This chapter explores a prominent issue in international architectural culture during the last decades of the twentieth century, that of cultural identity. It asks: How can one represent one’s own cultural heritage or that of one’s clients in order to create buildings specific to the places in which they are built while simultaneously making those buildings appealing enough to an international audience to achieve fame? What combination of climate, geology, and culture constitutes place? Some of the more sophisticated answers to these complex questions emerge in the Middle East and South Asia, where many architectural showpieces of the modern movement have been erected. It is shown that while modern architecture is often denounced as a built diagram of homogeneous global capital, there remains considerable variation in where and how it is deployed.

The first global history of architecture to give equal attention to Western and non-Western structures and built landscapes, "Architecture since 1400" is unprecedented in its range, approach, and insight. From Tenochtitlan's Great Pyramid in Mexico City and the Duomo in Florence to Levittown's suburban tract housing and the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing, its coverage includes the world's most celebrated structures and spaces along with many examples of more humble vernacular buildings. Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 photographs, plans, and interiors, this book presents key moments and innovations in architectural modernity around the globe. Deftly integrating architectural and social history, Kathleen James-Chakraborty pays particular attention to the motivations of client and architect in the design and construction of environments both sacred and secular: palaces and places of worship as well as such characteristically modern structures as the skyscraper, the department store, and the cinema. She also focuses on the role of patrons and addresses to an unparalleled degree the impact of women in commissioning, creating, and inhabiting the built environment, with Gertrude Jekyll, Lina Bo Bardi, and Zaha Hadid taking their place beside Brunelleschi, Sinan, and Le Corbusier. Making clear that visionary architecture has never been the exclusive domain of the West and recognizing the diversity of those responsible for commissioning, designing, and constructing buildings, "Architecture since 1400" provides a sweeping, cross-cultural history of the built environment over six centuries.