Documents for "Architecture":

• adobe see rammed earth.

• American architecture the architecture produced in the geographical area that now constitutes the United States.

• amphitheater open structure used for the exhibition of gladiatorial contests, struggles of wild beasts, sham sea battles, and similar spectacles. There is no Greek prototype of amphitheaters, which were...

• apartment house building having three or more dwelling units. Numerous early examples of this form of dwelling have been found in remains of Roman and medieval cities and in the 17th-cent. Pueblo villages of North...

• apse the termination at the sanctuary end of a church, generally semicircular in plan but sometimes square or polygonal. The apse appeared early in Roman temples and basilicas; it was originally a...

• arcade series of arches supported by columns or piers. An arcade may stand free; if it is attached to a wall it is called a wall arcade or a blind arcade. The earliest-known arcades were in Roman...

• arch the spanning of a wall opening by means of separate units (such as bricks or stone blocks) assembled into an upward curve that maintains its shape and stability through the mutual pressure of a...

• architecture the art of building in which human requirements and construction materials are related so as to furnish practical use as well as an aesthetic solution, thus differing from the pure utility of engineering construction. As an art, architecture is essentially abstract and nonrepresentational and involves the manipulation of the relationships of spaces, volumes, planes, masses, and voids. Time is also...

• architrave in architecture, principal beam and lowest member of the classical entablature, the other main members of which are the frieze and the cornice. Its position is directly above the columns, and it...

• atlantes [Latin plural of Atlas ], sculptured male figures serving as supports of entablatures, in place of a column or pier. The earliest (c.480-460 BC) and most important example from antiquity is in the Greek temple of Zeus at...

• atrium term for an interior court in Roman domestic architecture and also for a type of entrance court in early Christian churches. The Roman atrium was an unroofed or partially roofed area with rooms...

• baptistery part of a church, or a separate building in connection with it, used for administering baptism. In the earliest examples it was merely a basin or pool set into the floor. Later, the Christian...

• basilica large building erected by the Romans for transacting business and disposing of legal matters. Rectangular in form with a roofed hall, the building usually contained an interior colonnade, with an...

• baths in architecture. Ritual bathing is traceable to ancient Egypt, to prehistoric cities of the Indus River valley, and to the early Aegean civilizations. Remains of bathing apartments dating from the...

• British Library national library of Great Britain, located in London. Long a part of the British Museum , the library collection originated in 1753 when the government purchased the Harleian Library , the library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton , and groups of manuscripts. The collection grew four years later when George II donated his royal library, and was considerably enlarged with the addition of George III's library in 1823. It...

• bungalow [Indian bangla, =house], dwelling built in a style developed from that of a form of rural house in India. The original bungalow typically has one story, few rooms, and a maximum of cross drafts, with high ceilings,...

• buttress mass of masonry built against a wall to strengthen it. It is especially necessary when a vault or an arch places a heavy load or thrust on one part of a wall. In the case of a wall carrying the...

• C.I.A.M. (Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne). Founded in 1928 by Hélène de Mandrot, Sigfried Giedion , and Le Corbusier , C.I.A.M. sought to divert architecture from academic preoccupations. The organization was the major instrument for propagating avant-garde ideas in architecture and town planning during the...

• campanile Italian form of bell tower, constructed chiefly during the Middle Ages. Built in connection with a church or a town hall, it served as a belfry and watch tower and often functioned as a civic or...

• capital in architecture, the crowning member of a column, pilaster, or pier. It acts as the bearing member beneath the lintel or arch supported by the shaft and has a spreading contour appropriate to its...

• caryatid a sculptured female figure serving as an ornamental support in place of a column or pilaster. It was a frequently used motif in architecture, furniture, and garden sculpture during the...

• cast-iron architecture a term used to designate buildings that incorporate cast iron for structural and/or decorative purposes. After 1800 cast-iron supports were exploited as an alternative to masonry, and with the...

• castle type of fortified dwelling characteristic of the Middle Ages. Fortification of towns had been in practice since antiquity, but in the 9th cent. feudal lords began to develop the private fortress-residence known as the castle. It served the twofold function of residence and...

• cathedral church in which a bishop presides. The designation is not dependent on the size or magnificence of a church edifice, but is entirely a matter of its assignment as the church in which the bishop...

• cella the portion of a Roman temple that was enclosed within walls, as distinct from the open colonnaded porticoes that formed the rest of it. It corresponds to the naos in Greek temples. The cella housed the statue of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated and was also used as a treasury. Sometimes it extended the whole width of the building, instead of being...

• centering the framework of wood or of wood and steel built to support a masonry arch or vault during its construction. The centering itself must be rigidly supported, either by posts from the ground or by...

• château royal or seignioral residence and stronghold of medieval France—the counterpart of the English castle of the period. In such a fortress, peasants of the surrounding country took refuge during time of war. The early fortified château, called a château-fort, reached its culmination in the late 15th cent., when the magnificent feudal Pierrefonds was built near Compiègne. The 16th-century château, with its gardens and outbuildings, was usually surrounded...

• chancel primarily that part of the church close to the altar and used by the officiating clergy. In the early churches it was separated from the nave by a low parapet or open railing ( cancellus ), its name being thus derived. San Clemente at Rome has one of the few preserved examples. With the development of the choir, additional space was taken, between the sanctuary and the nave, for the accommodation of the canons and singers. The chancel rail was moved forward, and the entire space became known as the choir, although it is also termed the chancel; there is...

• chapel subsidiary place of worship. It is either an alcove or chamber within a church, a separate building, or a room set apart for the purpose of worship in a secular building. A movable shrine...

• chapter house a building in which the chapter of the clergy meets. Its plan varies, the simplest being a rectangle. At Worcester, England, the Norman builders created a circular chapter house (c.1100), with...

• Chinese architecture the buildings and other structures created in China from prehistoric times to the present day.

• choir stall see stall.

• church [Gr. kuriakon =belonging to the Lord], in architecture, a building for Christian worship. The earliest churches date from the late 3d cent.; before then Christians, because of persecutions, worshiped secretly,...

• city planning process of planning for the improvement of urban centers in order to provide healthy and safe living conditions, efficient transport and communication, adequate public facilities, and aesthetic...

• clapboard board used for the exterior finish of a wood-framed building and attached horizontally to the wood studs. The word, in its original and strict use, refers to a product of New England; boards of...

• classic revival widely diffused phase of taste (known as neoclassic) which influenced architecture and the arts in Europe and the United States during the last years of the 18th and the first half of the 19th...

• clearstory see clerestory.

• clerestory or clearstory , a part of a building whose walls rise higher than the roofs of adjoining parts of the structure. Pierced by windows, it is chiefly a device for obtaining extra light. It had an early use in...

• cloister unroofed space forming part of a religious establishment and surrounded by the various buildings or by enclosing walls. Generally, it is provided on all sides with a vaulted passageway consisting...

• Colonial architecture see American architecture.

• colonnade a row of columns usually supporting a roof. Colonnades were popular with the Greeks and Romans, who employed them in the stoa and the portico ; they have continued to be used throughout the Middle...

• Columbian Exposition see World's Columbian Exposition.

• column vertical architectural support, circular or polygonal in plan. A column is generally at least four or five times as high as its diameter or width; stubbier freestanding masses of masonry are...

• composite order see Corinthian order.

• Corinthian order most ornate of the classic orders of architecture. It was also the latest, not arriving at full development until the middle of the 4th cent. BC The oldest known example, however, is found in the...

• cornice molded or decorated projection that forms the crowning feature at the top of a building wall or other architectural element; specifically, the uppermost of the three principal members of the...

• crypt [Gr.,=hidden], vault or chamber beneath the main level of a church, used as a meeting place or burial place. It undoubtedly developed from the catacombs used by early Christians as places of...

• Crystal Palace building designed by Sir Joseph Paxton and erected in Hyde Park, London, for the Great Exhibition in 1851. In 1854 it was removed to Sydenham, where, until its damage by fire in 1936, it housed a museum of sculpture, pictures, and...

• Decorated style name applied to the second period of English Gothic architecture from the late 13th to the mid-14th cent. The basic structural elements developed during the Early English style (late 12th and 13th...

• dome a roof circular or (rarely) elliptical in plan and usually hemispherical in form, placed over a circular, square, oblong, or polygonal space. Domes have been built with a wide variety of outlines...

• Doric order earliest of the orders of architecture developed by the Greeks and the one that they employed for most buildings. It is generally believed that the column and its capital derive from an earlier...

• edge cities term designating commercial complexes that have grown up on the margins of large American cities, a development that dates mainly from the 1970s. The term was coined by Joel Garreau in his book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (1991). Sometimes called "technoburbs," edge cities typically develop at the intersection of major highways and feature the amenities that serve large suburban populations in such locations—shopping malls, entertainment centers,...

• Egyptian architecture the architecture of the ancient Egyptians, formulated prior to 3000 BC and lasting through the Ptolemaic period (323-30 BC).

• Eiffel Tower structure designed by A. G. Eiffel and erected in the Champ-de-Mars for the Paris exposition of 1889. The tower is 984 ft (300 m) high and consists of an iron framework supported on four masonry...

• Elizabethan style in architecture and the decorative arts, a transitional style of the English Renaissance, which took its name from Queen Elizabeth's reign (1558-1603). During this period many large manor houses...

• entablature the entire unit of horizontal members above the columns or pilasters in classical architecture—Greek, Roman or Renaissance. The height of the entablature in relation to the column supporting it...

• entasis [Gr.,=stretching], the slight convex curvature of a classical column that diminishes in diameter as it rises. This device, as used by Greek builders, was of extreme subtlety, the freehand curvature being merely sufficient to guard the contours of the column from any...

• facade exterior face or wall of a building. The term implies ordered placement of its openings and other features and thus seems inapplicable to a wall without design. Any freestanding structure may have...

• festoon sculptured or painted architectural or interior ornament consisting of a garland of leaves, flowers, or fruit, or some combination of these, held by ribbons or folds and draped at the ends. When a...

• fire escape in architecture, device, either fixed or movable, to facilitate escape from a burning building. In the United States the term usually is applied to the common iron balconies and stairways or...

• flèche see spire.

• flamboyant style the final development in French Gothic architecture that reached its height in the 15th cent. It is characterized chiefly by ornate tracery forms that, by their suggestion of flames, gave the style its name. Although these free-flowing patterns in...

• flying buttress see buttress.

• forum market and meeting place in ancient Roman towns in Italy and later in the provinces, corresponding to the Greek agora. By extension the word forum often indicates the meeting itself in modern usage. The forum was usually square or rectangular in shape and had, among other buildings, a basilica with shops, the public treasury, the curia, and a...

• fountain natural or artificially conveyed flow of water. In ancient Greece columnar shrines were built over springs and dedicated to deities or nymphs. In ancient Rome fountains fed by the great aqueduct...

• French architecture structures created in the area of Europe that is now France.

• frieze in architecture, the member of an entablature between the architrave and the cornice or any horizontal band used for decorative purposes. In the first type the Doric frieze alternates the metope...

• garden city an ideal, self-contained community of predetermined area and population surrounded by a greenbelt. As formulated by Sir Ebenezer Howard , the garden city was intended to bring together the economic and cultural advantages of both city and country living, with land ownership vested in the community, while at the same time...

• gentrification the rehabilitation and settlement of decaying urban areas by middle- and high-income people. Beginning in the 1970s and 80s, higher-income professionals, drawn by low-cost housing and easier access...

• geodesic dome structure that roughly approximates a hemisphere. Popular in recent years as economical, easily erected buildings, geodesic domes are geometrically determined from a model and may be constructed...

• Geometric style in architecture: see Decorated style.

• Georgian architecture It includes several trends in English architecture that were predominant during the reigns (1714-1830) of George I, George II, George III, and George IV. The first half of the period...

• ghetto originally, a section of a city in which Jews lived; it has come to mean a section of a city where members of any racial group are segregated. In the early Middle Ages the segregation of Jews in...

• giant orders see orders of architecture.

• Gothic revival term designating a return to the building styles of the Middle Ages. Although the Gothic revival was practiced throughout Europe, it attained its greatest importance in the United States and...

• graffito . 1 Method of ornamenting architectural plaster surfaces. The designs are produced by scratching a topcoat of plaster to reveal an undercoat of contrasting and deeper color. The technique of graffito...

• Greek architecture the art of building that arose on the shores of the Aegean Sea and flourished in the ancient world.

• Greek revival see classic revival.

• grille in architecture, a system of bars, usually of decorative metalwork, forming an openwork barrier or enclosure. In its usual materials of wrought iron or bronze, it has been favored for decorative...

• half-timber house type of construction of the Middle Ages in N Europe, used chiefly for dwellings. Some French examples date from the 12th cent., and by the 13th cent. the building method had reached high...

• hall a communicating passageway or, in medieval buildings, the large main room. In the feudal castle of N Europe it was a single apartment, and in it lord and retainers lounged, ate, and slept. From the...

• housing in general, living accommodations available for the inhabitants of a community. Throughout the 19th cent., with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, housing as a problem worsened as urban...

• hypostyle the chamber in Egyptian temples in which a number of columns supported a flat stone roof. Forming the chief and largest inner space of the temple, it was entered from the outer courtyard and, in...

• intercolumniation in classical architecture, the clear space between the edges of two adjacent columns, as measured at the lower portion of their shafts. Vitruvius compiled standard intercolumniations for the three...

• International style in architecture, the phase of the modern movement that emerged in Europe and the United States during the 1920s. The term was first used by Philip Johnson in connection with a 1932 architectural exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Architects working in the International style gave new emphasis to the expression of structure,...

• Ionic order one of the early orders of architecture. The spreading scroll-shaped capital is the distinctive feature of the Ionic order; it was primarily a product of Asia Minor, where early embryonic forms of this capital have been found. In the Ionian colonies of Greece on the...

• Italian architecture the several styles employed in Italy after the Roman period.

• Jacobean style an early phase of English Renaissance architecture and decoration. It formed a transition between the Elizabethan and the pure Renaissance style later introduced by Inigo Jones. The reign of James I (1603-25), a disciple of the new scholarship, saw the first decisive adoption of Renaissance motifs in a free form communicated to England through German and Flemish carvers...

• Japanese architecture structures created on the islands that constitute Japan. Evidence of prehistoric architecture in Japan has survived in the form of models of terra-cotta houses buried in tombs and by remains of pit...

• labyrinth intricate building of chambers and passages, often constructed so as to perplex and confuse a person inside. In Egypt, Amenemhet III of the XII dynasty built himself a funeral temple in the form...

• lintel in architecture, the horizontal member that spans an opening, such as a door or window, or that connects two columns. The post-and-lintel, or trabeated, system of construction, with spans limited...

• log cabin or log house, style of home typical of the American pioneer on the Western frontier of the United States in the great westward expansion after 1765. It was constructed with few tools, usually an axe or an adz...

• mansard roof type of roof, so named because it was frequently used by the French architect François Mansart. It was not devised by him but was used early in the 16th cent., as in portions of the palace of the Louvre designed by Pierre Lescot. It became particularly characteristic of French Renaissance...

• mastaba in Egyptian architecture, a sepulchral structure built aboveground. The mastabas of the early dynastic period (3200-2680 BC), such as those of the I dynasty at Sakkara, were elaborate, having many...

• mausoleum a sepulchral structure or tomb , especially one of some size and architectural pretension, so called from the sepulcher of that name at Halicarnassus, Asia Minor, erected (c.352 BC) in memory of Mausolus...

• maze detail of landscape gardening based on the Greek labyrinth , consisting of intricate paths or alleys lined with high hedges and having a center and exit difficult to find. It was a prominent feature in the formal English gardens of the 17th and 18th cent.,...

• megalopolis [Gr.,=great city], a group of densely populated metropolitan areas that combine to form an urban complex. It was first used in its modern sense by Jean Gottman (1957) to describe the huge urban...

• minaret tower, used in Islamic architecture, from which the faithful are called to prayer by a muezzin. Most mosques have one or more small towers, which are usually placed at the corners. The earliest structures specifically built as minarets were the four low square towers at the four corners of the Mosque of...

• modern architecture new architectural style that emerged in many Western countries in the decade after World War I. It was based on the "rational" use of modern materials, the principles of functionalist planning, and the rejection of historical precedent and ornament. This style has been generally designated as modern, although the labels...

• module 1 Term derived from the Latin modulus, a unit of measure in classical architecture equal to half the diameter of a column at its base. This unit was used in proportioning the classical orders of...

• molding in architecture, furniture, and decorative objects, a surface or group of surfaces of projecting or receding contours. A molding may serve as a defining element, terminating a unit or an entire...

• mosque building for worship used by members of the Islamic faith. Muhammad's house in Medina (AD 622), with its surrounding courtyard and hall with columns, became the prototype for the mosque where the...

• Mudéjar name given to the Moors who remained in Spain after the Christian reconquest but were not converted to Christianity, and to the style of Spanish architecture and decoration, strongly influenced by Moorish taste and...

• mullion in architecture, a slender, upright intermediate member that subdivides an opening, as a division between panes of a window or between adjacent windows. Although the mullion occurs in some form in...

• naos inner portion of a Greek temple, enclosed within walls and generally surrounded by colonnaded porticoes. In it stood the statue of the deity to whom the temple was consecrated. The naos was...

• narthex entrance feature peculiar to early Christian and Byzantine churches, although also found in some Romanesque churches, especially in France and Italy. Usually extending across the entire west front...

• National Trust British association to preserve for the nation places of natural beauty or buildings of architectural or historic interest in the British Isles; founded 1894, chartered 1895. By act of Parliament...

• nave in general, all that part of a church that extends from the atrium to the altar and is intended exclusively for the laity. In a strictly architectural sense, however, the term indicates only the...

• new towns planned urban communities in Great Britain, developed by long-term loans from the central government and first authorized by the New Towns Act of 1946. The chief purpose of the act was to reduce...

• Norman architecture term applied to the buildings erected by the Normans in all lands that fell under their dominion. It is used not only in England and N France, but also in S Italy (Apulia) and in Sicily. The Norman...

• orders of architecture In classical tyles of architecture the various columnar types fall, in general, into the five so-called classical orders, which are named Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite. Each order...

• oriel projecting or bay window in an upper story, supported on brackets, corbels, or an engaged column, usually polygonal or curved in plan. It is most characteristic of the late medieval and early...

• orientation in architecture, the disposition of the parts of a building with reference to the points of the compass. From remote antiquity the traditional belief in the efficacy of religious ceremonials...

• ornament in architecture, decorative detail enhancing structures. Structural ornament, an integral part of the framework, includes the shaping and placement of the buttress , cornice , molding , ceiling, and roof and the capital and other elements of the column, as well as the use of building materials of contrasting color or texture. Applied ornament embraces the adornment of structural members with statuary, carving,...

• ovolo see molding.

• pagoda name given in the East to a variety of buildings of tower form that are usually part of a temple or monastery group and serve as shrines. Those of India (see stupa ) are chiefly pyramidal structures of masonry, tapering to an apex and elaborately adorned with carving and sculpture. In China the pagoda, derived from India, is one of the most characteristic...

• pediment in architecture, the triangular gable end on a building of classic type or a similar form used decoratively. It consists of the tympanum , or triangular wall surface, enclosed below by the horizontal cornice and above by the raking cornice, which follows the slope of the roof. In Greek architecture the pediment usually contained...

• pendentive in architecture, a constructive device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, which are triangular segments of...

• Perpendicular style term given the final period of English Gothic architecture (late 14th-middle 16th cent.) because of the predominating vertical lines of its tracery and paneling. It is also called rectilinear for...

• pilaster in architecture, upright supporting member, attached to and projecting slightly from the face of a wall and equipped with a base and capital like a column; also, a similar form used decoratively...

• pillar freestanding columnar supporting member. It is a general term, little used as an exact architectural definition except as applied to an upright support in the medieval styles, consisting of an...

• pinnacle minor architectural motif of vertical tapering shape, usually crowning a pier, buttress, or gable. Although sometimes it appears in Renaissance design, as in the Certosa di Pavia, it is almost...

• pisé de terre see rammed earth.

• plateresque [Span.,=silversmith], earliest phase of Spanish Renaissance architecture and decoration, in the early 16th cent. Its richness of effect was primarily based upon the work of the Italian Renaissance,...

• portcullis grating or framework of strong bars of wood or iron, sharp-pointed at their lower ends, sliding vertically in the grooved jambs of a fortified portal as a protection in case of assault. First used...

• portico roofed space using columns or posts, generally included between a wall and a row of columns or between two rows of columns. In Greece the stoa was a portico of the first type; in Greek temples porticoes terminated the front and rear ends of the naos —called pronaos and opisthodome, respectively—and were included in the colonnade surrounding the building. Roman temples, rarely peripteral (surrounded by columns), had a portico at the front end...

• postmodernism term used to designate a multitude of trends—in the arts, philosophy, religion, technology, and many other areas—that come after and deviate from the many 20th-cent. movements that constituted...

• prefabrication in architectural construction, a technique whereby large units of a building are produced in factories to be assembled, ready-made, on the building site. The technique permits the speedy erection...

• presbytery in architecture, the space in the eastern end of a church reserved for the higher clergy. It was also known in the early Christian Church as the apse , tribune, or exedra. In the English medieval cathedrals the presbytery usually occupies a large space between the high altar and the choir stalls. The term is used in Presbyterian churches for the...

• Pritzker Prize officially The Pritzker Architecture Prize, award for excellence in architecture, given annually since 1979. Largely modeled on the Nobel Prize , it is the premier architectural award in the United States and is named for the family that sponsors the Chicago-based Hyatt Foundation. Architects who have won the prize are: 1979, Philip Johnson (United States); 1980, Louis Barragan (Mexico); 1981, James Stirling (Great Britain); 1982, Kevin Roche (United States); 1983, I. M. Pei (United States); 1984, Richard Meier (United States); 1985, Hans Hollein (Austria); 1986, Gottfried Boehm (Germany); 1987, Kenzo Tange (Japan); 1988, Gordon Bunshaft (United States) and Oscar Niemeyer Soares (Brazil); 1989, Frank Gehry (United States); 1990, Aldo Rossi (Italy); 1991, Robert Venturi (United States); 1992, Alvaro Siza (Portugal); 1993, Fumihiko Maki (Japan); 1994, Christian de Portzamparc (France); 1995, Tadao Ando (Japan); 1996, Rafael Moneo (Spain); 1997, Sverre Fehn (Norway); 1998, Renzo Piano (Italy); 1999, Lord Norman Foster (Great Britain); 2000, Rem Koolhaas (Netherlands); 2001, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (Switzerland); 2002, Glenn Murcutt (Australia); 2003, Jørn Utzon (Denmark); 2004, Zaha Hadid (Great Britain), the first female recipient;...

• propylaeum in Greek architecture, a monumental entrance to a sacred enclosure, group of buildings, or citadel. A roofed passage terminated by a row of columns at each end formed the usual type. Known...

• pulpit in churches, elevated platform with low enclosing sides, used for preaching the sermon. In the earliest churches the episcopal throne served this purpose. The boxlike elevated ambo of early...

• pyramid The true pyramid exists only in Egypt, though the term has also been applied to similar structures in other countries. Egyptian pyramids are square in plan and their triangular sides, which...

• régence style transitional style in architecture and decoration originated in France during the regency (1715-23) of Philippe, duc d'Orléans. The most important practitioners of the régence were Gilles Marie...

• rammed earth material consisting chiefly of soil of sufficiently stiff consistency that has been placed in forms and pounded down. It has been used for buildings and walls since ancient times and was employed...

• Rayonnant style the middle period (c.1240-1350) of French Gothic architecture , so termed from the characteristic radiating tracery of the rose window. In this period many of the great cathedrals were under construction; the builders became bolder and more proficient, emphasizing in every way the vertical elements of the structure. Light and...

• Regency style in English architecture, flourished during the regency and reign of George IV (1811-30) and was chiefly represented by the court architect John Nash. The period is characterized by the diversity of the architectural styles of many countries and periods. For the prince regent, John Nash constructed at Brighton the Royal Pavilion (1815-22) in the...

• regional planning see city planning.

• reredos ornamented wall or screen that rises behind the high altar of a church, forming a background for it. It may be placed against the apse wall at the extreme end or directly behind the altar, as in...

• rock temple see temple.

• rococo style in architecture, especially in interiors and the decorative arts, which originated in France and was widely used in Europe in the 18th cent. The term may be derived from the French words rocaille and coquille (rock and shell), natural forms prominent in the Italian baroque decorations of interiors and gardens. The first expression of the rococo was the transitional régence style. In contrast with the heavy baroque plasticity and grandiloquence, the rococo was an art of exquisite refinement and linearity. Through their engravings, Juste Aurèle Meissonier and Nicholas Pineau...

• Roman architecture structures produced by the ancient Romans.

• Romanesque architecture and art the artistic style that prevailed throughout Europe from the 10th to the mid-12th cent., although it persisted until considerably later in certain areas. The term Romanesque points to the principal source of the style, the buildings of the Roman Empire. In addition to classical elements, however, Romanesque architecture incorporates components of Byzantine and Eastern...

• rood crucifix mounted above the entrance to the chancel and flanked by large figures of the Virgin and St. John, an almost invariable feature in the 14th- and 15th-century European church. This group,...

• roof overhead covering of a building with its framework support. Various methods of construction, such as are suited to different climates, have diversified exterior and interior architectural effects...

• rose window large, stone-traceried, circular window of medieval churches. Romanesque churches of both England and the Continent had made use of the wheel window—a circular window ornamented by shafts radiating...

• rustication in building construction, method of creating textures upon masonry wall surfaces, chiefly upon those of stone, by projecting the blocks beyond the surface of the mortar joints. Each joint thus...

• screen in architecture, partition or enclosure not extending to the ceiling; usually a structure in stone, wood, or metal. It frequently serves to mark the boundaries of portions of churches and...

• Seven Wonders of the World in ancient classifications, were the Great Pyramid of Khufu (see pyramid ) or all the pyramids with or without the sphinx ; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, with or without the walls; the mausoleum...

• sgraffito see graffito.

• shopping center a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marketplaces—in that...

• skyscraper modern building of great height, constructed on a steel skeleton. The form originated in the United States.

• slum clearance see housing ; city planning.

• sod house house with walls made of strips of sod laid horizontally in courses like bricks. Sod houses were common in the frontier days on the western plains of the United States, where wood and stone were...

• spire high, tapering structure crowning a tower and having a general pyramidal outline. The simplest spires were the steeply pitched timber roofs capping Romanesque towers and campaniles. In later...

• squinch in architecture, a piece of construction used for filling in the upper angles of a square room so as to form a proper base to receive an octagonal or spherical dome. It was the primitive solution...

• stadium racecourse in Greek cities where footraces and other athletic contests took place. The name is the Latin form of the Greek word for a standard of length and originally referred merely to the...

• stalactite ornament type of ornament characteristic of Islamic architecture. Generally executed in wood or in plaster over a wood or brick base, it consists of little vertical polygonal or curved niches rising and...

• stall small division of a larger space, sometimes partly partitioned. The term is used for a booth for display and selling at an exhibition, for a compartment in a stable or kennel, or, in England, for...

• stavkirke [Nor.], medieval wooden church building of Scandinavian countries. Of hundreds erected in the 11th, 12th, and 13th cent., only a score survive, and these are all in Norway. Their architecture is...

• Stijl, de [Du.,=the style], Dutch nonfigurative art movement, also called neoplasticism. In 1917 a group of artists, architects, and poets was organized under the name de Stijl, and a journal of the same name was initiated. The leaders of the movement were the artists Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. They advocated a purification of art, eliminating subject matter in favor of vertical and horizontal elements, and the use of primary colors and noncolors. Their austerity of expression influenced...

• stoa in ancient Greek architecture, an extended, roofed colonnade on a street or square. Early examples consisted of a simple open-fronted shed or porch with a roof sloping from the back wall to the...

• stonework term applied to various types of work—that of the lapidary who shapes, cuts, and polishes gemstones or engraves them for seals and ornaments; of the jeweler or artisan who mounts or encrusts them...

• stucco in architecture, a term loosely applied to various kinds of plasterwork, both exterior and interior. It now commonly refers to a plaster or cement used for the external coating of buildings, most...

• stupa [Sanskrit,=mound], Buddhist monument in tumulus, or mound, form, often containing relics. The words tope and dagoba are synonymous, though the latter properly refers only to a Sinhalese Buddhist stupa. The stupa is probably derived from a pre-Buddhist burial mound. The oldest known prototypes (c.700 BC) are the...

• suburb a community in an outlying section of a city or, more commonly, a nearby, politically separate municipality with social and economic ties to the central city. In the 20th cent., particularly in the...

• temple edifice or sometimes merely an enclosed area dedicated to the worship of a deity and the enshrinement of holy objects connected with such worship. The temple has been employed in most of the...

• thermae see baths.

• tope see stupa.

• tower structure, the greatest dimension of which is its height. Towers have belonged to two general types. The first embodies practical uses such as defense (characteristic of the Middle Ages), to carry...

• town planning see city planning.

• tracery bands or bars of stone, wood, or other material, either subdividing an opening or standing in relief against a wall and forming an ornamental pattern of solid members and open spaces. The term...

• transept term applied to the transverse portion of a building cutting its main axis at right angles or to each arm of such a portion. Transepts are found chiefly in churches, where, extending north and...

• triforium in church architecture, an arcaded gallery above the arches of the nave. In the interiors of medieval churches each bay of the nave wall customarily had three divisions in its height—arcade,...

• triumphal arch monumental structure embodying one or more arched passages, frequently built to span a road and designed to honor a king or general or to commemorate a military triumph. This form of monument was...

• truss in architecture and engineering, a supporting structure or framework composed of beams, girders, or rods commonly of steel or wood lying in a single plane. A truss usually takes the form of a...

• Tudor style descriptive of the English architecture and decoration of the first half of the 16th cent., prevailing during the reigns (1485-1558) of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I. It is the first...

• Tuscan order see Doric order.