Gothic and Medieval // Castle (Architecture Style) Region: EuropePeriod: Twelfth to fifteenth centuryCharacteristics: BattlementsGatehouseTowersBastionsKeep or donjonConcentric curtain wallsA castle is the fortified residence of a lord or noble. The earliest examples were usually built of wood on top of large earthworks.This construction method had its origins long in the past; the earliest forts appeared once civilizations had accumulated enough wealth to make it worth...

Continue Reading

Gothic and Medieval // High Gothic  (Architecture Style)Region: Europe, especially France and EnglandPeriod: Thirteenth to mid fourteenth centuryCharacteristics: Three-storey bayHeightQuadripartite vaultBar traceryRose windowDecoration It is arguably the great cathedral at Chartres, France, that marks the shift from the Early Gothic to the High Gothic style.Earlier cathedrals had made use of the sexpartite vault, creating essentially square bays. Rebuilt after a fi re of 1194,...

Continue Reading

Gothic and Medieval // Early Gothic  (Architecture Style)Region: France and EnglandPeriod: Twelfth to mid thirteenth centuryCharacteristics:Plate traceryPointed archRib vaultFlying buttressFour-storey baySexpartite vault The innovations of the choir at Saint Denis quickly spread, and were applied and developed in successive cathedrals across the Île-de-France and further afi eld, notably in England.The essentially Romanesque three-storey bay of Saint-Denis was soon superseded by the addition of a...

Continue Reading

Classical Architecture // Early Christian // Romanesque (Architecture Style)Region: EuropePeriod: Mid eleventh to mid twelfth centuryCharacteristics: West towers Round arch; Apses Barrel vaultThick piers and columnsSeverity What fundamentally differentiates Romanesque – literally meaning ‘resembling Roman’ – from the architecture of the preceding period is its spatial organization. From the late tenth century a sense of spatial coherence and unity began to emerge through planning, for...

Continue Reading

"The modern arts have a special obligation, an advanced or avant-garde duty, to go ahead of their own age and transform it."—Ezra Pound Zürich’s Galerie Gmurzynska presents ‘Abstracting The Landscape’, a new exhibition of Zaha Hadid Design works and drawings by the late architect. Pictured here is the ‘Mesa Table’ Read more about Zaha Hadid Design and the Russian avant garde:https://www.wallpaper.com/design/zaha-hadid-design-russian-avant-gardeAvant-garde describes a group, as...

Continue Reading

" Like the customized Levis you can order on the internet, customized architecture is naked until the client moves in to give it meaning. Examples of architectural ‘open’ systems that can be tailored to ‘fit’ include Polykatoika in Greece, the Corbusian Do-min-o system and the Plattenbau in Berlin."—Richard Woditsch Golden Moon By (LEAD)Read more about the Golden Moon Pavilion:https://l-e-a-d.pro/portfolio/goldenmoon/#Bespoke describes the tailor-made article; the...

Continue Reading

"If we trace the artistic forms of things made by man, to their origin, we find imitation of nature."—W.R.LethabyBronze I-beams for the Seagram’s Building tower in midtown New York, 1956. Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/ShutterstockThe term ‘archetype’ emanates from the psychological work of Carl Jung and his theories concerning the ‘collective unconscious’. It describes an original notion or image from which other...

Continue Reading

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, 532–7Region: Eastern Mediterranean.Period: Fourth to fifteenth century.Characteristics:Pendentive domeMosaicsBasilicanCentralizedStylistic freedomBrick and plaster  ...

Continue Reading

 Kunsthaus in Graz, Austria; seen from Schlossberg Marion Schneider & Christoph Aistleitner - Self-photographedExperience Music Project, Seattle - Image Darwin BellBlob architecture (Blobmeister)‘Blobs’ in architecture are more politely known as ‘free-formed shapes’ and have now become more respectable than ever.Even the critic Charles Jencks, writing in Architectural Review (February 2003) identifies this as a new paradigm in architecture when he refers to the...

Continue Reading

Region: Greece and its Mediterranean coloniesPeriod: Seventh century to first century BCECharacteristics:Trabeated systemOrdersPeristasisIsolated templeProportionSculpture The Parthenon in Athens represents the apotheosis of what is generally identified as the Classical Age, the period during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE in which culture, learning and democratic politics coalesced to inaugurate Western civilization. Under the direction of the great statesman and military commander Pericles, the...

Continue Reading