Architecture Vocab Terms

Scale drawing 

• A drawing in which all elements are drawn to the same relative scale.

Perspectival drawing

• A 2-D representation of a building with objects getting smaller as the recede from the picture plane. 

Plan

• A scale representation of the horizontal layout and structure of a building. 

Elevation

• A scale drawing of a front of a building (with no diminution of scale as objects recede from the picture plane)

Section

• A scale drawing representing a building as if it has been cut through (like a birthday cake)

Bas Relief

• Half sculptures

Tympanum

• Semi-circular decorative wall surface over entrance/door

Bay

• A repeated element of a façade, generally A window opening between two vertical supports. 

Basic chronology of the Gallo-Roman Period  

• Roman Empire 27 BCE - 330 CE

• 250-300 CE Beginning of the breakdown of the Pax Romana

Pax Romana

• Literally the "Roman Peace": two centuries long period of stability and prosperity (27 BCE to 180 CE) during which the Roman Empire reached its peak.

Gallo-Roman period

• Gaul: the people living roughly in the territories of present-day France + Roman

• The period of lasting from around 80 BCE to 300 CE when Gaul was fully integrated into the Roman empire. 

Bridge City

• Paris's reason for being, its role in the Gallo-Roman and Imperial road network. 

Forum 

• from Latin, forum "public place outdoors”: an enclosed public square serving as a marketplace and a center of religious and civic life

• The forum was surrounded by shops, would have included a temple (typically of Jupiter) and a basilica

• loosely modeled on the forum at the heart of the city of Rome

Basilica

• a large roofed building in the midst of the Forum

• served as a meeting hall, site for legal matters, and a place for business transactions

• typically had a rectangular base that was split into aisles by columns and covered by a roof

• Side aisles were divided by colonnades (rows of evenly spaced columns)

• At the centre of the wall opposite the entrance was an apse

Apse

• A rounded recess or projection in the wall opposite the entrance of a Basilica (and later a church) 

• where the magistrate was seated or where a statue of the emperor was placed

Barrel Vault

• a roof in the form of an arch or a series of arches. 

Groin Vault

• A roof in the form of two Barrel Vaults intersecting perpendicularly

Decumanus

• East-west axis of Roman type city

Cardo Maximus

• main North-South axis of a Roman camp or settlement

• Up-down (cardio)

Portico / Temple Front

• marking the entrance of a sacred building in the Greco-roman tradition

• Composed of columns, an entablature and pediment (triangle roof area)

Column

• A free-standing vertical supporting element in architecture

Capital

• The ornamented top of a column where it meets the entablature

• If the column generally evokes a human form, the capital is the head or the hair 

Shaft

• vertical element of a column

Doric order

• Reign: Doria

• proportion is 1:6, ratio of an adult male body

• Embodying ideas of strength, it is generally associated with masculine deities and military purposes. 

Ionic order

• Reign: Ionia

• Proportions: 1:8 or 1:10

• 2 spiral scrolls for capitol

• Archetype: older female, motherly

Corinthian order

• The architectural order from Corinth. 

• Proportions: 1:8

• Decadent/ complex

• Leaves - 8 on each side

• Corinth was the city-state with the closest ties to Persia, and was renowned for its wealth and opulence

• Capitol meaning: king, palace, luxary, authority

• associated with virgin deities and saints, such Virgin Mary. 

Cornice

• Ornamental edge below pediment

Thermal Window

• Bath houses - lets steam out

• Diaplesian window

Rustication

• Heavy lines (style) on ashlar

• Sculpted to look rougher for sense of solidity and mass for base

Herm

• The bust of a deity (often Hermes) placed on an unornamented square plinth. 

• Traditionally used in the place of a fence to demarcate sacred boundaries in the greco-roman tradition

Triumphal Arch

• free-standing ornamented monumental entrance

• initially built as ephemeral structures in wood, around the year 200 CE they were built in a more permanent form in stone. 

Hierarchy of Materials

• concrete and wood have little prestige

• cut stone and sometimes brick are associated with high prestige structures. 

Mixed work

• Combined building method including hydraulic setting cement, rubble stone and brick

• cheap

Ashlar

• Precision-cut masonry (stone)

• In Gallo-Roman period, this was generally only used on temples or palacesz

Capet, Capetian

• The dynasty that ruled France from the mid-10th c. until the mid-14th c. 

Feudalism

• A system of land-holding: king or overlord granted lands to knights, nobles and religious institutions in exchange for a vow of obedience and military service

• Those living on these lands (serfs) were obliged to pay a portion of their production to their lord

Society of Orders

• medieval society was divided into a rigid hierarchy of “orders” or “estates”

• first order: clerics

• second order: kings, knights and nobles

• third order: peasants

Tripartite division of Paris 

1. Ile de la Cité – the center of the civic and religious authority, with its two poles, the cathedral and the palace

2. Right bank – the center for trade, focused upon the port, which occupies the sight of the parvis of the hôtel de ville. 

3. Left bank – the religious and academic heart of Paris with its colleges and powerful abbeys. 

Relic

• A preserved body part of a saint or special treasure (crown of thrones)

Reliquary

• an elaborately decorated container. 

Pilgrimage

• ourney undertaken to sites associated with Christ or the saints, ie. great churches or monasteries, or to revere holy relics

• offered a means of obtaining the grace of god, forgiveness of sins and lessening of time spent in purgatory. 

Cathedral

• A large church that served as the seat of the Bishop and his chapter

• It derives from the term Cathedra: A cathedra (Latin, "chair", from Greek, καθέδρα kathédra, "seat") or bishop's throne is the seat of a bishop. It is a symbol of the bishop's teaching authority in the Catholic Church. 

Buttress

• A support, built perpendicular to a wall, reinforcing its strength. 

Lancet Window

• A tall but extremely narrow window, often used in defensive structures (for shooting arrows)

• Often used in churches to  symbolize the battle between good and evil. 

Bifor Windows

• 2 lancet windows

• Lets in more light

Nave

• The main body of a church

• derives from the Latin word Navis, or ship, supposedly because of the resemblance of a church roof to an upturned hull. 

Aisles

• The circulation spaces on either side of the nave, separated from it by a row of columns. 

Transept

• The space between the nave and the choir, in the traditional cross form of the church

• ‘Arm’ of the church

Choir

• The eastern end of the church comprising the chancel and the ambulatory

Rood screen

• The decorative screen the separates the transept from the choir

• seen as symbols of exclusion of commoners, removed during revolution

Pointed arch window

• hallmark of "French style work"

• the pointed arch window is stronger than the round-arch window. 

Flying buttress

• hallmark of "French style work"

• the flying buttress is a bridge-like span between a buttress and the wall it supports

• allows light to penetrate to the window. 

Narthex

• The paired towers on a cathedral facade, vestiges of its defensive function, and its symbolism as a fortress of god. 

Rose window

• The round window at the center of many church fronts.

Portal

• A large, elaborately decorated ceremonial doorway. Notre Dame de Paris has three, each used at a specific moment of the year. 

Gallery of Kings

• 28 -statues of Ancient Testament kings, intended to recall Mary and Jesus's distinguished royal lineages, but also to evoke contemporary secular power, and the role of the king as intercessor between his people and the divine. 

Gargoyle 

• A grotesquely sculpted figure hiding the spout of a drain, serving to drain water from the roof of a building. 

Grotesque

• A fantastic or horrifying sculpted figure intended to represent or to ward off evil. 

Apotropaic figure

• an image intended to turn away harm or evil influences. 

Polychrome

• Multi-colored, used especially in reference to architecture

Tracery

• In medieval architecture, the stone bars or ribs that divide windows into sections of various proportions

Crusades

• 1095 - 1230s

• A church-sanctioned religious war, foreign

Honor Court / Cour d'honneur 

• The courtyard before the entrance of a palace or nobleman's house. It was the setting where the lord would receive his guests.  

Crenellation

• The battlements of a castle or manor or even church

Dias 

• A raised platform, often covered by a canopy, for the seat of a notable person, such as a monarch in their throne room.  

Donjon / keep 

• The place of last resort in a medieval castle / palace

• A highly defensible tower, generally kept empty during time of piece, or used for the storage of archives or the treasury

• A highly symbolic building on the skyline -- embodying the lord or ruler's authority. 

Fortified hall

• The residence of a lord or monarch, usually consisting of two halls -- one atop the other, one for nobles above and one for non-noble members of the household below

• These are the setting for meetings, but also communal meals and entertainment, and even sleeping for the vast majority of the household

• The lord or monarch also had a series of private chambers from which to retreat. 

Great Hall

• The principal reception room of a monarch, noble, or even institution (such as the Parliament). 

Etienne Marcel's Revolt

• 1356: the siege and takeover of the Palace of the City by the provost of merchants Etienne Marcel

• He then attempted to impose a charter of rights for the merchants of Paris on the then regent Charles V, a child who was governing in the place of his father

• This was the impetus for the abandonment of the Palace of the City in favor of the Louvre as the principal royal residence. 

Parlements

• France's senior judiciary, their authority is delegated to them by the monarch, in whose name they act

• Charles V installs them in the Palace of the City. 

Microarchitecture

• A form of ornament, most often in the late medieval period, where objects are decorated so as to resemble miniature buildings or cityscapes

Sources of the Antique taste

• Empirical observation of Roman structures. 

• Archaeological discoveries

• Pattern Books

Vehicular Revolution

• Circa 1560: the advent of the private horse-drawn carriage as a means of transport

• alters the form of the city, in that the resulting congestion requires wider streets and squares

• creates a difference in the ways that elites and common people move about and experience the city.  

Apartment

• A suite of rooms dedicated to the use of one person in a château, palace or hôtel particulier. 

• An apartment is generally composed of an antichamber / salon / bedchamber / and cabinet. 

hôtel particulier

• A townhouse belonging to a rich individual. 

• Between court and garden 

Honor court

• the courtyard before the entrance of an hôtel particulier / château or palace

• serves to isolate the residence from the street and is generally accessible to the public. 

Orangerie

• A free-standing structure, with a southern exposure and large glazed openings, used to protect orange trees over winter. 

Counter reformation

• the celebratory reaffirmation and re-consolidation of traditional power structures: the church, the monarchy, the state, in the wake of the crises provoked by the intellectual revolution that was Humanism. This is an attempt by the hierarchy to retake control by making people feel inspired by the grandeur of the collective. 

Baroque

• Artistic and design movement of the 17th and 18th centuries characterized by exuberant decoration, curvaceous forms, a delight in large scale, sweeping vistas. 

Grand Manner Classicism / Louis XIV style

• A French alternative to the Italian Baroque, characterized by its stateliness, regularity, grand scale, regularity of ornament and lack of dramatic gestures (such as domes), also by its flat roofs (à l’italienne). 

The Fronde 

• ‘Children slinging mud’

• A civil war in the 1650s on the part of the people of Paris and the nobility who seek to limit the powers of the monarchy during Louis XIV's minority (youth). 

• Results in a hatred on the part of Louis XIV for Paris and its people. 

Absolutism

• A system of monarch in which there are no institutional checks on the monarch's power

Colonnade

• A row of columns supporting an entablature.

Arcade

• A row of arches (as in Les Invalides)

Academies

• there were academies of painting, sculpture, belles lettres, dance, the sciences etc.

• contributed to the formation of an instantly recognizable office taste (Louis XIV-style). 

Axis, axiality

• An imaginary line that constitutes the central spine of an architectural or design composition. On either side of an axis the composition should be perfectly symmetrical. 

Goose-foot

• An urban or landscape form consisting of radiating avenues that converge at one point

• first seen in Henry IV's Place de France. Represents the monarch's control over his territory, his all-seeing presence. 

Place royal

• An urban square, centered on a royal statue, surrounded by an harmonious architecture (as in Place des Vosges). 

French East India Company

• A trading corporation re-established by Colbert under Louis XIV in 1664

• monopoly on trade with Asia

• Principal products: porcelain, tea and silk from China, and cotton from India.

Vauban fortress or Star Fortress

• One of a network of star-shaped fortresses designed by military engineer Sebastien de Vauban under Louis XIV to resist improved artillery barrages

• The externalization of the kingdom's defenses to its outer frontier allowed for the removal of city defenses and the consolidation of French territory in its current borders

Chinese export goods 

• Silk, porcelain, paper, tea, silver ornaments, lacquer

Chinoiserie

• Definition: a style of ornamentation currently chiefly in the 18th century in Europe, characterized by intricate patterns and an extensive use of motifs identified as Chinese

Enfilade

• An arrangement of rooms in a linear sequence, so that when their doors are open one can see down the entire length of an apartment 

Salon

• The final room in the enfilade

• in the early 1700s it evolved from a small personal cabinet or retreat into an opulent room designed for conversation. 

Ornamentalist 

• An artist specializing in producing drawings of extravagant objects that will be produced by artists and artisans

Regency

• From 1715-1722, the reign of the Duc of Orléans, who ruled on behalf of the infant Louis XV

• It was a period known for its relaxed morality and love of luxury

Encyclopedie 

• know dates and principal author. 

Exoticism 

• the Western European fascination for distant cultures and peoples,

Maison de Plaisance (pleasure house)

• Where are these found, what is their function? Refer to Jones reading

Manuscript newsletters

• An uncensored and thus illegal form of news journal, often containing illicit news items

• First handwritten and passed from pocket to pocket and then after 1777 in printed form.