The Golden Lands, by Vikram Lall

The Golden Lands (1st edition, Sep 2014) is the first book in a groundbreaking new series exploring famous temples and sites from the Buddhist world from an architectural point of view.

Find out about the book here on the official JF Publishing book series website, as well as order your own copy. Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter to receive exclusive preview materials and downloadable maps to complement the book.

The Golden Lands - the architecture of Buddhist sites in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam
The Golden Lands – the architecture of Buddhist sites in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam


Download a printable information sheet about the book.

Book key facts:

  • Published by JF Publishing in partnership with Abbeville Press New York
  • ISBN: 978-0-7892-1194-1 (N America, Europe) and 978-967-0138-03-9 (International / Direct)
  • Published September 2014
  • Hardcover, 280 pages
  • More than 300 full-color illustrations
  • RRP $95.00
The Golden Lands will is available to order direct from this site, as well as all good bookshops from September 2014, plus Amazon and other online bookstores
The Golden Lands will is available to order direct from this site, as well as all good bookshops from September 2014, plus Amazon and other online bookstores
Sim of Vat Mai
One of the unique features of The Golden Lands book is the inclusion of brand new 3D architectural diagrams of many famous sites: please click on the picture to see more previews.

About the author:

Author photo, Vikram Lall

Vikram Lall is a partner and the principal architect of Lall & Associates, a leading architectural firm in New Delhi. Also a teacher and scholar, he has lectured on architectural history and theory at institutions worldwide.

The present series represents the summation of his twenty-five years of intensive research into Buddhist architecture.

Please visit our author biography page for more information about Vikram and don’t forget you can meet the author at any of our book launch events.


About The Book

“The Golden Lands” is the first book in the planned major series “Architecture of the Buddhist World”

Wihan of Wat Suthat, Thailand
Architecture of the Buddhist World: A groundbreaking survey of the Buddhist architecture of Southeast Asia, abundantly illustrated with new color photography.

Over the course of its 2,500-year history, Buddhism has found expression in countless architectural forms, from the great monastic complexes of ancient India to the fortified dzongs of Bhutan, the rock-carved temple grottoes of China, the wooden shrines of Japan, and the colorful wats of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. Architecture of the Buddhist World, a projected six-volume series by the noted architect and scholar Vikram Lall, represents a new multidisciplinary approach to this fascinating subject, showing how Buddhist thought and ritual have interacted with local traditions across the Asian continent to produce masterpieces of religious architecture.

The first volume in the series, The Golden Lands, is devoted to Southeast Asia, home to many of the most spectacular Buddhist monuments. Following a general introduction to the early history of Buddhism and its most characteristic architectural forms (the stupa, the temple, and the monastery), Lall examines the Buddhist architecture of Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos in turn. For each country, he provides both a historical overview and case studies of noteworthy structures. Lall’s concise and accessible text is illustrated throughout with new color photography, as well as 3-D architectural models that make even the most complex structures easily comprehensible.

The monuments that Lall considers in The Golden Lands range from the modest Bupaya stupa, constructed in Bagan, Myanmar, in the third century CE, to the vast complex of Borobudur in Central Java, the world’s largest Buddhist monument. Lall’s achievement is to place them all within a single panorama of history, religion, and artistic innovation.


Golden Lands Book - Front cover over opened page_1000x667
The Golden Lands is in coffee-table-book size with gorgeous photography throughout and luxurious binding. Order direct from the Publisher on this site or view the “Where to buy” for local distributor information.

Find out more about the book on this site:

Also:

The first ever art historical survey focusing comprehensively on the Architecture of the Buddhist World