Though little known in the English-speaking world, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656-1723) was one of the most important and influential European baroque architects. The buildings that he designed for the emperor of Austria and his courtiers reveal an element of theatricality--an element that author Esther Gordon Dotson probes in this attractive volume.

In his architectural designs, Fischer incorporated devices from ceremonial pageantry and scene design, controlled lighting effects, and a sense of dramatic progression in approaching and moving through a building. Dotson...

In the eighteenth century most large country estates boasted a bathing house or plunge pool in their grounds: fashionable theories promoted a cold plunge for both sexes for health and hygiene purposes. Built in all shapes and sizes, sometimes just for one person, occasionally for group bathing, they often reflected classical design.

In addition to supposed health benefits, plunge pools provided somewhere away from the constraints and formality of life, and became a destination for walks, drives and alfresco entertainment. Mid-century, doctors began to promote salt-water bathing and a...

A Arquitetura da FE E um conjunto de publicaCOes que tem como objetivo lanCar um olhar sobre a influEncia dos Franciscanos nas edificaCOes religiosas durante os primeiros sEculos da colonizaCAo do Brasil. Nesse primeiro volume, vamos visitar o Centro Cultural SAo Francisco, localizado em JoAo Pessoa/PB, formado por um complexo arquitetOnico que agrupa a Igreja e Convento de Santo AntOnio, Capela da Ordem Terceira de SAo Francisco, Capela de SAo Benedito, a Casa de OraCAo dos Terceiros (chamada de Capela Dourada), o Claustro da Ordem Terceira, uma fonte e um grande adro com um cruzeiro,...

This is the first study to characterize the architectural patronage of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740), and to identify twelve architects during his half century of patronage in his Ecclesiastical court of the Cancelleria. Most eminent among them were Filippo Juvarra and Domenico Gregorini. Commercial and private theaters in the palace are located from archival data, room measurements, drawings, diary accounts, Correspondence of the French Academy, and palimpsests of architectural details. The size, shape, appearance, capacity, and location of Filippo Juvarra's theater are discussed....