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Architecture: General Subject Guides

General

archINFORM

archINFORM

archINFORMdatabase for international architecture including over 12000 built and unrealized projects from various architects and planners. The architecture of the 20th century is the main theme of this database. Search projects by architect, town or keyword. For most entries, you will get the name, address, keywords and information about further literature.

Cyburbia

Cyburbia

Cyburbia serves as a platform for connecting planners, students, academics, urbanists, and individuals passionate about urban planning. It provides a space for them to share their experiences and insights regarding urban planning practice, the built environment, and related topics.

RIBA Library online catalogue

RIBA Library online catalogue

Catalog of books, journals, drawings, photographs, slides, manuscripts, audio-visual and other material in the British Architectural Library, and an index to approximately 300 architectural periodicals. Includes a biographical database of British architects

Audiovisual

Alexander Street video Alexander Street video brings together on a single cross-searchable platform a completely integrated online repository of Alexander Street video titles, including VAST: Academic Video Online, along with individual discipline collections in history, art and architecture, business, counseling and therapy, dance, opera, theatre, musical performance, anthropology, health and rehabilitation, opera, nursing, science, women's studies, black studies, LGBT studies, and more. Includes newsreels, award-winning documentaries, field recordings, interviews, lectures, training videos, and exclusive primary footage becoming a collection of 22,000 full-length videos by 2013. Videos in many languages, with the majority in English; those not in English have subtitles in English.
e-Video e-Video is a project by HKU Libraries which is to send digitized streaming video to the desktop. Permission from the Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) and Asia Television Ltd. (ATV) has been granted to digitize their programmes within HKU campus. Various HKU departments, faculties, units and centres have kindly permitted HKU Libraries to video-take and to digitize their lectures, seminars and conferences through this website.
Pidgeon digital Pidgeon digital is the online version of the Pidgeon Audiovisual collection of illustrated talks by architects and related designers. This continuing archive, to which new talks are being added regularly, is a unique library of contemporary attitudes. Started in 1979 by Monica Pidgeon.

Images

Artstor

ARTstor

Artstor, a searchable database of more than 2 million digital images covers many periods and cultures, in the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design, as well as many other forms of visual culture. Users can search, view, download and organize images.

How to search

Go to Advanced Search and limit your search by geographical location, time period and/or by classification. The following classifiction might be useful for getting images related to architecture:

  • Architecture and City Planning
  • Decorative Arts, Utilitarian Objects and Interior Design
  • Garden and landscape

ARTstor_how to search

Asian Historical Architecture

Asian Historical Architecture

Asian Historical Architecture includes over 48,000 photos of 1,670 sites in 23 countries, with extensive background information. This website is a collection of 100% original photos, descriptions, and historical information from many contributors.

Cities and Buildings Database

Cities and Buildings Database

The Cities and Buildings Database is a collection of digitized images of buildings and cities drawn from across time and throughout the world, available to students, researchers and educators on the web.

Flickr Commons

Flickr Commons

Flickr Commons offers a vast collection of digital images showcasing buildings and architecture. With numerous participating institutions, including the Getty Research Institute, the British Library, and the Library of Congress, it serves as a valuable resource for exploring architectural history and heritage.

Frank Fischbeck Collection

Frank Fischbeck Collection

It consists of a number of photographic formats that comprise albumen prints, silver gelatin prints, historic panorama prints, B&W and colour photographs, negatives, slides, transparencies and glass plates, which provide a visual record of the Hong Kong story from 1860 to the 2000s. The Collection embodies a broad array of photographic material covering the vast expanse of heritage, culture, traditions and religions across Hong Kong and Asia.

Hong Kong Image Database

Hong Kong Image Database

The Hong Kong Image Database is a digital collection of historical images documenting the Hong Kong experience from the 1840s through to the 1990s. The Database features a wealth of images of Hong Kong, including people, landscapes, infrastructures, villages, agriculture and fisheries activities, industrial settings, housing, buildings, panoramas, and more. The University of Hong Kong Libraries unlocks this digital vault of historic images with rich metadata and makes them freely available for public consultation.

Masters of architecture

Masters of architecture

Masters of architecture is the digital online website that includes over 7,000 images from Pidgeon Audiovisual and World Microfilms.

Oxford Art Online

Oxford Art Online

Oxford Art Online provides access to Grove Art Online, The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Includes image partnerships with ARTstor, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Images for College Teaching, Art Resource, Artists Rights Society and numerous international art galleries and artists.

Multimedia Information System (MMIS)

Photo Collection

Photo collection (via MMIS, Hong Kong Public Libraries) includes old photos of Hong Kong covering historic buildings and street scenes dating back to the mid-19th century.

RIBAPix

RIBApix

RIBApix provides images from the collections of the British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects. It covers world architecture of all periods with subjects such as interior design, landscape, topography, planning, construction and the decorative arts.

Architectural Drawings

Luke Him Sau Architectural Collection The Luke Him Sau Architectural Collection chiefly consists of architectural drawings created by Hong Kong architect Mr. Luke Him Sau and his various business and personal records. There are some 950 pieces of architectural drawings, dated approximately from 1948 to 1968, of building projects in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Macau and Taiwan. For business and personal records, they include work diaries, professional certificates issued by authorities in China, Hong Kong and other countries, lecture notes, office records and over 1,730 poems of Luke’s experience in Hong Kong and New York. 
Palmer and Turner Collection The Palmer and Turner (P&T Group) Collection is composed of visual and textual material related to over 500 design projects proposed, designed, and/or completed by the P&T Group, one of the oldest continuously operating architectural practices in the world. The collection includes more than 15,000 individual documents and objects, mainly architectural drawings, dated between 1932 and 2012, for individual architectural and urban planning projects in Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.