In this bold book P. offers the first comprehensive study of Minoan architecture from a phenomenological perspective. Her broad overview of the Minoan built environment includes various architectural expressions, ranging from ‘huts to palaces’ and spanning ‘the Neolithic to the Neopalatial eras’ (p. xxx), although there is a clear emphasis on the monumental architecture of the Neopalatial period. A phenomenological approach is taken as the principal methodological framework, which guides the questions posed at the start of each chapter, with P. stating that she is principally interested in how Minoan architectural forms gain and express meaning over time (p. xxx). Phenomenology has a lengthy, though contentious, history in European Bronze Age archaeology, and well-known studies of British prehistoric landscapes such as those by C. Tilley (A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments. [1997]) immediately come to mind. This theoretical framework has not, however, been applied systematically to Aegean Bronze Age architecture, and P. attempts to bridge the gap that has existed for decades between processual and post-processual approaches by utilising a phenomenological approach in her re-assessment of Minoan architecture (p. 5).

Following the introduction, the book is divided into eleven chapters, the first of which focus on the formal elements that constitute Minoan architecture, starting with the most basic of geometric forms such as ‘the Circle and the Square’ (Chapter 3), moving onto concepts of liminality and movement in ‘Boundaries and Connectors’ (Chapter 4), and subsequently constituent parts such as the wall, the window, the entryway, porch, court, Minoan Hall etc. (Chapter 5). P. then shifts the emphasis to the processes involved in architectural creation by considering human actors such as the patron and the architect (Chapter 6), materiality and material agency through an assessment of materials, techniques and design considerations (Chapter 7), and guiding aesthetic principles (Chapter 8). In Chapter 9 she addresses the question of function, with a focus on monumentality. This is followed by a chapter dedicated to the origin and development of what is often considered the epitome of Minoan architectural achievement, the Minoan palace (Chapter 10) and its architectural particularities as well as its internal workings and circulation. The book concludes with a view of the discipline of Minoan architecture from a modern perspective and comments on the lasting influence of Evans et al.’s reconstruction of Knossos from the early twentieth century to the present day. The order that the book follows is logical, and by starting with the constituent parts and materiality, followed by the processes and agents responsible for the creation of the built environment, and concluding with the manifestation of Minoan monumental architecture with the ‘palace’, P. places architecture as the protagonist and builds a convincing narrative around the creation of the most recognisable Minoan built environment (the palace) from the bottom up using a phenomenological approach.

P. bases her in-depth phenomenological analysis of Minoan architecture on its formal elements (staircases, courtyards, light-wells, pillar crypts, walls, windows etc.). By starting her exploration here, however, P. engages with what can perhaps be termed ‘post-sensory phenomenology’, a perspective through which she envisions a universal, objective experience of the world (p. 5). This outlook is necessary for her to make certain objective assertions about the properties of the architectural forms and the ways in which the built environment would have been experienced in Minoan times. It would have benefited her argument, however, to start with the phenomenology of the raw materials that she addresses briefly in Chapter 7, whose affordances can arguably be more ‘universally’ experienced than the final architectural products themselves, which immediately beg the question of who would have experienced them, in what context and what activities would have taken place within them. P. rarely engages explicitly with the senses (apart from the visual), which is likely a result of her post-sensory phenomenological framework, which relies on an objective analysis of mental experience and meaning-making rather than purely sensory perception. This is an interesting position for P. to take, and it allows her to present new ideas about the creation and origin of typical Minoan architectural forms such as the Central Court or the Minoan Hall from a largely more objective perspective than a purely sensory approach to the architectural elements would afford.

With decades of experience as the site architect at Akrotiri, P. stresses the importance for excavators and architectural historians to visit the sites that they wish to analyse, and to engage with the landscape (p. 28), which is an important adage for all archaeologists interested in space and place. Unsurprisingly, the uniquely well-preserved site of Akrotiri is frequently cited as an example of the many phenomenological properties that P. discusses, alongside examples of Minoan palatial architecture, but smaller-scale domestic architecture from Crete is frequently lacking in her work. It is unfortunate that P. does not incorporate more Cretan examples from different Bronze Age periods, particularly in Chapter 7, which would have enriched her work with a more holistic perspective. P. focuses primarily, and understandably, on the Neopalatial period. This is stated briefly in the introduction, and occasionally generalisations are made about ‘Minoan’ architecture without specifying the period in which this may be the case. For example, P. mentions that Minoan architecture has ‘nothing to do with the picturesque, haphazard, or agglomerative’ (p. 33), which can be said of the Neopalatial and to some extent the Protopalatial periods, however, not of the highly agglutinative and agglomerated architectural forms typical of the Prepalatial and Postpalatial periods that respectively predate and follow the Palatial era, which P. in turn addresses briefly in Chapter 6 (pp. 122–3).

In Chapter 6 P. shifts her focus to the people responsible for the design of the palaces and monumental Minoan architecture, who have been forgotten by history, such as the ‘patron’ and the ‘architect’. This actor-focused shift is beneficial to her study as it sheds light not only on the agency of the architecture (as phenomenological approaches often tend to do) but also onto the people responsible for the construction of the built environments in question and the users of the space. The idea of patronage in a Minoan context, however, is contentious, as it raises questions regarding who/what institutions may have been sponsoring the production of architecture (specifically during the Neopalatial period). P. also addresses the issue of public versus private space and residents versus visitors (p. 89). The implications of this question are manifold, and it is unclear whether public and private spaces can (or should) be defined exclusively by their spatial features through a phenomenological approach, and to what extent a functional analysis comes into play. P. does not clarify how she makes this distinction, though it is a central paradox in many studies of ancient architecture.

While phenomenology offers a new way of viewing the world around us, in an archaeological sense it is extremely difficult to succinctly systematise the approach and to use it as a proper methodology. P. succeeds in developing a clear methodological framework in her book, which starts with the constituent parts of Minoan architecture, and attempts to distil them to their essence in order to assess the way in which meaning is constructed over time. She makes phenomenology relatable and accessible for the archaeologist and the architectural historian alike, which is an excellent asset for scholars interested in applying a phenomenological approach to their own work. As a scholar who is familiar with both ancient and modern architecture, P. offers much needed interdisciplinary breadth and a fresh outlook on a topic that has been exhaustively analysed by means of traditional architectural approaches.