Still, figuration in Western architecture continued to be confined to those spaces provided in the architect's or builder's plan.

WSJ: Enlightenment on an Intimate Scale | The Adinatha Temple at Ranakpur | Masterpiece by James S. Ackerman

Sixteen years after retiring from teaching, I visited India for a tour of Rajasthan and saw the Adinatha temple at Ranakpur, which transformed my perspective on Western architecture.

WSJ: Enlightenment on an Intimate Scale | The Adinatha Temple at Ranakpur | Masterpiece by James S. Ackerman

This divorce of narration from structure in Western architecture was confirmed in the early Renaissance (15th century), when humanists sought to elevate the status of architects, establishing the designer's control of every element of a structure, conferring an auteur dominance.

WSJ: Enlightenment on an Intimate Scale | The Adinatha Temple at Ranakpur | Masterpiece by James S. Ackerman

My response to Ranakpur led me to examine the limitations of my approach to architecture and, for the first time, the history of the interaction of narrative and architecture in Western religious buildings.

WSJ: Enlightenment on an Intimate Scale | The Adinatha Temple at Ranakpur | Masterpiece by James S. Ackerman

Japan has been on the fringes of the program since at least 1993, when Mitsubishi Heavy, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Corp. (the three are independent), NEC, Hitachi and Fujitsu participated in the bilateral Western Pacific Missile Defense Architecture Study.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Cyprus has inscribed on the World Heritage List ten churches which bear outstanding testimony to Byzantine civilization, are well-conserved examples of rural religious architecture and provide evidence for the links between eastern and western Christian art.

UNESCO: Painted Churches in the Troodos Region

The capital Willemstad, settled in 1634, is the financial and commercial centre of life on the island, as well as a Unesco World Heritage Site, thanks to its well-preserved, cotton-candy-coloured Dutch Colonial architecture and buildings like the Mikve Israel Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in use in the Western Hemisphere.

BBC: Living in: the ABC islands