How does an architect come to think of the “form” of a house? From uninhabited physico-mathematical spaces or from cultural memory, in which this “form” is presented as an experience of life observations? Temple, palace, hotel, government building, office, library, museum, theater … The eidos of the projected house is an invariant of a particular architectural genre developed by this culture. is a tradition established in this cultural area. By what signs do we recognize these architectural genres? Is there a poetics of dwellings, poetics of educational institutions, poetics of metro stations? Is there a poetics of architecture at all? The author of the book is Alexander Stepanov, Candidate of Arts, Professor of the Institute of . and . E. Repina, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of SPbU .