Tag: buildings
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The world’s tallest building: who held the record, and for how long
From the Great Pyramid to Jeddah Tower: I followed the title of world’s tallest building through time. Lincoln Cathedral held it for 238 years, New York for 65, and since 1998 it has been in Asia, where 81 of the 98 buildings of 350 m or more now stand.
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Styles in stone: the world’s architectural styles on a map, century by century
180,451 buildings with an architectural style in Wikidata, sorted into 25 families and mapped through time. Romanesque gives way to Gothic, Baroque and the revivals, Gothic Revival sails to Toronto and Melbourne, and the gaps show who keeps the records.
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The star fort belt: how the bastion spread around the world
I mapped 1,307 star forts in ink, from Palmanova to Hakodate. Only 19% can be dated, but the dates tell a clear story: the bastion did not creep out of Italy, it sailed, reaching India, Morocco and the Caribbean as early as Germany and England.
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Caravanserais of the Silk Roads: a day’s march apart?
960 caravanserais, khans and ribats from Wikidata and OpenStreetMap on a hand-inked map. All together they crowd closer than a day’s march; one dynasty at a time, the Safavid caravanserais of Iran stand a median 34 km apart.
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How old is your neighbourhood?
Every home in England and Wales has a build period on the Council Tax list. I mapped all 35,672 small areas: 21% of homes predate 1919 and 12% were built since 2009. Cities grow in rings of age, until recently, when the newest homes started coming back to the middle.
