The Architecture Portal
![View of Florence showing the dome, which dominates everything around it. It is octagonal in plan and ovoid in section. It has wide ribs rising to the apex with red tiles in between and a marble lantern on top.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/View_of_Santa_Maria_del_Fiore_in_Florence.jpg/320px-View_of_Santa_Maria_del_Fiore_in_Florence.jpg)
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings or other structures. The term comes from Latin architectura; from Ancient Greek ἀρχιτέκτων (arkhitéktōn) 'architect'; from ἀρχι- (arkhi-) 'chief' and τέκτων (téktōn) 'creator'. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art. Historical civilisations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements.
Architecture began as rural, oral vernacular architecture that developed from trial and error to successful replication. Ancient urban architecture was preoccupied with building religious structures and buildings symbolizing the political power of rulers until Greek and Roman architecture shifted focus to civic virtues. Indian and Chinese architecture influenced forms all over Asia and Buddhist architecture in particular took diverse local flavors. During the Middle Ages, pan-European styles of Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and abbeys emerged while the Renaissance favored Classical forms implemented by architects known by name. Later, the roles of architects and engineers became separated.
Modern architecture began after World War I as an avant-garde movement that sought to develop a completely new style appropriate for a new post-war social and economic order focused on meeting the needs of the middle and working classes. Emphasis was put on modern techniques, materials, and simplified geometric forms, paving the way for high-rise superstructures. Many architects became disillusioned with modernism which they perceived as ahistorical and anti-aesthetic, and postmodern and contemporary architecture developed. Over the years, the field of architectural construction has branched out to include everything from ship design to interior decorating. (Full article...)
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The Glass Pavilion, designed by Bruno Taut and built in 1914, was a prismatic glass dome structure at the Cologne Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition. The structure was a brightly colored landmark of the exhibition, constructed using concrete and glass. The dome had a double glass outer layer with colored glass prisms on the inside and reflective glass on the outside. The facade had inlaid colored glass plates that acted as mirrors. Taut described his "little temple of beauty" as "reflections of light whose colors began at the base with a dark blue and rose up through moss green and golden yellow to culminate at the top in a luminous pale yellow."
The Glass Pavilion is Taut's single best-known architectural achievement. He built it for the German glass industry association specifically for the 1914 exhibition. They financed the structure that was considered a house of art. The purpose of the building was to demonstrate the potential of different types of glass for architecture. It also indicated how the material might be used to orchestrate human emotions and assist in the construction of a spiritual utopia. The structure was made at the time when expressionism was most fashionable in Germany, and it is sometimes referred to as an expressionist-style building. The only known photographs of the building were made in 1914, but these black-and-white images are only marginal representations of the actualities of the work. The building was destroyed soon after the exhibition since it was an exhibition building only and not built for practical use. (Full article...)General images –
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![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that Grove Road Cemetery once had two chapels by architect Thomas Charles Sorby, and contains self-made men George Dawson, Richard Ellis and David Simpson, banker John Smith, bandleader Daniel Schwarz, newspaperman Robert Ackrill, kayaker Fridel Meyer, and miser John Turner?
- ... that C. J. Phipps, the leading theatre architect of the age, was found responsible for the deadliest-ever UK theatre disaster?
- ... that the Cathedral of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Suzhou is known for its "hybridity" of Chinese and Western architecture?
- ... that I. M. Pei said that his sons' architecture firm "came of age" while designing the Bank of China head office in Beijing?
- ... that Leon Stynen has been called one of Belgium's greatest architects of the 20th century?
- ... that the metaverse has been described as "a honeypot trap for architecture astronauts"?
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