Sarah Bonnemaison and Christine Macy have been involved in festival architecture since 1987, designing, lecturing and writing about it. Their book Architecture and Nature: creating the American landscape (Routledge 2003) won the 2005 Alice Davis Hitchcock Prize from the Society of Architectural Historians. They teach design and architectural history at Dalhousie University in Canada.

1. Introduction Sarah Bonnemaison and Christine Macy Part 1: Ritual and Architecture in Antiquity 2. The Festive Experience: Roman Processions in the Urban Context Diane Favro Part 2: Renaissance and Baroque Spectacle as Representations of Power 3. Festival Bridal Entries in Renaissance Ferrara Diane Yvonne Ghirardo 4. Festivals of State: The Representation of Power in Late Renaissance and Baroque Venice Margherita Azzi Visentini 5. Statecraft or Stagecraft? English Paper Architecture in the Seventeenth Century Caroline van Eck 6. Framing History: The Jubilee of 1625, the Dedication of New Saint Peter's and the Baldacchino Maarten Delbeke Part 3: Eighteenth Century Festivals and Urban Beautification 7. The Speculative Challenges of Festival Architecture in Eighteenth Century France Eric Monin Part 4: World Expositions and the Idea of Modernity 8. Marking Time and Space in the City: Kromhout's Decorations for the Investiture of Wilhelmina in Amsterdam Nancy Stieber 9. Sound, Light, and the Mystique of Space in Paris, 1937 Robert Weddle Part 5: Festivals of Resistance 10. Festival Urbanism: Carnival as an Expression of Civil Society in Nineteenth Century Basel Christine Macy 11. Taking Back the Street, Paris 1968-1978 Sarah Bonnemaison