Lighthouses may be the most strictly functional of all civilian buildings and yet, in humankind’s efforts to master the elements, they can be surprisingly beautiful and varied in their design. They may be square like Brockton Point Lighthouse or octagonal like Cape Recife Lighthouse, and they may be as tall as the 431-foot Jeddah Port Control Tower or as stocky as the 26-foot Mystic Seaport Lighthouse. They are built from a variety of materials such as the wooden Dyna Lighthouse, the stone Blitvenica Island Lighthouse, and the brick Southwold Lighthouse. From North America to South Africa, from Ireland to Japan, Lighthouses features more than 200 structures, ranging from 18th-century European lighthouses to the latest South Korean ones, from those perched on remote islets to others marking busy harbors, from such famous locations as Alcatraz Prison to little-known parts of Venezuela and India. Including both working and decommissioned structures, Lighthouses features more than 200 striking photographs from all around the world.
