A place is defined both by geographical location and human experience. Place is space, occupying real physical form, which has been arrogated for a given social use. The Roman concept genius loci recognizes the spirit of place as independent and unique to each location. Architecture, in turn, can be understood as an activity that both signals and responds to place in the recognition, delimitation and establishment of confines. Distinguishing between the site and the structures erected on it, Aristotle defined place as the immobile surface of the containing body in direct contact with the contained body. There is place that is physically marked, as well as place that is more nebulously defined by institutional factors, political borders and sensorial elements. Yet places are by no means passive, objects to the actors of human ingenuity. They contain the capacity for generation and are inherently generative, their innate qualities – in the sense of a landscape, climatic zone or geographical environment – being formative in the creation of architecture. A place can serve as a locus of a project, directing architecture's discovery of what already exists, and illuminating roots, outlines and unvarying constants.

This book explores the construction of place in architecture in early modern Europe (1400-1750). Each of the book's ten essays takes a distinct historical subject and examines the wider relationships between environmental categories (place, site and context), different stages in the design process, the interaction between project and construction, and the contextual use of tools and materials. ‘Architecture’, as explored here, corresponds to that of the period considered, and encompasses the built environment in its entirety, as well as the tools and machines applied in its production. The objects of examination include mills and machines, dams, sluices and scaffolding, foundations and fortifications, as well as church balconies, imposing palaces and canonical theories. Archival evidence takes the form of patent records, workaday drawings and graphic models, maps, musical scores, workshop inventories and legal texts. Collectively, the essays show how the making of early modern architecture was inseparable from context, and from the social relations, institutional supports and strategic processes upon which it was founded.