Physiognomy is the art of discovering people's temperament and character from their outward appearance. Even if physiognomy is often dismissed as pseudoscience, we cannot deny that our inner dispositions, preferences, and character are reflected by our body and our actions, and therefore visible from the outside. Physiognomy mostly focuses on the appearance of one's face. This, physiognomy advocates claim, is because the facial muscles we use more often are more developed, and since the use of those muscles is linked to certain emotions and internal activities, our face reflects our character. Similarly, Architecture is the physiognomy of a society. Our cities and buildings are physical manifestations of our will and desires, and those of our ancestors. If you observe closely a city, or even its ruins, you can learn a lot about the life of those that lived there, their history, religion, and character. You can quickly distinguish a village of fisher from the capital of an empire; our settlements tell a lot about us.

The city is an ever becoming embodiment of people's values. We build what we need, but also what we value and find worthwhile, in this way we encode the values of our society in the built environment. Nowadays in the west for example, very few building projects are of worship places, instead numerous office buildings are erected every year. Similarly, we see new bicycle lanes and pedestrian walkways being built over city roads, a clear sign of the shift to greener mobility and more human urban spaces by our society, the crystallization of a wider movement. In the same way, every ancient ruin can tell something about the disposition of the civilization which built it. This is not to say that we write history just by looking at buildings, we can't, just as we cannot tell what someone thinks by looking at their face. Nonetheless, architecture can give us important glimpses of the tendencies and priority of its creators, both past and present.

Furthermore, the different kinds of private and public buildings tell us about the social hierarchy in a given society. Palaces of the elite surrounded by barracks or neatly organized middle-class suburbs are clear manifestations of local hierarchies. Social dynamics too get crystallized in urban spaces. In the same way, public spaces and gardens stand in contrast to gated communities, embodying local politics. A culture which lives in touch with nature will be very different from that which only inhabits urban environments of steel and glass, this will be reflected in its dwellings.

The stratification of architectural styles in a city is the crystallization of its cultural history, and from it, we can quickly discern the current state of a society, and its relation to the past. Ancient buildings can tell us of the grand past of a civilization, and new ugly ones of the current decay. This is particularly interested in the analysis of our current societies. Fast fashion has taken up the architecture industry, we build for temporary fads and cheaply. This stands in stark contrast to what our ancestors did. You have bridges, temples, and aqueducts which have been standing for thousands of years, beside new innovative buildings that gets destroyed every ten years. Oppositely, in an ascending culture, new construction will try to rival the wonders of antiquity in both beauty and durability. Even if we can try to influence this trend, insincere imitation of the ancients can result in decadent copycats, when values are not aligned with the source of inspiration.

Finally, all of these features start feedback loops, since one way or another the trend tends to reinforce itself until breakdown. We encode our culture and values in the built environment, and by doing so we impose constraints and influence our way of life. This inevitably modifies our culture, for the better or for the worse. A society will continue to encode its values in architecture, art and culture, this will go on until the fall of it, and reverse until it touches the floor. New cultures develop and take their place, conquer and build, and the trace of these cycles remains from a long time as a physiognomical trait of human societies.

Physiognomy is the art of discovering people's temperament and character from their outward appearance. Even if physiognomy is often dismissed as pseudoscience, we cannot deny that our inner dispositions, preferences, and character are reflected by our body and our actions, and therefore visible from the outside. Physiognomy mostly focuses on the appearance of one's face. This, physiognomy advocates claim, is because the facial muscles we use more often are more developed, and since the use of those muscles is linked to certain emotions and internal activities, our face reflects our character. Similarly, Architecture is the physiognomy of a society. Our cities and buildings are physical manifestations of our will and desires, and those of our ancestors. If you observe closely a city, or even its ruins, you can learn a lot about the life of those that lived there, their history, religion, and character. You can quickly distinguish a village of fisher from the capital of an empire; our settlements tell a lot about us.

The city is an ever becoming embodiment of people's values. We build what we need, but also what we value and find worthwhile, in this way we encode the values of our society in the built environment. Nowadays in the west for example, very few building projects are of worship places, instead numerous office buildings are erected every year. Similarly, we see new bicycle lanes and pedestrian walkways being built over city roads, a clear sign of the shift to greener mobility and more human urban spaces by our society, the crystallization of a wider movement. In the same way, every ancient ruin can tell something about the disposition of the civilization which built it. This is not to say that we write history just by looking at buildings, we can't, just as we cannot tell what someone thinks by looking at their face. Nonetheless, architecture can give us important glimpses of the tendencies and priority of its creators, both past and present.

Furthermore, the different kinds of private and public buildings tell us about the social hierarchy in a given society. Palaces of the elite surrounded by barracks or neatly organized middle-class suburbs are clear manifestations of local hierarchies. Social dynamics too get crystallized in urban spaces. In the same way, public spaces and gardens stand in contrast to gated communities, embodying local politics. A culture which lives in touch with nature will be very different from that which only inhabits urban environments of steel and glass, this will be reflected in its dwellings.

The stratification of architectural styles in a city is the crystallization of its cultural history, and from it, we can quickly discern the current state of a society, and its relation to the past. Ancient buildings can tell us of the grand past of a civilization, and new ugly ones of the current decay. This is particularly interested in the analysis of our current societies. Fast fashion has taken up the architecture industry, we build for temporary fads and cheaply. This stands in stark contrast to what our ancestors did. You have bridges, temples, and aqueducts which have been standing for thousands of years, beside new innovative buildings that gets destroyed every ten years. Oppositely, in an ascending culture, new construction will try to rival the wonders of antiquity in both beauty and durability. Even if we can try to influence this trend, insincere imitation of the ancients can result in decadent copycats, when values are not aligned with the source of inspiration.

Finally, all of these features start feedback loops, since one way or another the trend tends to reinforce itself until breakdown. We encode our culture and values in the built environment, and by doing so we impose constraints and influence our way of life. This inevitably modifies our culture, for the better or for the worse. A society will continue to encode its values in architecture, art and culture, this will go on until the fall of it, and reverse until it touches the floor. New cultures develop and take their place, conquer and build, and the trace of these cycles remains from a long time as a physiognomical trait of human societies.