Built for Realms: Eight Styles Named for Civilizations, Dynasties and Colonies

The Bronze Age architecture of the Indus Valley civilization, dated about 3300 to 1300 BCE across modern Pakistan and India. Its cities were noted for urban planning, baked brick houses and elaborate drainage and water supply systems, and its largest centres, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, very likely held between 30,000 and 60,000 people.

The Iron Age kingdom of Urartu, centred on eastern Anatolia and the Armenian Highlands from about 850 to 590 BCE. The Urartians are known for fortresses, temples and water management systems, and their settlements sat near water and along trade routes. The fortress of Teishebaini, named for the god Teisheba, is the notable surviving example.

A style that evolved under Emperor Otto the Great and lasted from the mid tenth to the mid eleventh century in Germany and the low countries. It survives essentially in churches, most large ones built with imperial patronage, and is counted as a phase of Pre-Romanesque architecture under the Ottonian dynasty.

The temple building of the imperial Cholas, about 850 to 1250 CE in South India, who spent the wealth of their conquests on long-lasting stone temples and bronze sculpture. Historians see three phases, from Vijayalaya Chola to Sundara Chola, then the middle phase of Rajaraja Chola and Rajendra Chola, then Kulottunga I to the end of the empire. Their palaces, built of timber and fired brick, have not survived.

The building idiom of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire, 1336 to 1565, whose capital stood on the Tungabhadra River in modern Karnataka. The empire both raised new temples and modified hundreds of existing ones across South India. At Hampi, 56 monuments are protected by UNESCO, 654 by the Government of Karnataka, and another 300 await protection.

The building tradition of the Safavid dynasty, which ruled Iran from 1501 to 1736, though some place its end at 1722 when Isfahan fell to the Afghans. Its showpiece is Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, constructed between 1598 and 1629 and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the Shah Mosque on its south side and the Ali Qapu Palace on its west.

Several styles used by the French during colonization, beginning in North America in 1604 and most active in the Western Hemisphere, including the Caribbean, Guiana, Canada and Louisiana, until the nineteenth century, when French attention turned to Africa, Asia and Oceania. Former colonies in Southeast Asia were long reluctant to promote this heritage, and have lately begun to advertise it.

A style that emerged in the seventeenth century in the early years of the Dutch Cape Colony, named for the Dutch settlers who developed it. Its roots run to medieval building in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Indonesia, and the Getty thesaurus dates the main period from 1652 to 1796. Modern adaptations now stand on wine estates in Western Australia and New Zealand.