousands of records describing each feature article in more than 300 important architectural periodicals. “Architecture” here means history and current practice, as well as landscape architecture, interior design, urban design, and a significant amount of related engineering (civil, structural, construction, etc.) Since this is another library’s catalog, the location information on each record is not relevant – each item will need to checked in LionSearch or The CAT to determine if it is immediately available.

Art Full Text & Art Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window
articles related to all eras & cultures of art & architecture including some journals not covered by LionSearch
Indexes hundreds of international art magazines, including English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as some published in other languages. Indexing is available for publications 1929+; abstracting for 1994+, and Full Text is often available for 1997+ but keyword searches do not explore the full texts – only the titles, subject headings, & etc.. Not covered by LionSearch.
BuildingGreen This link opens in a new window
articles, product listings, case studies, etc. related to all aspects of green design
BuildingGreen Suite integrates online versions of GreenSpec product listings, high-quality articles about green buildings, peer-to-peer comments, project case studies, and full text access to Environmental Building News from 2004 to date. This information is searchable and cross-referenced by CSI MasterFormat division, LEED credit, or green topic. Each article, product listing, and case study also lists related content and information sources. Creating a free personal account will allow you to comment on articles and participate in discussion threads.
Building Types Online This link opens in a new window
contains 850 case studies of recent building projects documented with 5000 architectural drawings and 2000 photographs - upon entering, download the "Taxonomy" file to browse the useful design keywords assigned to the projects
Documentation of about 850 recent building projects organized by building types (that is to say, the functional purpose of the building.) Typical results include a project description, drawings, and photographs. Essays discussing major types are also available. Especially strong in housing and it’s variations but also including libraries, museums, schools and industrial, office and sacred buildings.
CUMINCAD This link opens in a new window
articles related to computer aided architectural design
CumInCAD is an open access cumulative index of publications about computer aided architectural design. It provides abstracts to thousands of papers in journals and conferences including the full text and illustrations for more than half of the papers. When asked to logon, create your own free account with ID and password. Creating your own account provides access to the full text content and other features.
DETAIL Inspiration This link opens in a new window
structural details and graphics for recent buildings
This is an excellent source for descriptive informationand graphics for recently designed buildings – especially when structural details are needed. The database contains the majority of the feature articles from DETAIL magazine as well as DETAIL: Green, DETAIL: Inside, and DETAIL: Structure. Although the contents are usually contributed by a building’s designers (much like most of the recent web magazines) DETAIL imposes standards which include uniform and informative graphics – browsing these shows much about a building’s components and how they are put together. Articles back to 1987 are included. DETAIL: Inspiration is not covered in LionSearch nor via the GetIt button. Searching this database, or the paper copies, is the only route.
Material ConneXion This link opens in a new window
product information for for new and/or unique building materials
This database serves as a resource for designers in their search for new and/or unique materials. Material ConneXion currently holds 2,000+ material samples of architectural, landscape architectural, interior and industrial design products. Material samples include an index of manufacturer, material composition, environmental/sustainability, and descriptive information. "Individual users may not download, on any single day, more than thirty (30) materials from the Database."

Material Order
A growing database of info and pictures of materials samples held at some academic institutions that collect them.

Sustainability Science Abstracts (within the Environmental Science Index) This link opens in a new window
articles related to conservation and sustainable development
This database contains resources related to sustainable development and conservation of natural resources. Coverage is from 1995 to date.

Penn State University Libraries

Architecture

Temporary Liaison for Arts and Architecture

Starting Places

Other Architecture Databases