Romanesque vs Gothic Architecture
Romanesque vs Gothic architecture comes down to how each style handled the weight of stone. Romanesque builders (roughly 1000 to 1150) used round arches, thick walls and small windows to carry heavy vaults.
What Does Form Follows Function Mean?
Form follows function is the design principle that a building's shape should grow out of its purpose, its use, structure and needs, rather than from a borrowed style.
Brunelleschi's Dome: How the Florence Duomo Was Built
Brunelleschi's dome is the brick and stone vault over Florence Cathedral, built between 1420 and 1436 without a wooden centering beneath it.
What Is Vernacular Architecture?
Vernacular architecture is building designed by a community rather than by a trained architect, using local materials, inherited craft knowledge and forms that have been tested against the local climate over generations.
Rhythm in Architecture
Rhythm in architecture is the patterned repetition of elements such as columns, windows, bays, fins or arches at measured intervals, so that the eye and the body read a building as a sequence rather than a single object.
The Golden Ratio in Architecture
The golden ratio in architecture is the proportion of roughly 1.618 to 1, where a whole relates to its larger part as the larger part relates to the smaller.
Why Was the Eiffel Tower Controversial When It Was Built?
The Eiffel Tower was controversial because it put a 300 metre iron structure, designed by engineers, in the middle of a city that judged buildings by the stone traditions of the academy.
Art Nouveau vs Art Deco: What's the Difference?
The difference between Art Nouveau vs Art Deco comes down to line and logic. Art Nouveau (roughly 1890 to 1914) grows from nature, using curving, asymmetrical "whiplash" forms in iron, glass and stone.
Symmetry in Architecture
Symmetry in architecture is the ordered correspondence of parts around an axis, a center, or a repeating module, so that one portion of a building answers another.
How Was the Pantheon's Dome Built Without Steel?
The Pantheon dome was built without steel by making it heavy where it needed to be and light where it could be.
Le Corbusier's Five Points of Architecture
Le Corbusier's five points of architecture are pilotis, the roof garden, the free plan, the horizontal ribbon window and the free facade.
What Is Poche in Architectural Drawing?
Poche in architecture is the filled area of a plan or section where the cutting plane passes through solid material, usually walls, columns and floor slabs. Rendering that mass in black or a dense tone pushes it into the background, so the rooms left between it read instantly as usable...
What Is Beaux-Arts Architecture?
Beaux-Arts architecture is a grand, formal style of classical design developed at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris during the 19th century. It combines Greek and Roman orders with Renaissance and Baroque ornament, producing symmetrical, hierarchically planned public buildings rich in sculpture, paired columns, and elaborate stonework. If you have...
What Is the Prairie School Style?
The Prairie School style is an American architecture movement that grew in the Midwest between roughly 1900 and 1917. It favors strong horizontal lines, low-pitched roofs with wide overhanging eaves, open floor plans, and a close tie to the flat prairie landscape. Frank Lloyd Wright led the movement alongside other...
What Is Georgian Architecture?
Georgian architecture is the classical building style that dominated Britain and its colonies from 1714 to 1830, named after the four King Georges who reigned during that century. It favors strict symmetry, balanced proportion, brick or stone facades, and sash windows, drawing its rules from ancient Greek and Roman models...
What Is Constructivist Architecture?
Constructivist architecture was a Soviet design movement of the 1920s and early 1930s that treated buildings as social machines rather than decorated monuments. Rooted in the Russian avant-garde, it favored industrial materials like concrete, steel, and glass, exposed structure, and bold geometric form serving the goals of a new collective...
What Is De Stijl in Architecture and Design?
De Stijl in architecture and design was a Dutch movement (1917 to 1931) that reduced buildings, furniture, and painting to straight horizontal and vertical lines, flat planes, and the primary colors red, blue, and yellow plus black, white, and gray. It aimed for a universal visual language stripped of ornament...
What Is Metabolism: the Japanese Movement?
Metabolism was a Japanese architecture movement that began in 1960, treating buildings and cities as living organisms that could grow, adapt, and replace their parts over time. Its architects designed flexible megastructures with detachable modules, drawing on biological renewal to answer the pressures of rapid post-war urban growth in Japan....
What Is the Chicago School of Architecture?
The Chicago School of architecture was a group of architects and engineers working in Chicago between the 1880s and roughly 1910 who developed the steel-frame skyscraper. Their commercial buildings used metal skeletons instead of thick masonry walls, large plate-glass windows, and restrained ornament, laying the technical and visual groundwork for...
Villa Savoye: A Modernist Icon Explained
Villa Savoye is a white reinforced concrete house in Poissy, France, designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret between 1928 and 1931. It put his five points of modern architecture into one building, and it became a reference for modernist design worldwide. UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List...
