Architecture & city planning

The Penn Libraries' architecture and city planning collections constitute all major areas relating to the study, design, and history of the built environment.  The majority of the collection is housed in the Fisher Fine Arts Library followed by the Libraries' offsite storage facility, LIBRA. The collections aim to a) document the culture and production of architecture worldwide from the ancient world through the present day; b) support scholars in the fields of landscape architecture, building conservation, site management, landscape preservation, preservation planning, and preservation design; c) provide resources that engage critical thinking about the ecological, social, cultural, and visual performance of landscape spaces and systems; and d) to foster the dynamic, multidisciplinarity of city and regional planning.that brings together sustainable transportation and land use, economic development, urban health and social policy, environmental assessment and sustainability, global urbanization and poverty, and urban design for livable places.

The collections stretch from traditional media such as printed books and journals, electronic databases, streaming video, and rare books and special collections. Additional holdings include dissertations, reports, journal and conference papers, maps, digital image collections, building materials, a materials library, and much more.