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Thursday 8 September 2011

Architecture

Architecture is the art of building structures or buildings such as houses, places of worship, and office buildings.

Architecture was a field of mathematics in much of the ancient world and many of the best known ancient buildings were designed by mathematicians.

Construction only became a basic factor in architectural thought during the Roman era at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. Before then architecture had been almost exclusively symbolic in form and decoration.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans made what we now call "Classical Architecture". Classical Architecture was very formal, and it always obeyed laws. It used symmetry, which really means balance, and it used proportion which means keeping shapes in certain ways.

The Romans copied the arch from the Etruscans, who copied it from the Mesopotamians. The stone columns, which still hold up so many important buildings, like the Parthenon in Athens, were simply copied from the first wooden posts.

The Parthenon in Greece uses columns all made in stoneBy Onkel Tuca!  

The emperor Augustus was a lover of architectural splendor. He claimed "I found Rome brick and left it marble", referring to improvements to Rome during his emperorship. Augustus imposed a height limit of 80ft on tower blocks within Rome.

Augustus built his mansion on Palatine Hill, from which came the word, "palace".

The actual function of gargoyles is to protect the roof of a structure from rainfall. Rain falls on the backs and slides out the mouth.

In 1696 the window tax was introduced in England. This had an effect on English architecture way for the next 150 years. Because of the window tax, many new houses were built with few windows or people would close up existing windows. When people began to suffer health problems from lack of fresh air, the tax was finally repealed in 1851.

Catherine the Great of Russia asked her favorite architect to construct the world's most expensive palace. When he had finished the Winter Palace in Leningrad, the Queen took her husband riding and led him past the new building. Her husband inquired whom it belonged to. Catherine replied "you, darling."


One of the most ever influential books on architecture was French architect Le Corbusier 1923 publication Towards a New Architecture. He proposed a contemporary city for three million inhabitants with low residential blocks separated by large areas of park. This idea has since been adapted many times for housing projects.

Here is a list of songs inspired by buildings or architecture.

Source Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc

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