Does the way in which buildings are looked at, and made sense of, change over the course of time? How can we find out about this? By looking at a selection of travel writings spanning four centuries, Anne Hultzsch suggests that it is language, the description of architecture, which offers answers to such questions. The words authors use to transcribe what they see for the reader to re-imagine offer glimpses at modes of perception specific to one moment, place and person. Hultzsch constructs an intriguing patchwork of local and often fragmentary narratives discussing texts as diverse as the...