Exercise 1 - Why the Baroque is common (sample answer)

Reasons (any three): after 1686 much had been damaged or lost, giving a blank
slate; the Church and great families had money and wanted to be seen; Habsburg
taste and Viennese architects favoured the Baroque; returning peace let towns
build at scale.
Recognising it on a map: a large regular square, a church on one side and a
town hall or palace on another, straight streets leading off. A regular square
often points to a planned eighteenth-century rebuilding.