Germain Boffrand, Livre d'architecture (1745)—A work of architectural theory written after its author had become a key figure in the Royal Academy of France. While Boffrand had been one of the foremost designers of Rococo interiors, he eventually rejected the style and instead argued that nobility of form, common sense, and simplicity of design should be the key determinants in designing space. His defense of these concepts thus exercised a formative influence on the Neoclassical revival in France.

Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Brittanicus (1715)—A multi-volume collection of engraved illustrations of classically influenced architecture built in England since the sixteenth century. Campbell was the editor of this hugely successful publishing venture, and his influential introduction to the first volume attacked the overly ornate Baroque style and instead advocated greater simplicity in building based upon the early seventeenth-century Palladianism of Inigo...