Art 101 Chapter 11 Study Guide

Compressive strength

The degree to which a material can withstand the pres-sure of being squeezed.

Gothic

A Western European style developed between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries CE, characterized in architecture by ribbed vaults, pointed arches , flying buttresses , and steep roofs.

Flying buttress

A buttress that is exterior to a building but connected in a location that permits the buttress to support an interior vault.

Cast-iron architecture

A hard alloy of iron containing silicon and carbon that is made by casting. - Was also a product of the 19th centuryʼs Industrial Revolution - Changed the realm of architecture!!!!! - It was a welcome alternative to stone and wood - Allowed for the erection of taller buildings with thinner walls - Has great strength but isnʼt heavy

Romanesque

A style of European architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries that is characterized by thick, massive walls, the Latin cross plan , the use of a barrel vault in the nave , round arches, and a twin-towered facade. The Romanesque St. Sernin (see Fig. 15-21), built in France between about 1080 and 1120, uses round arches and square bays.

Pointed arch

An arch that comes to a point rather than curves at the top.

Sir Joseph Paxton

At the mid-nineteenth-century Great Exhibition held in Hyde Park, London, Sir Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace covered 17 acres. Like subsequent iron buildings, the Crystal Palace was prefabricated . The iron skeleton, with its myriad arches and trusses, was an integral part of the design. The huge plate-glass paneled walls bore no weight.

Kivas

Circular underground communities centers created by the native American Cliff dwellers. A circular, subterranean structure built by Native Americans of the South-west for community and ceremonial functions.

Post-and-beam

Construction in which vertical elements (posts) and horizontal timbers (beams) are pieced together with wooden pegs. • Similar to post-and-lintel construction • Vertical and horizontal timbers are cut and pieced together with wooden pegs • The beams allow for windows, doors, and interior supports • Supports another story or roofs

Post-and-lintel construction

Construction in which vertical elements (posts) are used to support horizontal crosspieces (lintels). Also termed "trabeated structure."

Centering

In architecture, a wooden scaf-fold used in the construction of an arch.

Keystone

In architecture, the wedge-shaped stone placed in the top center of an arch to prevent the arch from falling inward.

Prefabricated

In architecture, to build beforehand at a factory rather than at the building site.

John A. Roebling

In the Brooklyn Bridge , completed in 1883, John Roebling exploited the great tensile strength of steel to span New York's East River with steel cable

Frank Lloyd Wright

Kaufmann House , which has also become known as "Fallingwater," shows a very different application of reinforced concrete. Here cantilevered decks of reinforced concrete rush outward into the surrounding landscape from the building's central core, intersecting in strata that lie parallel to the natural rock formations. Naturalistic style integrates his building with its site. In the Kaufmann House, reinforced concrete and stone walls complement the sturdy rock of the Pennsylvania countryside. Modern materials did not warrant austerity; geometry did not preclude organic integration with the site.

Truss

Lengths of wood, iron, or steel pieced together in a triangular shape - Trusses span large distances

Levitt & Sons

Levittown homes made in a suburb of New York is more than a home; it is a socioaesthetic comment on the need for mass suburban housing that impacted so many metropolitan regions during the marriage and baby boom that followed World War II. This house and 17,000 others almost exactly like it were built, with few exceptions, on 60-foot by 100-foot lots that had been carved out from potato fields.

Temple of Amen-Re, Egyptain

Made of stone. The Egyptian Temple of Amen-Re at Karnak is of post-and-lintel construction, but the paintings, relief sculptures, and overall smoothness of the columns belie their function as bearers of stress. The virtual forest of columns was a structural necessity because of the weight of the massive stone lintels.

Architecture

The art and science of designing buildings, bridges, and other structures to meet our personal and communal needs.

Gustave Eiffel

The Eiffel Tower was built in Paris in 1889 for another industrial exhibition. At the time, Gustave Eiffel was castigated by critics for building an open structure lacking the standard masonry facade.

Louis Sullivan

The Wainwright Building , erected in 1890, is an early example of steel-cage construction. One of the fathers of modern American architecture, emphasized the verticality of the structure by running pilasters between the windows through the upper stories. Many skyscrapers run pilasters up their entire facades. Sullivan also emphasized the horizontal features of the Wainwright Building.

Dome

are hemispherical forms - They are rounded when viewed from underneath - They are extensions of the principle of the arch - They are capable of enclosing a vast amount of space

Cliff Dwellings, Mesa Verde

could be con-sidered something of an "earthwork high relief." The cliff itself becomes the back wall or "support" of more than 100 rectangular apartments.

Eero Saarinen

created Gateway Arch, completed in St. Louis in 1966, stands 630 feet tall at the center and commemorates the westward push of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

Adobe

dried mud used in architectural construction.

Wood architecture

is as beautiful and versatile a material for building as it is for sculpture. It is an abundant and, as many advertisements have proclaimed, renewable resource. It is relatively light in weight and is capable of being worked on at the site with readily portable hand tools.

Steel-cable architecture

many parallel wires are intertwined so that they share the stress of the load.The Asian culture has made suspension bridges for thousands of years. Advantages: • Strong amazing strength and can span long!!!!! distances. • Flexible. It can sway during weather and traffic conditions • Very Majestic and beautiful.

Steel cages

skeletal forms on to which I-beams can be riveted or welded.

Steel

strong metal of iron alloyed with small amounts of carbon and a variety of other metals. It is harder than iron, and more rust and fire resistant. It is more expensive than other structural materials, but its great strength permits it to be used in relatively small quantities.

Balloon framing

• An American construction building technique. • A product of the Industrial Revolution • Mass production and assembly of materials • Truss and Balloon framing uses mass produced, light, easily handled cuts of wood for the assembly of millions of homes and on site.

Walls of the Fortress of Machu Picchu

• Machu Picchu was a ritual center and royal retreat at 9,000 feet in the mountains outside of Cuzco, Peru • Never discovered by the Spanish explorers it has the only remaining original altar to Inti (the sun god). • The Inka were great architects. They were the supreme masters of shaping and fitting stones. A typical trapezoidal window at Machu Picchu. • To the Inka, stone was a building material with almost sacred properties.

Stone architecture

• Massive and virtually indestructible. • Symbol of strength and permanence. • expresses warmth

Reinforced concrete architecture

• Steel rods and or steel mesh are inserted into wet concrete. • Steel is inserted at points of greatest stress before hardening. Advantages: - Less susceptible to pulling apart at stress points - The concrete prevents the steal from rusting. - Can span great distances then stone - Supports more weight than steel - Can take on more natural shapes.

Steel-cage architecture

• Very strong metal • Harder than cast iron and very expensive; however, less of the material needs to be used • Skeletal forms of steel result in "steel cages" • Façades and inner walls are hung from the skeleton

Arch

• span great distances. • They support other structures, such as roofs. •have many functions, including supporting other structures, such as roofs, and serving as actual and symbolic gateways.