Open Access Databases: Engineering and Architecture

The AMICO (Art Museum Image Consortium) Library is an online collection of digital documentation of works of art from around the world. Images, text and multimedia represent a broad range of works of art in AMICO highlighting the creative output of cultures around the world, from prehistoric to contemporary times, and covering the complete range of expressive forms. Cultures and time periods represented range from contemporary art, Native American and Inuit art, to ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian works, along with Japanese and Chinese works. Each slide has an accompanying catalog record in the database.

Ancient Egyptian Architecture Online provides vetted and standardized architectural drawings of a selection of ancient Egyptian buildings. These represent architecture from modest workmen’s houses to temple complexes, dating from the Old Kingdom through Late Antiquity. AEGARON considers architectural drawings as historic sources: each plan is accompanied by a critical apparatus. The plans can be downloaded freely for private and research purposes.

Originally developed from the idea of ​​a student database with interesting architectural examples, this project has developed into the world's largest online database for architecture, which is constantly being expanded and to which interested parties from all over the world can contribute data via the Internet. archINFORM currently contains information on more than 82,000 buildings and plans by important international architects.

This database is an inventory of the collections of the Carnegie Mellon University Architecture Archives. Also includes a selected list of research guides and projects on architectural history.

Searchable database for French architecture and heritage, including furniture and images.

This collection contains digital images created from lantern slides showing architecture, cities, and landscapes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The original lantern slides that form this collection are part of the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library Special Collections housed in the lower level of the library.

Images from this collection are part of the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library Imageworks, which is on the second floor of the Duderstadt Center at the University of Michigan. The collection primarily serves the College of Architecture & Urban Planning and the School of Art & Design.

Contains 15,000 structured vocabulary terms and other information about objects, concepts, artists, and places. Terms may be used to describe art, architecture, decorative arts, material culture, and archival materials. Coverage ranges from Antiquity to the present, and the scope is global.

Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) began as a personal project dedicated to the principle of free exchange of image resources for and among members of the educational community.

The name BHA has been used informally to refer to a group of databases: RAA, RILA, BHA, and IBA. The data available on the Getty Web site comprises two of these databases: BHA and RILA. BHA (Bibliography of the History of Art/Bibliographie d'histoire de l'art) covers the years 1990-2007; the Getty Web version includes all records with abstracts in French or English and all subject terms in French and English. RILA (Répertoire de la litterature de l'art) covers 1975-1989. At present, the Getty has no plans to add RAA (Répertoire d'art et d'archéologie), which covers 1973-1989. IBA (International Bibliography of Art), covering 2008 to the present, is a separate subscription-only database from ProQuest that is not included on this free website provided by Getty.

A collection of historical books (late 15th through the early 19th century) on architecture and garden design made freely available by the University Library of Heidelberg. Includes rare editions from Italy, France, Germany and other European countries.

A collection of digitized images of buildings and cities drawn from across time and throughout the world, available to students, researchers and educators on the web.

Cities Around the World presents over 6,100 photographic images from the slide collections of the American Geographical Society Library. The images selected for this project focus on architecture, city life, people, transportation and other aspects of urban development, such as neighborhoods, commercial streets, and business districts.

CumInCAD is a Cumulative Index about publications in Computer Aided Architectural Design supported by the sibling associations ACADIA, CAADRIA, eCAADe, SIGraDi, ASCAAD and CAAD futures.

Database of Ottoman Inscriptions (DOI) is searchable digital database comprising information about, as well as transliterations and pictures of, all the Turkish, Arabic and Persian architectural inscriptions created in the Ottoman lands during Ottoman times.

Database of over one million catalogue entries describing photographs, plans, and drawings of England's buildings and historic sites.

Provides primary source material for scholarly research, teaching support and preservation on the work of nearly 100 of the San Francisco Bay Region's historically significant architects, landscape architects and firms.

The historic illustrations included in this project were originally published during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many originally appeared in publications that predated the widespread use of photography for art documentation. These engravings, line drawings, and plans reflect both the technological and aesthetic standards of their time. These records include full bibliographic information on the sources, which were published between 1879 and 1921.

Istanbul Urban Database is an accessible, interactive mapping platform for historians, architects, city planners and other researchers to examine and contribute to the collective memory of Istanbul. This project is a sustainable platform that blends a wide range of historical data, and is the most comprehensive online archive of Istanbul’s urban history.

The initial aim of this project was to photograph, transcribe and translate the unpublished inscriptions in pre-1800 monuments in Cairo. In addition it was hoped to record those inscriptions, published or not, most in danger of disappearing because of their fragile state of conservation. The inspiration for the project came from the parlous state of many of Cairo’s monuments at the time. Cairo has the richest legacy of pre-modern monuments of any city in the Islamic world. Over four hundred are listed as worthy of protection by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, ranging from the eighth to the nineteenth century, and from simple mosques to complexes which are among the world’s architectural masterpieces.

PCAD includes a range of information on the buildings and architects of California, Oregon and Washington. Also included are professionals in other fields who have made an impact on the built environment, such as landscape architects, interior designers, engineers, urban planners, developers, and building contractors. Building records are tied to those of their creators (when known) and include historical and geographical information and images. Bibliographical information, such as magazine and book citations and web sites, has also been linked for creators and their partnerships and structures.

This is a digital archive consisting of images taken from the following Special Collections Research Center photograph collections (with their four-letter identifiers): Dean C. Worcester (1866-1924), Photographs of the Philippine Islands (PHLA); Parker Hitt Photograph Collection (PHLB); Manila, Philippines, Collection (PHLC); Manila, Philippines, and Environs (slides and photographs) (PHLD); Scenes of Philippine History (slides) (also PHLD); General John J. Pershing Photograph Collection (PHLE); Everett E. Thompson Photograph Collection (PHLF); Tiffany Williams Photograph Collection (PHLG); and Memory Book: U.S.S. Chaumont (PHLJ). In general, the images depict Filipinos, buildings, dwellings, and monuments in and around Manila, Filipino political and military leaders, members of American commissions and military units based in the Philippines, and numerous landscape scenes, particularly on Mindanao and in Lanoa Province.

The RMIT Research Repository is an open access institutional repository providing free, searchable access to research publications authored by RMIT University staff and students.

Robert Metcalf was a noted Michigan-based modern architect and former Professor and later Dean of the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Metcalf's work includes over 150 buildings in Michigan and Ohio. The material in this collection spans the years 1942 to 2017 and represents many of Metcalf’s most prominent works (including his personal residence).

A free, open-access site containing entries for around 100 buildings from each state represented in SAH Archipedia

Compilation of more than 1 million digital documents for the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. Includes correspondence, records, reports, photographs, maps, drawings, and a vast array of other material.

This gateway to architecture around the world and across history documents a thousand buildings and hundreds of leading architects, selected over ten years by the editors of ArchitectureWeek, with photographic images and architectural drawings, integrated maps and timelines, 3D building models, commentaries, bibliographies, web links, and more, for famous designers and structures of all kinds.

The Research Collection is ETH Zurich's repository for publications and research data. The Research Collection provides a comprehensive database of scholarly publications produced at ETH Zurich.

Originating with the Courtauld Institute’s multiple image archives, provides access to more than 40,000 images, plus a network of over half a million links.