Architects Posters & Prints
for art, art history and social studies classrooms, home schoolers, and offices.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
c. 63 BC - 12 BC, Roman Empire

Agrippa, a Roman general, statesman, and geographer, is also noted as improving the civic infrastructure of Rome which included aquaduct and the sewer system repairs, and the first Pantheon (pan = all + theon = gods) which was destroyed by fire in 80 AD.

Agrippa's legacy includes his daughter Agrippina the Elder, grandchildren Caligula and Agrippina the Younger, and great-grandson Nero.

Leon Battista Alberti
b. 2-14-1404; Genoa
d. 4-25-1472; Rome

Leon Battista Alberti was a humanist polymath, accomplished not only as an architect but also as an author, artist, poet, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer.

Alberti's On the Art of Building (De re aedificatoria, 1450), a classic architectural treatise, was the first modern theoretical book on architecture and the first printed book on architecture (1485), moving away from the Gothic sensibilites to the Renaissance.

• On Painting, Leon Battista Alberti

Apollodorus of Damascus
fl. 2nd century AD

Appollodorus of Damascus was an architect and engineer who is credited with Trajan's Column, commemorating the Emperor Trajan and his victory in the Dacian Wars. The monument, completed in 113 AD, is a freestanding column famous for its spiral bas relief and speculation that the column served as a measuring stick for the construction of the surrounding forum.

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
b. 8-2-1834; Alsace
d. 10-4-1904; Paris, tuberculosis

Bartholdi is most remembered for his statue, Liberty Enlightening the World, or the Statue of Liberty, that is located in the New York Harbor.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France to the United States commemorating the centennial of the signing the the Declaration of Independence.

• The Statue of Liberty Encyclopedia

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini
b. 12-7-1598; Naples
d. 11-28-1680; Rome

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini was a 17th century sculptor and architect in the Baroque style of elaborate, processional spaces, embellished with many details, that would impress with grandeur and obulence, such as the colonnade and piazza in front of St. Peter's Basilica.

Bernini's architectural designs concentrate primarily on the sculptural embellishment of pre-existing structures such as the baldachin over the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica and Ecstasy of St. Theresa in Santa Maria della Vittoria.

• Bernini and the Art of Architecture

Giotto di Bodone
b. c. 1267; Italy
d. c. 1337

Giotto is considered a founding father of Italian Renaissance though only his Florentine gothic style campanile, or bell tower, on the Piazza del Duomo in Florence, and the Scrovegni Chapel fresco cycle in Padua, are unquestionably attributed to him.

• Giotto: Complete Works

Donato Bramante
b. 1444; Italy
d. 3-11-1514

Donato Bramante, architect and town planner, was first a painter of murals who is noted for introducing perspective features into his architectural plans that gave the illusion of much larger spaces. His work for Pope Julius II St. Peter's Basilica achieved the "grand manner" which indirectly led to Mannerism style.

Though few of his original buildings have survived unaltered, Bramante inspired and influenced successive architects. Of especial importance is The Tempietto, a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture.

• Michelangelo, Bramante and Raphael: The High Renaissance in Rome

Marc Isambard Brunel, FRS
b. 4-25-1769; France
d. 12-12-1849; England

Inventor Marc Isambard Brunel, was the lead engineer for the Thames Tunnel, the world's first underwater tunnel.

Built beneath the River Thames in London and opened in 1843, the engineering feat was accomplished with Brunel's 'tunnelling shield' that allowed the construction by covering the area to be excavated and thus protecting 36 laborers as the worked independently; propulsion for the device was a screw which drove the device forward in steps the width of a brick.

Marc Brunel was elected to the Royal Society and knighted for his service in the construction of the Thames Tunnel. While Sir Brunel was highly respected and honored, it was his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel who is better known as an engineer.

• Thames Tunnel to Channel Tunnel: 150 Years of Civil Engineering
• one point perspective illustrations

Isambard Kingdom Brunel
b. 4-9-1806; Portsmouth
d. 9-15-1859

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British engineer best known for revolutionizing public transportation with the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges and tunnels.

• Brunel: The Life And Times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Filippo Brunelleschi
b. 1377; Italy
d. 4-15-1446

Filippo Brunelleschi, one of the foremost architects of the Italian Renaissance, studied the classical architecture of Rome and Greece, rediscovering the principles of linear perspective.

Brunelleschi also solved the engineering problems of constructing his most noted accomplishment - the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

• Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture

Charles Bulfinch
b. 8-8-1763; Boston
d. 4-15-1844

Charles Bulfinch, regarded as the first native-born American to practice architecture as a profession, served as Commissioner of Public Building for the fledgling nation. His works of the original rotunda and dome of the U. S. Capitol, are the origin of the Federal style of classical architecture prominent in early 19th century America, and inspired by Andrea Palladio.

The first Architect of the US Capitol was William Thornton, the second was Benjamin Latrobe; Bulfinch was the third.

• The Architecture of Charles Bulfinch

Daniel Burnham
b. 9-4-1846; Henderson, NY
d. 6-1-1912; Germany, buried at Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Daniel Burnham was considered the preeminent architect and urban planner in America at the turn of the twentieth century. He designed the 22 story Beaux-Arts style Flatiron Building (1902) which considered one of the first skyscrapers.

Originally a nautical term to describe tall masts, "skyscraper" was applied to the very tall structures being built at the end of the 19th century in New York and Chicago.

Burnham and his partner John Wellborn Root (1840-1891) also designed the 21 story Masonic Temple Building in Chicago (built 1892), as well as the initial plans for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which were significantly altered to become what is called the "White City".

• The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City