Banister Fletcher Lines Up Every Style Side by Side

Architectural history studies the design, construction and stylistic development of buildings by comparing form, structure and ornament systematically across periods and cultures, dating and attributing a building from its own physical and stylistic evidence rather than from tradition alone. The British architect Banister Fletcher gave the discipline its standard comparative reference in 1896 with A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, which organized world architecture, including temple, church, mosque and stupa forms, into parallel stylistic sequences that let a building's period and influences be read directly from its structural and decorative features.

Sacred architecture routinely carries a claimed date or attributed origin that a tradition's own account may simplify or idealize, and architectural history's comparative method, reading a structure's actual building technique, floor plan and ornamental vocabulary against a documented stylistic sequence, is an independent check on such a claim. The atlas relies on architectural history wherever a temple, church, mosque or stupa's construction date or stylistic lineage needs to be established from the building itself rather than from tradition.