Great Buildings Online is an architectural web site sponsored by Artifice, Inc., a publisher of software tools for spatial design. This site is the free online counterpart of the Great Buildings Collection on CD‐ROM, which sells for $149.50. Although this is clearly a commercial Web site, marketing the company’s design software products, Artifice CEO Kevin Matthews has created an innovative web product that offers aficionados a wonderful way to virtually view centuries of great architecture. By downloading the company’s free Design Workshop® Lite software, one can walk through hundreds of 3D architectural computer models.
The site is very well organized and easy to navigate. Users can perform a simple search by name of building, architect, or place, or they may link to one of these choices by one of the browse options provided at the top of the initial screen. Browsing by place offers users the opportunity to tour the architecture of a particular continent, country, city, or US state. The advanced search mode allows for various field‐searching options, such as location, date, building type, style, climate, or context. Users may also browse by architectural style, date, building type, or construction type. A gallery of pictures is available.
Overall, 800 photographic images and architectural drawings of great buildings from around the world and across history are provided. For each building, the web site includes a page of historical background information. Depending upon the individual entry, facts may include the architect, location, date, building type, climate, context, architectural style, important notes, and brief commentary about the building. Perhaps even more valuable is the bibliography of print and Web resources provided for each. For each architect covered in the database, Great Buildings Online offers links to works included in the collection, brief biographical information, a list of print resources, and links to pertinent Web sites.
For students and teachers, the links provided to the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) online library catalogue are especially helpful for compiling a list of bibliographic sources. RIBA provides a free index to 150,000 articles from 300 journals in 20 languages, as well as 50,000 books, drawings, and photographs. Another very useful feature of the site is its recent addition of the online magazine Architecture Week. This magazine, launched in May 2000, offers news of the profession, a professional directory of architects, and links to other architecture news stories available on the Web. Just for fun, try the Architectural Puzzlers found under the link labeled “Pop Quiz.”
There are some annoying drawbacks related to the commercial nature of this site. Prominent advertisements are found at the top of every page, and the alliance with Amazon.com proves to be somewhat overpowering at times. Also, nearly half of the buildings lack images, and in order to view them, users must purchase the CD‐ROM version.
In summary, the Web site offers a pleasant, informative tour of world architecture from the Parthenon to the Bank of China Tower. Although there are many beautiful images, download time is minimal. The initial screen is amazingly simple to navigate, yet upon deeper exploration, a wealth of architectural information is revealed. Overall, this is an excellent learning tool for architecture and engineering students.
