"Stephen Gardiner offers an enlightened overview of the development of house and home, from its beginnings in the caves of early man, through all the variety of structures that have since evolved, influenced by climate and material, but also by culture, custom and religious beliefs. A rich profusion of indigenous styles has emerged, from huts of mud and reeds, Ziggurats, Chinese underground villages with sunken courtyards, multi-storeyed tenements in Ancient Rome, Japanese designs that blend with nature, Indian towns laid out like a cross, the Palladian and Georgian Arts and Crafts and, coming into the modern period, the rediscovery of a more human scale, and the importance of the frame, in particular in the designs of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright."--BOOK JACKET.