Architecture is the art and science of building, designing buildings and structures (including their complexes), as well as the very set of buildings and structures that create a spatial environment for human life and activity. Architecture creates a materially organized environment necessary for people to live and work, in accordance with their aspirations, as well as modern technical capabilities, aesthetic and artistic views. In architecture, functional (purpose, usefulness), technical (strength, durability), aesthetic (beauty) properties of objects and their artistic and figurative meaning are interrelated.

Related terms that also have a similar etymology, but are not synonymous: architectonics, tectonics.

The artistic meaning and specificity of architecture as an art is best expressed by the classical Triad of Vitruvius: Strength, Benefit, Beauty (Latin Firmitas, Utilitas, Venustas). In the future, this formula began to be interpreted extremely broadly - as three worlds, or three "kingdoms", with which the architect deals.

The ancient Roman architect Vitruvius named six "components of architecture":

ordination (structure, or order; Greek taxis), in the modern theory of composition is close to the concept of "construction";
beautification (decoration);
proportionality (proportionality);
savings (calculation);
eurythmy (balance);
distribution, or convenient location of buildings.
Architectural works are often perceived as works of art, as cultural or political symbols. Historical civilizations are characterized by their architectural achievements. Architecture allows you to perform the vital functions of society, at the same time directs life processes. However, architecture is created in accordance with the capabilities and needs of people.

The subject of work with space is the organization of the settlement as a whole. This task has become a separate area - urban planning, which covers a complex of socio-economic, construction and technical, architectural, artistic, sanitary and hygienic problems. For the same reason, it is difficult to give a correct assessment of an architectural structure without knowing urban planning.

One of the highest international awards in the field of architecture is the Pritzker Prize, awarded annually for the most outstanding achievements in the field of architecture.

According to the decision of the Twentieth General Assembly of the International Union of Architects (UIA), held in Barcelona in 1996, every year on the first Monday of October, the international professional holiday of architects and connoisseurs of architectural masterpieces is celebrated - World Architecture Day 

The profession of an architect includes many specializations. The main ones include:

The chief architect of the project is usually the head of the organization: an architectural and design bureau or a large firm, holding, concern, uniting many design and production associations
Architect-designer, whose responsibilities include the development of the overall architectural solution of the object: conceptual design, creation of project documentation (together with technical specialists): management of a group of assistants for the creation of sets of working drawings), prototyping (computer modeling), creation of a video presentation, as well as author's supervision over the implementation of the architectural project;
Architect-urban planner who develops master plans of settlements and other urban planning documentation
The chief architect of a city or district is a municipal employee who ensures the coordination of the activities of design and regulatory bodies, the development and control over the implementation of regulatory legal acts of local governments in the field of urban planning
Interior designer (interior and equipment designer) is an architect-designer who determines the overall composition and style, layout and three-dimensional solution of the interior of the building, as well as its subject content and decorative design;
Landscape architect who develops spatial solutions, landscaping and landscaping projects, small architectural forms: (decorative flowerpots, fountains, benches, gazebos, steles, lamps)
Historian and theorist of architecture, carrying out scientific and teaching activities in the field of architecture
Architect-restorer, who heads a group of specialists in attribution, study of the monument, various kinds of examinations, practical restoration, reconstruction or renovation of architectural monuments
An expert architect who carries out an external examination of project documentation.
The profession of architect is creative and is considered free; The architect in his work strives to be independent and be guided only by his inner ideas about beauty and expediency. However, he has to work in conditions of historical, cultural, material and technical conditionality, objectively existing requirements of usefulness and strength (expressed in regulations), as well as the preferences of customers and investors.

The theorist of architecture A. I. Nekrasov expressively wrote that architecture is a "receptacle of life", as a result there is a "resolution of space in the name of life", therefore the space itself, and the volume, and the mass are perceived as somehow specific and this is the essence of architecture. The artistic image of the space is the subject of the art of architecture. Therefore, "the material of the art of architecture is not stone or wood, but space and time" . As an art form, architecture is included in the sphere of spiritual and material culture. In contrast to utilitarian construction and aesthetic activities, such as design, architecture as an art solves artistic and figurative problems, that is, it expresses in artistic images a person's ideas about space and time and a person's place in the world around him

The historical development of society determines the functions, compositional types and genres of architectural creativity (buildings with organized internal space, structures that form open spaces, ensembles), technical structural systems, and the artistic structure of architectural structures.

According to the method of forming images, architecture is classified as non-figurative (tectonic) art forms that use non-iconic (conventional) signs, or abstracted images, objects, phenomena, actions addressed directly to associative mechanisms of perception. A pragmatic assessment of a work of architecture is determined by ideas about its ability to serve its functional purpose. However, such a one-sided definition causes controversy among historians and art theorists, including on the question of the origin of architecture. What comes first: the utilitarian need for shelter from the elements or the spiritual need for "doubling a person in a figurative model" (M. S. Kagan's definition). The first is illustrated by the famous "hut of Vitruvius", explaining the origin of architecture from a simple shelter such as a hut, or "cube" of four vertical poles connected by crossbars and supplemented with wicker curtains (model by G. Semper). The second explanation has to do with the question of the pictorial nature of architecture.
The traditional point of view boils down to the fact that architecture, arts and crafts and industrial design belong to the so-called non-figurative, or architectonic, types of art (A. V. Ikonnikov, M. S. Kagan). On the contrary, A. G. Gabrichevsky, B. R. Vipper, G. Sedlmayr and many others considered architecture to be a fine art, with the only difference being that the expressive and pictorial means of architectural creativity are more abstracted in comparison with painting, graphics, sculpture. So B. R. Wipper mentioned the categories of medieval aesthetics: "creative nature" (lat. natura naturans) and "created nature" (lat. natura naturata). The first concept means "the nature of the creative forces", the second - "the nature of phenomena". The architecture depicts "first nature"; painting, sculpture, graphics - the second. The question, therefore, lies not in the special "non-pictorial nature" of the art of architecture, but in the specificity of the subject and method of representation. Since the main expressive means of the architect are spatial relations, it can be concluded that architecture depicts not the forms of the surrounding reality, but physical and spiritual forces, energy, aspirations, the flight of thought in space and time; In a narrower sense, it is the function of certain elements of the building structure. That is why in the architectural composition all its visible parts - walls, columns, capitals, vaults - are not constructive, really working parts, but an image of a structure, parts of which really work, but their work is hidden behind external forms.