The Barrack, 1572–1914 reconstructs nearly 350 years of an overlooked building type — tracing how standardised military accommodation became one of modernity's most politically charged spatial instruments.
About This Book
The barrack rarely features in architectural history, yet its logic — standardised, lightweight, rapidly deployable — shaped the organisation of modern populations as much as any civic monument. Robert Jan van Pelt's study tracks this building type from its origins as military accommodation in the late sixteenth century through to 1914, the year the Great War transformed its associations from pragmatic emergency shelter into something far more ominous. A hybrid of shack, tent, and conventional construction, the barrack served soldiers, displaced persons, disaster victims, and prisoners alike. Van Pelt situates the barrack within the broader history of military architecture, industrialisation, and the spatial politics of mass mobilisation — a history with consequences that extend well beyond his end date.
Key Features
- 528 pages of architectural history illustrated with approximately 250 images spanning barrack design traditions and construction technologies
- Authored by Robert Jan van Pelt
- Published by Park Books, ISBN 9783038603658
What You'll Discover
- How the barrack emerged as a standardised accommodation type in the late sixteenth century and evolved into a mass-produced utility of military and civilian mobilisation by the nineteenth century
- The structural logic of barrack construction — its hybrid character between shack, tent, and permanent building — and how railways and motor vehicles transformed its portability
- The technological inventiveness embedded in late nineteenth-century barrack design, a dimension largely absent from conventional architectural histories
- How 1914 marks a threshold in perception: the shift from the barrack as emergency pragmatism to its role as sinister forced housing — a trajectory with profound implications for twentieth-century history
About the Author
Robert Jan van Pelt is a scholar whose work engages the intersection of architectural history, spatial politics, and the built environments of modernity. His research on structures of containment and displacement has established him as a leading voice in the history of utilitarian and ideologically charged building types.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 528
- Dimensions: 16 x 3.56 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783038603658
- Publisher: Park Books
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architectural historians, scholars of military and utilitarian building types, designers interested in prefabrication and standardisation, and readers tracing the spatial politics of modernity from the sixteenth century to the First World War.