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architecture

Art of designing structures. The term covers the design of the visual appearance of structures; their internal arrangements of space; selection of external and internal building materials; design or selection of natural and artificial lighting systems, as well as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems; and design or selection of decorations and furnishings. Architectural style may emerge from evolution of techniques and styles particular to a culture in a given time period with or without identifiable individuals as architects, or may be attributed to specific individuals or groups of architects working together on a project.

Early architecture

Little remains of the earliest forms of architecture, but archaeologists have examined remains of prehistoric sites and documented villages of wooden-post buildings with above-ground construction of organic materials (mud or wattle and daub) from the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. More extensive remains of stone-built structures have given clues to later Neolithic farming communities as well as to the habitations, storehouses, and religious and civic structures of early civilizations. The best documented are those of ancient Egypt, where exhaustive work in the 19th and 20th centuries revealed much about both ordinary buildings and monumental structures, such as the pyramid tombs near modern Cairo and the temple and tomb complexes concentrated at Luxor and Thebes.

Classical

The basic forms of classical architecture evolved in Greece between the 16th and 2nd centuries BC. A hallmark was the post-and-lintel construction of temples and public structures, classified into the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders and defined by simple, scrolled, or acanthus-leaf capitals for support columns. The Romans copied and expanded on Greek classical forms, notably introducing bricks and concrete and developing the vault, arch, and dome for public buildings and aqueducts.

Byzantine

This form of architecture developed primarily in the Eastern Roman Empire from the 4th century, with its centre at Byzantium (later named Constantinople, now Istanbul). It is dominated by the arch and dome, with the classical orders reduced in importance. Its most notable features are churches, some very large, based on the Greek cross plan (Hagia Sophia, Istanbul; St Mark's, Venice), with formalized painted and mosaic decoration.

Islamic

This developed from the 8th century, when the Islamic religion spread from its centre in the Middle East west to Spain and east to China and parts of the Philippine Islands. Notable features are the development of the tower with dome and the pointed arch. Islamic architecture, chiefly through Spanish examples such as the Great Mosque at Córdoba and the Alhambra in Granada, profoundly influenced Christian church architecture, for example, the adoption of the pointed arch in Gothic architecture.

Romanesque

This style flourished in Western European Christianity from the 10th to the 12th centuries. It is marked by churches with massive walls for structural integrity, rounded arches, small windows, and resulting dark volumes of interior space. In England the style is generally referred to as Norman architecture (an example is Durham Cathedral). Romanesque enjoyed a renewal of interest in Europe and the USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Gothic

This form emerged out of Romanesque. The development of the pointed arch and flying buttress made it possible to change from thick supporting walls to lighter curtain walls with extensive expansion of window areas (and stained-glass artwork) and resulting increases in interior light. Gothic architecture was developed mainly in France from the 12th to 16th centuries. The style is divided into Early Gothic (for example, Sens Cathedral), High Gothic (Chartres Cathedral), and Late or Flamboyant Gothic. In England the corresponding divisions are Early English (Salisbury Cathedral), Decorated (Wells Cathedral), and Perpendicular (Kings College Chapel, Cambridge). Gothic was also developed extensively in Germany and Italy.

Renaissance

The 15th and 16th centuries in Europe saw the rebirth of classical form and motifs in the Italian neoclassical movement. A major source of inspiration for the great Renaissance architects – Andrea Palladio, Leon Battista Alberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donato Bramante, and Michelangelo Buonarotti – was the work of the 1st-century BC Roman engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. The Palladian style was later used extensively in England by Inigo Jones; Christopher Wren also worked in the classical idiom. Classicism, or neoclassicism as it is also known, has been popular in the USA from the 18th century, as evidenced in much of the civic and commercial architecture since the time of the early republic (the US Capitol and Supreme Court buildings in Washington; many state capitols).

Baroque

European architecture of the 17th and 18th centuries elaborated on classical models with exuberant and extravagant decoration. In large-scale public buildings, the style is best seen in the innovative works of Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini in Italy and later in those of John Vanbrugh, Nicholas Hawksmoor, and Christopher Wren in England. There were numerous practitioners in France and the German-speaking countries, and notably in Vienna.

Rococo

This architecture extends the baroque style with an even greater extravagance of design motifs, using a new lightness of detail and naturalistic elements, such as shells, flowers, and trees.

Neoclassical

European architecture of the 18th and 19th centuries again focused on the more severe classical idiom (inspired by archaeological finds), producing, for example, the large-scale rebuilding of London by Robert Adam and John Nash and later of Paris by Georges Haussman.

Neo-Gothic The late 19th century saw a Gothic revival in Europe and the USA, particularly evident in churches (Ralph Adams Cram's work in the USA – for example, St John the Divine, New York) and public buildings (the Houses of Parliament, London, designed by Charles Barry and A W Pugin).

Art nouveau This architecture arising at the end of the 19th century countered neo-Gothic, using sinuous, flowing shapes for buildings, room plans, and interior design. The style is characterized by the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland (Glasgow Art School) and Antonio Gaudí in Spain (Church of the Holy Family, Barcelona), and design elements were used especially in France but also in England and the USA.

Modernist This style of architecture, referred to as the Modern Movement, began in the 1900s with the Vienna School and the German Bauhaus and was also developed in the USA, Scandinavia, and France. With functionalism as its central precept, its hallmarks are the use of spare line and form, an emphasis on rationalism, and the elimination of ornament. It makes great use of technological advances in materials such as glass, steel, and concrete and of construction techniques that allow flexibility of design. Notable practitioners include Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and Charles Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier. Modern architecture has furthered the notion of the planning of extensive multibuilding projects and of whole towns or communities.

Postmodernist This architecture emerged in the USA, Japan, and Europe in the 1980s, with one trend toward high-tech forms and another reverting back to using simplified or geometric elements from earlier styles to decorate traditional forms.

Architectural theory Architectural theory has, since classical times, been concerned with the balance between the three qualities of usefulness, firmness, and delight. It was early realized that the balance ought to vary with the type of building and the conditions under which it was built; this was especially true of the relationship between usefulness and delight (utility dominating in a factory, and delight, or visual effect, dominating in a public monument). Firmness, however, has always been felt to be an essential quality in all architecture. Perhaps for this reason theories focusing on the precedence of structure over function as the generator of forms, and hence delight, have been common. Hence, too, the tendency for many architects to prefer architectural studies, whether historical or technical, which are related to structural categories.

Functional and expressionistic aspects In the last 100 years or so, however, social studies have stressed the importance of the other two aspects of architecture, the functional, satisfying use, and the expressionistic or symbolic, relating to visual effect or delight. Studies of architecture related to building use, for example, housing, religious buildings, assembly buildings, and so on, have been found to explain architectural evolution, and its opposite, conservatism, more satisfactorily than structural analyses in many cultures. And, though studies of the symbolic meaning and value of architecture in society are still in their infancy, they are presently broadening architects' understanding of the scope of their art.

architecture

In computing, overall design of a computer system, encompassing both hardware and software. The architecture of a particular system includes the specifications of individual components and the ways they interact. Because the operating system defines how these elements interact with each other and with application software, it is also included in the term.

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architecture - events

c. 2550 BC	Egypt	The temple of the Great Sphinx is built at El Gîza by the Egyptian king Khafre (Chephren). It is smaller than those built by Khufu (Cheops).
c. 750 BC	Italy	The radiating arch, where each wedge-shaped piece radiates away from its support, is developed by Etruscan architects.
27 BC	Roman Empire	Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio writes De architectura/On Architecture, a treatise on architecture divided into 10 books dealing with city planning, building materials, and architecture in general. He also emphasizes that architects should have a good knowledge of drawing and discusses the procedures and practices to be followed in making drawings, thus writing the first textbook on engineering drafting.
65	Roman Empire	After the great fire of Rome in 64, the emperor Nero starts to build a less congested, nobler, and more handsome city. He also starts to build his extravagant ‘Golden House’, a vast palace complex.
1235	France	The French engineer Villard de Honnecourt produces an architectural sketchbook, including plans of water-driven machinery such as sawmills, and a screw jack for lifting loads. It becomes a standard manual for engineers and architects.
c. 1486	Roman Empire, Rome, Italy	De architectura/On Architecture, a treatise on architecture written by 1st-century BC Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, is printed in Rome, Italy. Versions of the text were known throughout the Middle Ages, but the discovery of a superior manuscript in 1414 renewed interest in classical architecture. This book had a profound effect on the development of Renaissance architecture.
c. 1500	South America	The Inca town of Machu Picchu, built high in the mountains of Peru, reaches its final stage of building.
1570	Italy, Europe, America	The Italian architect Andrea Palladio publishes Quattro libri dell'architettura/Four Books on Architecture. Based on a long study of ancient Roman architecture, this book has a profound impact on the development of European and American architecture.
1635	United Netherlands	The Mauritshuis, designed by the Dutch architect Jacob von Campen (Kampen), is completed in The Hague, United Netherlands. His finest work, it shows the influence of Italian architecture.
1648	India, Mogul Empire	The Taj Mahal, at Agra, India, is completed. Built by Shah Jahan as a monument to his wife, it is meant to be an image of Paradise as described in the Koran. It was probably designed by the mogul architect Ustad Ahmad Lahori.
c. 1655	North America	Bacon's Castle in Surrey County, Virginia, is built. Made of brick, it is in the style of an English mansion and includes features (such as Flemish gables) only recently introduced into English architecture.
1658	India, Mogul Empire	The Friday Mosque (Jami Masjid) in Delhi, India, one of the largest mosques in India, is completed. Built on the orders of Shah Jahan, it was probably designed by the Mogul architect Ustad Ahmaed Lahor.
1660	Italy	The Chapel San Ivo della Sapienza (attached to Rome University), designed by the Italian architect Francesco Borromini, is completed in Rome, Italy.
1667	Italy	The Piazza of Saint Peter's in the Vatican, Rome, Italy, designed by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, is completed.
1670	France	The Palace of Versailles, near Paris, France, designed by the French architect Louis Le Vau, is completed. The French architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart will begin extensive additions in 1678.
1676	Italy	The Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome, Italy, designed by the Italian architect Francesco Borromini, is completed. It becomes a key work in the development of baroque architecture.
1677	UK	The Church of St Mary-le-Bow, in Cheapside, London, England, designed by the English architect Christopher Wren, is completed.
1681	North America	The Old Ship Meeting house in Hingham, Massachusetts, is built.
1681	France	The Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) at the Palace of Versailles, near Paris, France, designed by the French architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, is completed. His extensions to Versailles are completed in 1689.
1698	North America	The Wren Building at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, is completed. As its name suggests, its neoclassical style shows the strong influence of the English architect Christopher Wren.
1704	Holy Roman Empire	The Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Church of the Holy Trinity), in Salzburg in the Holy Roman Empire, designed by the Austrian architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, is completed.
1724	UK	Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, designed by the English architects John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, is completed. It marks one of the highpoints of English secular baroque architecture.
1732	Spain	The Trasparente (a sculptural and architectural complex built around an altar) in Toledo Cathedral in Spain, designed by the Spanish architect Narsico Tomé, is completed. It is one of the most exuberant expressions of Spanish baroque.
1739	Germany, Holy Roman Empire	The Amalienburg at the Schloss Nymphenburg in Munich, Germany, designed by the French architect François Cuvilliés, is completed, one of the finest examples of the rococo style. It is decorated by the French architect Gabriel Germain Boffrand.
c. 1750	UK	The English landscape gardener Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown lays out Warwick Castle Gardens in Warwickshire, England.
1759	UK	The redesigning of the interiors of Kedleston Hall, England, to schemes by the Scottish architects John and Robert Adams, is completed.
1784	France	The French architect Etienne-Louis Boullé designs his Monument for Isaac Newton, in the form of a planetarium. It is never built.
1829	USA	The White House in Washington, DC, is completed. Work began on the ‘President's House’ in the 1790s to a design by the Irish-born architect James Hoban, the style a refined neoclassicism. The building was burnt down by the British in 1814 and work began again. Alterations to Hoban's designs were made by President Thomas Jefferson and the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe.
1849	England	The English writer and art critic John Ruskin publishes his influential treatise on architecture The Seven Lamps of Architecture.
1919	Germany	The Bauhaus school of design, architecture, and crafts is founded in Weimar, Germany, by the German architect Walter Gropius. It is transferred to Dessau in 1926.
1929	USA	The USA now has 377 skyscrapers with more than 20 storeys.
30 April 1931	USA	The Empire State Building is completed in New York City. Its designers are the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon. It has 102 floors and soon becomes a symbol of the city. At 381m/1,250 ft, it remains the highest building in the world until 1972.
7 October 1965	UK	The Post Office Tower (now the Telecom Tower), is opened in London, England; it is the tallest building in Britain.
1984	Germany	The Neue Staatsgalerie (an art gallery) in Stuttgart, West Germany, designed by the English architect James Stirling, is completed. It is one of the leading works of postmodernism.
22 July 2007	United Arab Emirates	The Burj Dubai, a skyscraper under construction in the United Arab Emirates, becomes the world's tallest building as it reaches 1,680 feet to surpass the Taipei 101 office block in Taiwan.

Anglo-Saxon architecture baroque architecture: Germany baroque architecture: Italy Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture: Italy Early Christian and Romanesque Architecture: France English architecture English Renaissance German architecture Gothic Architecture: Germany Gothic Architecture:Italy

Italian architecture London: architecture neoclassical architecture: Italy Norman architecture Renaissance Architecture: Germany Renaissance Architecture: Italy Romanesque architecture Romanesque Architecture: Germany Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean architecture More results