Focusing on how an important nineteenth-century architect addressed the already shifting relation between architecture, time and history, this book offers insights on issues still relevant today-the struggle between imitation and innovation, the definition (or rejection) of aesthetic experience, the grounds of architectural judgment (who decides and how), or fundamentally, how to act (i.e. Build) when there is no longer a single grand narrative but a plurality of possible histories. Six drawings provide the foundation of an itinerary through Charles Robert Cockerell’s conception of architecture, and into the depths of drawings and buildings.