ABSTRACT
The question 'What is architecture?' may at one level seem so obvious that it hardly warrants a whole chapter. Yet there has been and continues to be considerable debate about what should be included in the term and we all have our own ideas and preconceptions. So this chapter is about the problems of defining architecture as a subject and giving boundaries to it, by looking at some of the ways in which it has been defined in the past. It is also concerned with some of the reasons for studying architecture and with breaking down some preconceptions.
