BUILDINGS - THEORY AND APPLICATIONS

This book treats Jacques Tits's beautiful theory of buildings, making that theory accessible to readers with minimal background. It includes all the material of the earlier book 'Buildings' by the second - named author, published by Springer - Verlag in 1989, which gave an introduction to buildings from the classical (simplicial) point of view. This new book includes two other approaches to buildings, which nicely complement the simplicial approach: On the one hand, buildings may be viewed as abstract sets of chambers important in the theory and applications of buildings. On the other hand, buildings may be viewed as metric spaces. Beginners can still use parts of the new book as a friendly introduction to buildings, but the book also contains valuable material for the active researcher.