Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

temple, edifice of worship

(Encyclopedia)temple, edifice or sometimes merely an enclosed area dedicated to the worship of a deity and the enshrinement of holy objects connected with such worship. The temple has been employed in most of the w...

pillar

(Encyclopedia)pillar, freestanding columnar supporting member. It is a general term, little used as an exact architectural definition except as applied to an upright support in the medieval styles, consisting of an...

classic revival

(Encyclopedia)classic revival, widely diffused phase of taste (known as neoclassic) which influenced architecture and the arts in Europe and the United States during the last years of the 18th and the first half of...

fire escape

(Encyclopedia)fire escape, in architecture, device, either fixed or movable, to facilitate escape from a burning building. In the United States the term usually is applied to the common iron balconies and stairways...

Bard College

(Encyclopedia)Bard College, at Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.; founded 1860 as St. Stephen's College for men; rechartered 1935 as Bard College; became coeducational in 1944; affiliated with Columbia Univ. 1928–44. A s...

atrium

(Encyclopedia)atrium āˈtrēəm [key], term for an interior court in Roman domestic architecture and also for a type of entrance court in early Christian churches. The Roman atrium was an unroofed or partially roo...

Aravena, Alejandro

(Encyclopedia)Aravena, Alejandro 1967–, Chilean architect, b. Santiago, grad. Pontifical Catholic Univ. of Chile, Santiago (1992). Inspired by public service as much as by aesthetic concerns, he has focused on in...

Alberti, Leone Battista

(Encyclopedia)Alberti, Leone Battista, 1404–72, Italian architect, musician, painter, and humanist, active at the papal court, Florence, Rimini, and Mantua. Alberti was the first architect to argue for the correc...

Burgos

(Encyclopedia)Burgos bo͞orˈgōs [key], city, capital of Burgos prov., N Spain, in Castile and Léon, on a...

Blunt, Anthony Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Blunt, Anthony Frederick, 1907–83, English art historian and Soviet spy, grad. Cambridge. Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art after 1947 and professor of the history of art at the Univ. of Lo...