Architecture in the Balkans: From Diocletian to Suleyman the Magnificent, 300-1550 - Hardcover

Slobodan Curcic

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300115709 ISBN 13: 9780300115703

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2010

Synopsis

This book is the first of its kind to discuss the history of the Balkan Peninsula from late antiquity to the height of the Ottoman era by focusing on architecture as its principal gauge. In doing so, it transcends various established conventions in scholarship to present the architectural heritage in the Balkans in a manner that is accessible and comprehensible. Throughout the book architecture is viewed as a function of distinctive needs (social, political, religious), distinctive means (economic, technical know-how, material availability) and distinctive goals (aesthetic, propagandistic, protective). As a result, the book covers the full range of architectural enterprises, from simple residential buildings, to public monumental structures; from fortifications, to utilitarian buildings (cisterns, bridges, etc). The urban context of architecture is emphasized, while its role in rural settings is used as a gauge of other distinctive phenomena. Illustrated with several hundreds of photographs and drawings, most of them specially commissioned, the book presents a generally unknown body of material in a distinctive, unprecedented manner.

About this title

About the Author

Slobodan Curcic is Professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, and Director of the Program in Hellenic Studies, Princeton University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300115709
• ISBN 13: 9780300115703
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 608