Architecture records ideals, constraints, power, technology, and taste in physical form.
Architecture is one of the few arts that must survive direct contact with ordinary life. A building can symbolize an ideal, but it must also stand up, admit people, shed water, and inhabit a real place.
That makes architecture unusually rich evidence.
A look at how a practical solution shaped the history of libraries, scholarship, and the spread of knowledge.
How one private collection helped rebuild the intellectual foundation of the Library of Congress.