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Buildings can be the most expensive things that civilizations produce. They can absorb any amount of effort and money if they are to compete with the great buildings of rivals, and of the past. It might seem misguided to try to outdo others when the costs are so high, but no one remembers the civilizations that took such a decision, at least not in architectural history. By contrast civilizations such as ancient Egypt and Rome, which built extravagantly, seem unavoidable. The imperishable buildings seem to go hand in hand with an imperishable reputation, which has always been the appeal of monuments for the powerful. When enough time has passed, all human achievements can seem fragile, and Shelley’s famous poem Ozymandias shows both the attraction of the monumental and also how delusory its promise of everlasting glory can be. One of the things that matters about architecture is how it gives us clues to what really mattered to rulers of the past. Another thing is how it makes it possible for us, the living, to live in certain ways, and to demonstrate to each other and ourselves what it is that we really care about, as individuals and as a society. Different civilizations strike different balances between what seems to be owed to the living, and going beyond immediate needs in order to make things that build a reputation in posterity.

What this very short introduction tries to do is to explain how architecture goes about doing what it does. Buildings keep us warm and dry, and are closely involved in the practicalities of living, but ‘architecture’ always has a cultural dimension to it, if we choose to pay attention to it. Chapter 1 is about how buildings are involved with our sense of who we are. Chapter 2 looks at the way in which buildings are made to look like one another, so that they carry the right sort of messages to those ‘in the know’ in a particular culture. Chapter 3 considers what it is that makes some works of architecture come to be more culturally important than others.

One of the things that makes buildings particularly interesting to archaeologists is that they are caught up in so many aspects of life. The way they are organized tells us something about the way people interact in them, if we can work out which groups of people are brought together, and which kept apart. The materials from which buildings are made, and the way the materials are handled, can also tell us a great deal. If the stone came from a long way away, then we know that either there was an efficient transport system or that the stones were very special and worth a great deal of effort. If a building has a steel frame, then we know that it belongs to the modern age because the ancient world didn’t know about them.

Buildings are an important part of the evidence available to us in knowing about what went on in the distant past, and they also tell us a good deal about what we really care about now. If we, as a society, allow motorways to be built across the countryside, then it can only happen because our care for the countryside is less than our desire to travel conveniently. As individuals we might have made a different decision, but as a society, given the flows and concentrations of money that circulate, and given the political processes that mediate the decisions, the buildings that surround us are produced. As individuals, most of us can do very little to shape the built environment in general. In some circumstances, though, concentrations of wealth and power have made it possible for individuals to command great changes. It was said of the Roman emperor Augustus that when he came to Rome it was built in brick, but when he left it was marble. And Ozymandias (Rameses II) evidently commissioned grand and extensive works. Buildings can be beautiful and inspiring, but if they are built (rather than just imagined) then they always have an economic and political aspect, as well as an aesthetic aspect. There are other aspects too, such as the technical side of things. Will it stand up? Will it keep the rain out? Can it be kept warm? Will it overheat? Can I use it as a place where I can live the life I want? Do I want to be the sort of person who lives in a place like this?