Alcove 9: An Annotated List of Reference Websites

Arts, Fine and Decorative: Architecture

Building America
An interactive site from the National Building Museum exploring architecture, design, engineering, construction, and planning in the United States.

A Digital Archive of Architecture
Provides architectural images and short descriptive information organized by time period and style. Maintained by Professor Jeffery Howe of Boston College.

Glass Steel and Stone – Global Architecture Encyclopedia
Database contains images and information for monumental structures such as skyscrapers, bridges, and churches around the world. Organized by region with information on structures’ architect, cost, and history.

The Great Buildings Collection
Documents buildings and leading architects, with models, photographic images and architectural drawings, commentaries, bibliographies and web links.

Catena
Catena is a collection of historic and contemporary images of gardens and landscape collections that include plans, engravings, paintings, and photographs.

Archpedia
Extensive information on architectural news, styles, buildings, and architects.

Structuræ International Database and Gallery of Structures
Showcases the works and art of structural engineering and, to some extent, architecture from around the world. There is a diverse range of nearly 10,000 structures, from bridges, skyscrapers, and towers to dams and off-shore structures. Most periods of history are covered ranging from the pyramids of ancient Egypt and Gothic cathedrals to the most daring bridges of today. Most sites have pictures, technical data, other relevant websites and a list of related literature. It also catalogs over 200 journal titles in the fields of structural/civil engineering, architecture and construction with indexing of current issues.

National Register Information System
The NRIS database contains information on nearly 80,000 sites, buildings, and structures considered significant in American history.

Society of Architectural Historians
Official website for the "international not-for-profit membership organization that promotes the study and preservation of the built environment worldwide." Some online features are fully accessible only to Society members, but links to various Internet resources on architectural history are freely available.

Vernacular Architecture Forum
Official website with membership and meeting information, full text of recent issues of the Vernacular Architecture News in PDF format, and other features.

Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, 1933-Present
Part of the Library of Congress American Memory digitization project this online presentation of the HABS/HAER collections includes digitized images of measured drawings, black-and-white photographs, color transparencies, photo captions, and data pages including written histories and supplemental materials.

Center for Architecture, Design and Engineering
The Center for Architecture, Design, and Engineering was established in the Library of Congress in 2002 to focus attention on, encourage support for, and promote the study of the Library's unmatched architecture, design, and engineering collections, thereby increasing the public's awareness and appreciation of the achievements of the architecture, design, and engineering professions and their contributions to our quality of life.