Architecture History 2: Exam 1 Vocab

visionary architecture

an experimental approach to design that imagines buildings unmoored from reality. Also called "paper architecture" because the designs are not intended to be built but rather live only as an idea on paper.

cenotaph

an empty tomb or monument erected to honor a person whose physical remains are elsewhere.

architecture parlante

in French, "speaking architecture." Architecture that communicates its function visually through its form or appearance.

national town planning

the systematic development of a city according to formalized, usually comprehensive and large-scale, plans.

patte d'oie

in French, "goose foot." A node where multiple roads converge at different angles.

industrialization

the social, political, and technological processes through which an economy shifts from a reliance on agriculture to a reliance on mechanized production.

factory town

a type of settlement organized around a manufacturing facility. Town and factory are often planned, owned, and operated by the same company.

carbon economy

a system in which fossil fuels (like coal) play a central role in the generation of energy.

vertical integration

a system where all of the processes for making a single product are contained within a single facility controlled by a single company.

the uncanny

something that is strange, new, or mysterious yet simultaneously familiar.

medievalism

the borrowing or adaptation of culture from the Middle Ages. The goal is not a true and faithful re-creation of the past but rather something that takes inspiration from history. The result is often romanticized or exaggerated.

exoticism

a cultural fascination with otherness motivated by curiosity and desire for novelty. The “other” can be racial, cultural, social, biological, or historical or some combination of these.

biomorphism

the modeling of formal or structural elements on patterns or shapes found in nature or living organisms.

folly

a costly but useless structure built to satisfy the whim of some eccentric and thought to show his folly usually a tower or a sham gothic or classical ruin in a landscape park intended to enhance the view or picturesque effect

picturesque garden

picturesque meaning "in the manner of a picture." Characterized chiefly by the use of irregular forms and circulation that create different composed and reciprocal views of the landscape.