Henri Stierlin (1928–2022)

What a magnificent series of books on world architecture from Taschen and the Stierlins! With close-up photographs in glowing colours on every page, this series is the next best thing to visiting, and probably even better, as it covers more places in more detail than any one person could manage. This volume is titled Hindu India - From Khajuraho to ... Madurai, but starts much earlier, with the oldest surviving temples of Pallava Mamallapuram of the 6th century AD. Indian temple architecture show more and sculpture of course has left even older monuments, with the Buddhist stupas and rock-cut shrines of centuries BC, but these are touched on only in passing on a single page. The book takes us up to the late medieval period of temple building in South India exemplified by the Madurai Meenakshi temple complex, stopping short of the modern period. Inter allia the we are taken on a brillant journey hrough some of the major architectural treasures of central and southern India, including the Chola temples that followed closely the Pallava model, thethe Nagara style structures in Orissa, the temples of Khajuraho that are a culmination of the northern style, the wondrously sculpted Jain structure at Mount Abu, Ranakpur and Palitana in western India, the Hoysala structures in Karnataka, and ending with the classical medieval edifices of the south at Vijaynagar, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, etc.
Needless to say, the photographs are amazing, and take you to the very heart of this great tradition, aided by a sensitively fashioned and perceptive text that seeks to look beneath the surface and understand the philosophy behind the visual impact. show less

An opulent book, one in the series by Henri Stierlin from Taschen. The photographs and accompanying text take the reader through a multitude of architectural treasures, with a close palpability that may probably not be achieved even if one visits physically. There is also a short introduction to the Mycenaean period before the Classical period we usually associate with Greece, and which are reproduced in so many of the state building in the west and many in the erstwhile colonies. show more Interestingly, so thorough is the coverage of all the periods and the different regions of the Greek cultural world - including Asia Minor (Ionia) and the colonies in southern Italy and the western Mediterranean - that it is not until the last chapters that one reaches the crowning glories, the cult temples at Delphi and the post-Persian wars commemorative structures on the Acropolis at Athens. There is even a digression to the monuments at Persepolis of the Achaemenids, which the author states were themselves built and ornamented substantially by Greek and Ionian architects and sculptors. The author repeatedly draws a contrast between the rigid formality of the structures and the friezes at Persepolis, with the relative variability and free arrangement of structures in the Greek world, and the informality and emotional expressiveness of the Classical sculptures that adorn the Greek temples. show less

A short and richly illustrated book about the sculpture and architecture of the Khmer kingdom of Angkor. For no very obvious reason, there's an introductory chapter about Java, and a concluding one about Cham, Thai, and Burmese art, but the bulk of the book is about the Khmer capital. The text, not very well translated from French, does not inspire complete confidence in its reliability with its mixture of vague generalities and definite statements of things that cannot very well be more show more than conjectures. The photographs are why anyone might want to pick up the book: they're mostly splendid. show less

An amazing large-format volume, one of a series on architectures of the world. Full of authoritative text, replete with striking photographs and visuals, the whole series is worth keeping.