The Global Built Environment as a Representation of Realities : Why and How Architecture Should Be the Subject of Worldwide Comparison

World architecture as a subject of comparative study is not new.

In the early nineteenth century, western and non-western 'high cultures' were seen as more or less equal, while their forms were compared with each other without attention to content, meaning or context.

This original study calls for the built environment worldwide to be seen as a representation of a new, meaningful combination, in the specific context of a concrete commission of architectural elements that were already there.