All buildings are ultimately the products of building cultures--complex systems of people, relationships, rules, and habits in which design and building are anchored. In this book of thirteen chapter-essays, Davis uses historical, contemporary and cross-cultural examples to describe the structure of such cultures and how they are reflected in the form of buildings and cities. His aim is to show that special insights about the improvement of the contemporary built world come from looking at the building culture as a whole, not merely the individual acts of architects and city planners. The book is illustrated with over 260 historic and contemporary photographs, drawings and prints.