LibGuides: Image Resources, Architecture Library: More Image Collections

Image Collections with a Broad Focus

40 Centuries of Architecture
Egyptian, Greek, Islamic, Romanesque, Roman, Gothic, Byzantine, and Armenian architecture. THAIS, Milan.
AP Newsroom
700,000 news photographs from 1841 to the present. Most are from the last ten years.
ArchDaily
Contemporary architecture. Includes many building plans.
Art Historical Images of Sculpture and Architecture from Pre-Historic to Post-Modern
Bluffton University Professor Mary Ann Sullivan's personal collection of 11,000+ images are listed in indexes.
Art Images for College Teaching, AICT
Personal, non-profit project of Allan T. Kohl, art historian and visual resources curator at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Selective coverage of ancient to modern architecture. Choose "x512 pixels" image for largest image.
Cities and Buildings Database
The University of Washington's collection of nearly 10,000 ancient to contemporary images is for use by students, faculty, and the academic community.
LUNA Commons
Includes several architecture collections.
The New York Public Library Digital Collections
The New York Public Library's collections include more than 30,000 images from pre-1923 books, magazines, newspapers, photographs, prints, and postcards.

Image Collections with a Narrow Focus

American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920
A study collection from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Andrew Dickson White Architectural Photographs
19th and early 20th century photographs of architecture, decorative arts and sculpture. White (1832-1918) was the first president of Cornell University, which hosts this collection.
ArchNet
Islamic architecture image library of historic and contemporary buildings and sites and general views. MIT School of Architecture and Planning and University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, in cooperation with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.
Art and Architecture from the Courtauld Institute of Art
40,000 images. Includes images of architecture, gardens, and parks, primarily in Europe and black and white.
ArtServe
Australian National University Professor Michael Greenhalgh's collection of images of "Art & Architecture mainly from the Mediterranean Basin, Japan and now India."
Catena Digital Archives of Historic Gardens & Landscapes
This collection from the Bard Graduate Center is currently focused on a number of Italian villas. Note: to view images in Insight you must have pop-up windows enabled on your browser. To download images for educational purposes you must first register.
Chartres: Cathedral of Notre-Dame
Collection of images and descriptions of the cathedral. Hosted by the Digital Research Library at the University of Pittsburgh on behalf of Dr. Alison Stones, Professor of History of Art and Architecture.
China: Sidney D. Gamble Photographs
Early 20th century photographs of China. Hosted by the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections.
Columbus Indiana Architectural Archives collection
Plan, photographs, and drawings from the archives. Hosted by IUPUI University Library.
Design Council Slide Collection
The Design Council is the UK’s national strategic body for design. Images in this collection provide a unique insight into the history of British design and its promotion from the 1940s to the early 1990s. The collection contains a wide variety of products such as tableware, furniture, lighting, textiles, and wallpapers, as well as other areas of design such as architecture, town planning, interior design, graphic design and corporate identity.
Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture
Images of furniture and decorative arts objects and digital facsimiles of books published on architecture, landscape architecture, and the decorative arts. Includes books by Robert Adam, Asher Benjamin, and Owen Jones. Chipstone Foundation and UW-Madison.
Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection
Historic garden photographs in the Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection in the Library of Congress.
HABS/HAER Drawings
Historic American Building Survey and Historic American Engineering Record. Covers 1933 - present. Search supported by the Library of Congress.
Historic American Landscapes Survey
Online search provided by the Library of Congress.
Indiana Historic Architecture Slide Collection
Images from the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana digitized by the IUPUI University Library.
The Kidder Smith Slide Archives on American Architecture
Selected images from the Kidder Smith slide collection now part of the Rotch Visual Collections at MIT.
Mapping Gothic France
Images, plans, maps, and timelines. From the Media Center for Art History, Columbia University, and the Art Department at Vassar College.
Maynard L. Parker Negatives, Photographs, and Other Materials
Online database of images from the “Los Angeles-based architectural and garden photographer who contributed images to many of the nation’s premier home design publications.” Sponsored by the Huntington Library.
Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
From the American Memory Project
Sacred Destinations
"... an ecumenical guide to more than 1,250 sacred sites, holy places, pilgrimage destinations, religious architecture and sacred art in over 60 countires around the world." Includes photos, maps, and some plans.
Vézelay : Benedictine Abbey Church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine Image Collection
Online digital database of images of the Benedictine abbey church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay in Burgundy which is one of the most important surviving monuments of architecture and sculpture of the Romanesque period.

Search Engines

Bing Image Search
Offers the ability to upload an image to search. Images retrieved may be copyright protected.
Google Image Search
Use the Advanced Image Search to specify image sizes (small, medium, or large). Images retrieved may be copyright protected.

Search Collections Too

Search engines can help you find images, but they do have limitations:

Search engines cannot find the images in collections like many of those listed here.
Search engines are great at finding specific buildings and sites (example: the Eiffel Tower); they are less helpful at finding broad topics (examples: modern houses, Art Deco buildings).
Many image collections offer additional search and display features that you won't find in a search engine.

Search the collections in the Image Sites section of this guide to access images in these collections.

Photo Sharing Sites

Flickr
Search for tags supplied by site users.