Byzantium inherited, preserved and greatly commented the tradition of Greco-Roman antiquity as far as the sciences were concerned. Many people have argued and continue to argue that in Byzantium there was no original contribution to science - this view, however, is not accurate. The sectors which becomes more pronounced differentiation of Byzantium by the oldest tradition and his contribution to the development of science is Architecture and Engineering.

One unanswered question in the former field concerns whether architects were the creators and supervisors of project implementation or merely master craftsmen. During the period of Late Antiquity is known that special schools for architects operated both in Constantinople and in the big provincial cities, where the main subjects taught included Euclid’s Elements, De Architectura of Vitruvius, and of course the works of Pappus of Alexandria who had systematically commented the works of earlier mathematicians, collecting them in his work Synagogue. However, specialization was greatly lost: Anthemius, one of the two "mechanical makers" who built Agia Sophia was not a real architect or at least he was not just an architect: he had written books related to a branch of physical science (optical) and mechanical devices. Justinian entrusted the grand project of building Agia Sophia to him, probably because he ruled that he had not only the qualifications for the job but also all the necessary qualities to design and supervise the project. Moreover, during that time decisive was the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy and its aesthetic theories, especially of Plotinus, over the physical inability of human organs to capture nature and the world (a necessary condition for art was the imitation) and contempt of individual creativity.

Architects in middle and late Byzantium were not specially trained in academies. However, those wishing to work for the state attended schools in Constantinople, were arithmetic and geometry were included in the program of higher studies, while the practical arithmetic and its direct applications were known to a wide circle of officials. Also, military Tactics and other war related texts are based on works of previous geometers and engineers, providing military men knowledge for siege engines and construction of water pipes, walls, harbors and other types of buildings. Therefore, during the middle and late Byzantium the role of the architect was assumed by persons of other disciplines, who were able to handle the most difficult problems of statics, calculation of surfaces and materials, as well as design.
Unfortunately no Byzantine architecture handbook, like that of Vitruvius and no plans of buildings has preserved, but there can be no doubt that plans were drawn up, and quite detailed ones at that. The Forma Ubis, a large marble imprint of Rome city centre made during the reign of Septimius Severus in 200 AD and the plan of an ideal monastery from the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland of around 819-820 give as a certain idea of the way the architects of the period made their designs: walls of buildings are drawn to scale with thick lines, without information of roofs and windows, although the plans of the monastery of St. Gall is drawn on joined pieces of parchment with numbered areas, labels with the name and use of every space. As for the existence and use of architectural models or maquettes, written sources mention small scale architectural models of buildings, out of perishable materials (wax, wood), although few of them have survived, like for example the stone models from Cherson in the Crimea. The design also cannot be denied, as there are known churches, which either perfectly identify the floor plan and the morphological details, such as the katholika of the Iberian and Vatopedi Monasteries, or are drawn in a reduced size, like Soteira Lykodemou in Athens, which is by three quarters a miniature version of the katholikon of St. Luke.

The originality of Byzantine architecture constitutes a problem rather for the contemporary historian of architecture than for the own Byzantine architect, who wasn’t looking to show off by signing his works. Besides, he was also considered a craftsman who lived in a society where vanity and self-promotion, abolition of tradition as well as any kind of experimentation were perceived as sins. The art historian is now able to understand the difficulties encountered by the architect of Byzantium in the fields of designing the buildings that were required to be build and organizing the construction site, as well as providing the materials and completing the project. The originality is especially revealed in the adaptation of established architectural types and the particular use of materials in order to achieve stability, durability and aesthetic enjoyment. As far as church building is concerned, the most important milestones in their evolution are the finding (or reuse) of the cross-in-square church in the 9th century, the development of the octagonal church in the 11th century, with a doubling of the supports of the dome, and its supplementing with peristyles and chapels during the Palaiologian period.