Cities and Buildings Database

If you're interested in buildings, check out The Cities and Buildings Database at http://content.lib.washington.edu/cities/. This site contains over 500 images of buildings from all over the world.

The search engine is on the front left page. Here you'll be able to do a keyword search or search for buildings from certain cities or countries. Countries represented include China, Germany, Italy, India, and Japan. Just picking a country gives you a page of thumbnails (sometimes several pages of thumbnails.) Click on an image and you'll get additional information including a larger version of the picture, the date of the photograph, and copyright notes. Different pictures have different levels of information.

There's also an advanced search available from the front page. With that search you can search a variety of variables, including building materials, nation, date of photograph, and architect. (There's a "browse terms" box on the right that shows you the indexed terms for each field.) My search for wood buildings in Japan found 39 matches. Results appear on the search page four at a time with thumbnail pictures and the name of the building. Click on the building and you'll get a tabbed page with a large photograph on one tab and a description of the building on the other.

Posted to Culture-Architecture