Organizing the past 61Or the architecture of a distinct state, kingdom or region
as manifestations of broader transnational or international
currents? Historians of the modern movement have, in
particular, faced this problem, from both biographical and
geo-political perspectives. How far can architectural histori-
ans press the specifi city of their subject, the irreducibility of
the biographical, or of the national?
In most cases, geo-political limits offer a useful and easy
way to restrict an architectural history. These limits, though,
are neither natural nor static. There is much to learn of the
historian’s own context in the way he or she constructs a
territory, geography or culture.
Type
The correlation between the form, character and organiza-
tion of a building and the purpose it serves led observers in
8 Whose heritage? Kaiserbad Spa (now Bath I) at Karlovy Vary,
Czech Republic, architects Fellner und Helmer, Vienna 1895, ate-
lierchef Alexander Neumann, photographer unknown.