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Architecture (from Latin, architectura and ultimately from Greek, αρχιτεκτων, \"a master builder\", from αρχι- \"chief, leader\" and τεκτων, \"builder, carpenter\") is the art and science of designing buildings and structures.

A wider definition would include within its scope the design of the total built environment, from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of creating furniture. Architectural design usually must address both feasibility and cost for the builder, as well as function and aesthetics for the user.

Planned architecture often manipulates space, volume, texture, light, shadow, or abstract elements in order to achieve pleasing aesthetics. This distinguishes it from applied science or engineering, which usually concentrate more on the functional and feasibility aspects of the design of constructions or structures.

In the field of building architecture, the skills demanded of an architect range from the more complex, such as for a hospital or a stadium, to the apparently simpler, such as planning residential houses. Many architectural works may be seen also as cultural and political symbols, and/or works of art. The role of the architect, though changing, has been central to the successful (and sometimes less than successful) design and implementation of pleasingly built environments in which people live.

Scope

According to the very earliest surviving work on the subject, Vitruvius' De architectura, good buildings satisfy three core principles: Firmness, Commodity, and Delight; architecture can be said to be a balance and coordination among these three elements, with none overpowering the others. A modern-day definition sees architecture as addressing aesthetic, structural, and functional considerations. However, looked at another way, function itself is seen as encompassing all criteria, including aesthetic, psychological, and cultural ones.

Architecture is an interdisciplinary field, drawing upon mathematics, science, art, technology, social sciences, politics, history, and philosophy. Vitruvius states: \"Architecture is a science, arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning: by the help of which a judgement is formed of those works which are the result of other arts.\" He adds that an architect should be well versed in fields such as music and astronomy. Philosophy is a particular favourite; in fact the approach of an architect to their subject is often called their philosophy. Rationalism, empiricism, structuralism, poststructuralism, and phenomenology are some topics from philosophy that have influenced architecture.

Read more at Wikipedia.org