Architectural history studies the design, construction and stylistic development of buildings by comparing form, structure and ornament systematically across periods and cultures, dating and attributing a building from its own physical and stylistic evidence rather than from tradition alone. The British architect Banister Fletcher gave the discipline its standard comparative reference in 1896 with A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, which organized world architecture, including temple, church, mosque and stupa forms, into parallel stylistic sequences that let a building's period and influences be read directly from its structural and decorative features.
Sacred architecture routinely carries a claimed date or attributed origin that a tradition's own account may simplify or idealize, and architectural history's comparative method, reading a structure's actual building technique, floor plan and ornamental vocabulary against a documented stylistic sequence, is an independent check on such a claim. The atlas relies on architectural history wherever a temple, church, mosque or stupa's construction date or stylistic lineage needs to be established from the building itself rather than from tradition.