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117-579: Arbour Square is a late Georgian square in Stepney , in the borough of Tower Hamlets , east London , England. It is located just off the Commercial Road (A13) approximately one mile (1.6 km) east of the City of London . The square is currently laid out as a formal garden with mature trees and planting and is surrounded on two sides by elegant early 19th century townhouses . Arbour Square

234-399: A balustrade or the top of a pediment . Columns or pilasters , often topped by a pediment, were popular for ornament inside and out, and other ornament was generally geometrical or plant-based, rather than using the human figure. Inside ornament was far more generous, and could sometimes be overwhelming. The chimneypiece continued to be the usual main focus of rooms, and was now given

351-420: A suburban compromise between the terraced houses of the city and the detached "villas" further out, where land was cheaper. There had been occasional examples in town centres going back to medieval times. Most early suburban examples are large, and in what are now the outer fringes of Central London, but were then in areas being built up for the first time. Blackheath , Chalk Farm and St John's Wood are among

468-485: A base of stone which protected the more vulnerable elements from damp. The roofs were probably of thatch with eaves which overhung the permeable walls. Many larger houses, such as those at Delos, were built of stone and plastered. The roofing material for the substantial house was tile. Houses of the wealthy had mosaic floors and demonstrated the Classical style. Many houses centred on a wide passage or "pasta" which ran

585-418: A building in which each of these could be housed. This led to the development of temples. The ancient Greeks perceived order in the universe, and in turn, applied order and reason to their creations. Their humanist philosophy put mankind at the centre of things and promoted well-ordered societies and the development of democracy. At the same time, the respect for human intellect demanded a reason, and promoted

702-670: A building; such arrangements were only typical in England when housing groups of batchelors, as in Oxbridge colleges, the lawyers in the Inns of Court or the Albany after it was converted in 1802. In the period in question, only in Edinburgh were working-class purpose-built tenements common, though lodgers were common in other cities. A curving crescent , often looking out at gardens or

819-442: A classical treatment, and increasingly topped by a painting or a mirror. Plasterwork ceilings, carved wood, and bold schemes of wallpaint formed a backdrop to increasingly rich collections of furniture, paintings, porcelain , mirrors, and objets d'art of all kinds. Wood-panelling, very common since about 1500, fell from favour around the mid-century, and wallpaper included very expensive imports from China. Smaller houses in

936-492: A distance. The height was usually highest in the centre, and the Baroque emphasis on corner pavilions often found on the continent generally avoided. In grand houses, an entrance hall led to steps up to a piano nobile or mezzanine floor where the main reception rooms were. Typically the basement area or "rustic", with kitchens, offices and service areas, as well as male guests with muddy boots, came some way above ground, and

1053-514: A large number of sites around the Eastern Mediterranean , including Mainland Greece , Western Asia Minor , Southern and Central Italy . Being more expensive and labour-intensive to produce than thatch, their introduction has been explained by the fact that their fireproof quality would have given desired protection to the costly temples. As a side-effect, it has been assumed that the new stone and tile construction also ushered in

1170-600: A lesser extent York and Bristol . The style was revived in the late 19th century in the United States as Colonial Revival architecture and in the early 20th century in Great Britain as Neo-Georgian architecture ; in both it is also called Georgian Revival architecture . In the United States, the term Georgian is generally used to describe all buildings from the period, regardless of style; in Britain it

1287-399: A lintel, which in a stone building limited the possible width of the opening. The distance between columns was similarly affected by the nature of the lintel, columns on the exterior of buildings and carrying stone lintels being closer together than those on the interior, which carried wooden lintels. Door and window openings narrowed towards the top. Temples were constructed without windows,

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1404-473: A low pitched gable or pediment. The earliest temples, built to enshrine statues of deities, were probably of wooden construction, later replaced by the more durable stone temples many of which are still in evidence today. The signs of the original timber nature of the architecture were maintained in the stone buildings. A few of these temples are very large, with several, such as the Temple of Zeus Olympus and

1521-401: A millennium of Greek pottery making, but also in the architecture that was to emerge in the 6th century. The major development that occurred was in the growing use of the human figure as the major decorative motif, and the increasing surety with which humanity, its mythology, activities and passions were depicted. The development in the depiction of the human form in pottery was accompanied by

1638-406: A naturally occurring sloping site where people could sit, rather than a containing structure. Colonnades encircling buildings, or surrounding courtyards provided shelter from the sun and from sudden winter storms. The light of Greece may be another important factor in the development of the particular character of ancient Greek architecture. The light is often extremely bright, with both the sky and

1755-409: A park, was popular for terraces where space allowed. In early and central schemes of development, plots were sold and built on individually, though there was often an attempt to enforce some uniformity, but as development reached further out schemes were increasingly built as a uniform scheme and then sold. The late Georgian period saw the birth of the semi-detached house, planned systematically, as

1872-399: A passion for enquiry, logic, challenge, and problem-solving. The architecture of the ancient Greeks, and in particular, temple architecture, responds to these challenges with a passion for beauty, and for order and symmetry which is the product of a continual search for perfection, rather than a simple application of a set of working rules. There is a clear division between the architecture of

1989-431: A rectangular hall with a hearth in the centre, was the largest room in the palaces, and also larger houses. Sun-dried brick above rubble bases were the usual materials, with wooden columns and roof-beams. Rows of ashlar stone orthostats lined the base of walls in some prominent locations. The Minoan architecture of Crete was of the trabeated form like that of ancient Greece. It employed wooden columns with capitals, but

2106-597: A regular grid of paved streets and an agora or central market place surrounded by a colonnade or stoa . The completely restored Stoa of Attalos can be seen in Athens . Towns were also equipped with a public fountain where water could be collected for household use. The development of regular town plans is associated with Hippodamus of Miletus , a pupil of Pythagoras . Public buildings became "dignified and gracious structures", and were sited so that they related to each other architecturally. The propylon or porch, formed

2223-719: A result of Alexander's conquest of other lands, and later as a result of the rise of the Roman Empire, which adopted much of Greek culture. Before the Hellenic era, two major cultures had dominated the region: the Minoan ( c.  2800  – c.  1100 BC ), and the Mycenaean (c. 1500–1100 BC). Minoan is the name given by modern historians to the culture of the people of ancient Crete , known for its elaborate and richly decorated Minoan palaces , and for its pottery,

2340-436: A sculptural entity within the landscape, most often raised on high ground so that the elegance of its proportions and the effects of light on its surfaces might be viewed from all angles. Nikolaus Pevsner refers to "the plastic shape of the [Greek] temple [...] placed before us with a physical presence more intense, more alive than that of any later building". The formal vocabulary of ancient Greek architecture, in particular

2457-409: A series of solid stone cylinders or "drums" that rest on each other without mortar, but were sometimes centred with a bronze pin. The columns are wider at the base than at the top, tapering with an outward curve known as entasis . Each column has a capital of two parts, the upper, on which rests the lintels, being square and called the abacus . The part of the capital that rises from the column itself

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2574-677: A sign of their fealty to Britain, and the Georgian style was dominant in the country for most of the first half of the 19th century. The Grange , for example, is a Georgian manor built in Toronto in 1817. In Montreal , English-born architect John Ostell worked on a significant number of remarkable constructions in the Georgian style such as the Old Montreal Custom House and the Grand séminaire de Montréal . In Australia ,

2691-598: A similar development in sculpture. The tiny stylised bronzes of the Geometric period gave way to life-sized highly formalised monolithic representation in the Archaic period. The Classical period was marked by a rapid development towards idealised but increasingly lifelike depictions of gods in human form. This development had a direct effect on the sculptural decoration of temples, as many of the greatest extant works of ancient Greek sculpture once adorned temples, and many of

2808-453: A source of decorative motifs employed by ancient Greek architects as particularly in evidence in the volutes of capitals of the Ionic and Corinthian Orders. The ancient Greek architects took a philosophic approach to the rules and proportions. The determining factor in the mathematics of any notable work of architecture was its ultimate appearance. The architects calculated for perspective, for

2925-541: A street was a desirable feature of Georgian town planning. Until the start of the Gothic Revival in the early 19th century, Georgian designs usually lay within the Classical orders of architecture and employed a decorative vocabulary derived from ancient Rome or Greece. In towns, which expanded greatly during the period, landowners turned into property developers , and rows of identical terraced houses became

3042-409: A treasury or repository for trophies and gifts. The chambers were lit by a single large doorway, fitted with a wrought iron grill. Some rooms appear to have been illuminated by skylights. On the stylobate, often completely surrounding the naos, stand rows of columns. Each temple is defined as being of a particular type, with two terms: one describing the number of columns across the entrance front, and

3159-449: A triangular structure called the pediment. The tympanum is the triangular space framed by the cornices and the location of the most significant sculptural decoration on the exterior of the building. Every temple rested on a masonry base called the crepidoma , generally of three steps, of which the upper one which carried the columns was the stylobate . Masonry walls were employed for temples from about 600 BC onwards. Masonry of all types

3276-593: Is East Arbour street which is a smaller two storey Georgian terrace. The former Arbour Square police station which once held the Kray Twins and alleged Provisional Irish Republican Army terrorists is located between these two streets; it closed in 1999 and has recently been redeveloped into flats. Arbour Square is mirrored on the opposite side of commercial road by Albert Gardens, an impressive and almost fully intact late-Georgian residential square made up of Grade II listed houses. Originally named Albert Square, it

3393-490: Is a second horizontal stage called the frieze . The frieze is one of the major decorative elements of the building and carries a sculptured relief. In the case of Ionic and Corinthian architecture, the relief decoration runs in a continuous band, but in the Doric order, it is divided into sections called metopes , which fill the spaces between vertical rectangular blocks called triglyphs . The triglyphs are vertically grooved like

3510-542: Is best known for its temples , many of which are found throughout the region, with the Parthenon regarded, now as in ancient times, as the prime example. Most remains are very incomplete ruins, but a number survive substantially intact, mostly outside modern Greece. The second important type of building that survives all over the Hellenic world is the open-air theatre , with the earliest dating from around 525–480 BC. Other architectural forms that are still in evidence are

3627-466: Is called the echinus. It differs according to the order, being plain in the Doric order, fluted in the Ionic and foliate in the Corinthian. Doric and usually Ionic capitals are cut with vertical grooves known as fluting . This fluting or grooving of the columns is a retention of an element of the original wooden architecture. The columns of a temple support a structure that rises in two main stages,

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3744-540: Is generally restricted to buildings that are "architectural in intention", and have stylistic characteristics that are typical of the period, though that covers a wide range. The Georgian style is highly variable, but marked by symmetry and proportion based on the classical architecture of Greece and Rome , as revived in Renaissance architecture . Ornament is also normally in the classical tradition, but typically restrained, and sometimes almost completely absent on

3861-416: Is stone. Limestone was readily available and easily worked. There is an abundance of high quality white marble both on the mainland and islands, particularly Paros and Naxos . This finely grained material was a major contributing factor to precision of detail, both architectural and sculptural, that adorned ancient Greek architecture. Deposits of high-quality potter's clay were found throughout Greece and

3978-624: The Old Colonial Georgian residential and non-residential styles were developed in the period from c.  1810  – c.  1840 . After about 1840, Georgian conventions were slowly abandoned as a number of revival styles, including Gothic Revival , that had originated in the Georgian period, developed and contested in Victorian architecture , and in the case of Gothic became better researched, and closer to their originals. Neoclassical architecture remained popular, and

4095-534: The Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens, which seats 45,000 people, was restored in the 19th century and was used in the 1896, 1906 and 2004 Olympic Games . The architecture of ancient Greece is of a trabeated or " post and lintel " form, i.e. it is composed of upright beams (posts) supporting horizontal beams (lintels). Although the existent buildings of the era are constructed in stone, it is clear that

4212-529: The Parthenon , are between 60 and 80 metres (approx. 200–260 feet) in length. The largest temples, mainly Ionic and Corinthian, but including the Doric Temple of the Olympian Zeus, Agrigento , were between 90 and 120 metres (approx. 300–390 feet) in length. The temple rises from a stepped base or stylobate , which elevates the structure above the ground on which it stands. Early examples, such as

4329-569: The Venetian Giacomo Leoni , who spent most of his career in England. Other prominent architects of the early Georgian period include James Paine , Robert Taylor , and John Wood, the Elder . The European Grand Tour became very common for wealthy patrons in the period, and Italian influence remained dominant, though at the start of the period Hanover Square, Westminster (1713 on), developed and occupied by Whig supporters of

4446-602: The Villa Pisani at Montagnana , Italy as depicted in Andrea Palladio 's I quattro libri dell'architettura ("The Four Books of Architecture"). After independence, in the former American colonies , Federal-style architecture represented the equivalent of Regency architecture, with which it had much in common. In Canada , the United Empire Loyalists embraced Georgian architecture as

4563-404: The entablature and the pediment . The entablature is the major horizontal structural element supporting the roof and encircling the entire building. It is composed of three parts. Resting on the columns is the architrave made of a series of stone "lintels" that spanned the space between the columns, and meet each other at a joint directly above the centre of each column. Above the architrave

4680-782: The suburbs , is known in the UK as mock-Georgian . Ancient Greek architecture Ancient Greek architecture came from the Greeks , or Hellenes, whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese , the Aegean Islands , and in colonies in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from around 600 BC. Ancient Greek architecture

4797-520: The 1970s, council-owned houses on the square were squatted by the Campaign to Clear Hostels and Slums, which installed working class families. 51°30′51″N 0°02′52″W  /  51.5143°N 0.0479°W  / 51.5143; -0.0479 Georgian architecture The Georgian cities of the British Isles were Edinburgh , Bath , pre-independence Dublin , and London , and to

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4914-520: The 6th century BC, where the rows of columns supporting the roof the cella rise higher than the outer walls, unnecessary if roof trusses are employed as an integral part of the wooden roof. The indication is that initially all the rafters were supported directly by the entablature, walls and hypostyle, rather than on a trussed wooden frame, which came into use in Greek architecture only in the 3rd century BC. Ancient Greek buildings of timber, clay and plaster construction were probably roofed with thatch. With

5031-636: The Americas. Unlike the Baroque style that it replaced, which was mostly used for palaces and churches, and had little representation in the British colonies, simpler Georgian styles were widely used by the upper and middle classes. Perhaps the best remaining house is the pristine Hammond-Harwood House (1774) in Annapolis , Maryland , designed by the colonial architect William Buckland and modelled on

5148-718: The Dorian people who lived on the Greek mainland. Following these events, there was a period from which only a village level of culture seems to have existed. This period is thus often referred to as the Greek Dark Age . The art history of the Hellenic era is generally subdivided into four periods: the Protogeometric (1100–900 BC), the Geometric (900–700 BC), the Archaic (700–500 BC) and the Classical (500–323 BC) with sculpture being further divided into Severe Classical, High Classical and Late Classical. The first signs of

5265-399: The Doric columns, and retain the form of the wooden beams that would once have supported the roof. The upper band of the entablature is called the cornice , which is generally ornately decorated on its lower edge. The cornice retains the shape of the beams that would once have supported the wooden roof at each end of the building. At the front and rear of each temple, the entablature supports

5382-522: The Georgian period were very often constructed of wood with clapboards; even columns were made of timber, framed up, and turned on an oversized lathe. At the start of the period the difficulties of obtaining and transporting brick or stone made them a common alternative only in the larger cities, or where they were obtainable locally. Dartmouth College , Harvard University and the College of William and Mary offer leading examples of Georgian architecture in

5499-534: The Islands, with major deposits near Athens. It was used not only for pottery vessels but also roof tiles and architectural decoration. The climate of Greece is maritime, with both the coldness of winter and the heat of summer tempered by sea breezes. This led to a lifestyle where many activities took place outdoors. Hence temples were placed on hilltops, their exteriors designed as a visual focus of gatherings and processions, while theatres were often an enhancement of

5616-464: The Olympians at Athens being well over 300 feet in length, but most were less than half this size. It appears that some of the large temples began as wooden constructions in which the columns were replaced piecemeal as stone became available. This, at least was the interpretation of the historian Pausanias looking at the Temple of Hera at Olympia in the 2nd century AD. The stone columns are made of

5733-475: The Temple of Zeus at Olympus, have two steps, but the majority, like the Parthenon, have three, with the exceptional example of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma having six. The core of the building is a masonry-built "naos" within which is a cella, a windowless room originally housing the statue of the god. The cella generally has a porch or "pronaos" before it, and perhaps a second chamber or "antenaos" serving as

5850-492: The apprenticeship system. But most buildings were still designed by builders and landlords together, and the wide spread of Georgian architecture, and the Georgian styles of design more generally, came from dissemination through pattern books and inexpensive suites of engravings . Authors such as the prolific William Halfpenny (active 1723–1755) had editions in America as well as Britain. A similar phenomenon can be seen in

5967-519: The architect Polykleitos the Younger . Greek towns of substantial size also had a palaestra or a gymnasium , the social centre for male citizens which included spectator areas, baths, toilets and club rooms. Other buildings associated with sports include the hippodrome for horse racing, of which only remnants have survived, and the stadium for foot racing, 600 feet in length, of which examples exist at Olympia, Delphi, Epidaurus and Ephesus, while

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6084-531: The areas contesting being the original home of the semi. Sir John Summerson gave primacy to the Eyre Estate of St John's Wood. A plan for this exists dated 1794, where "the whole development consists of pairs of semi-detached houses , So far as I know, this is the first recorded scheme of the kind". In fact the French Wars put an end to this scheme, but when the development was finally built it retained

6201-479: The classical vocabulary. Where funds permitted, a classical temple portico with columns and a pediment might be used at the west front. Interior decoration was generally chaste; however, walls often became lined with plaques and monuments to the more prosperous members of the congregation. In the colonies new churches were certainly required, and generally repeated similar formulae. British Non-conformist churches were often more classical in mood, and tended not to feel

6318-484: The classically inspired. Public buildings generally varied between the extremes of plain boxes with grid windows and Italian Late Renaissance palaces, depending on budget. Somerset House in London, designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776 for government offices, was as magnificent as any country house, though never quite finished, as funds ran out. Barracks and other less prestigious buildings could be as functional as

6435-478: The commonality of housing designs in Canada and the United States (though of a wider variety of styles) from the 19th century through the 1950s, using pattern books drawn up by professional architects that were distributed by lumber companies and hardware stores to contractors and homebuilders. From the mid-18th century, Georgian styles were assimilated into an architectural vernacular that became part and parcel of

6552-515: The complete human form, and very human behaviour. The home of the gods was thought to be Olympus , the highest mountain in Greece. The most important deities were: Zeus , the supreme god and ruler of the sky; Hera , his wife and goddess of marriage; Athena , goddess of wisdom; Poseidon , the god of the sea; Demeter , goddess of the harvest; Apollo , the god of the sun, law, healing, plague, reason, music and poetry; Artemis , goddess of chastity,

6669-409: The core of cities such as London , Edinburgh , Dublin , Newcastle upon Tyne and Bristol . The period saw the growth of a distinct and trained architectural profession; before the mid-century "the high-sounding title, 'architect' was adopted by anyone who could get away with it". This contrasted with earlier styles, which were primarily disseminated among craftsmen through the direct experience of

6786-471: The country, such as vicarages, were simple regular blocks with visible raked roofs, and a central doorway, often the only ornamented area. Similar houses, often referred to as "villas" became common around the fringes of the larger cities, especially London, and detached houses in towns remained common, though only the very rich could afford them in central London. In towns even most better-off people lived in terraced houses, which typically opened straight onto

6903-643: The division of architectural style into three defined orders: the Doric Order , the Ionic Order and the Corinthian Order , was to have a profound effect on Western architecture of later periods. The architecture of ancient Rome grew out of that of Greece and maintained its influence in Italy unbroken until the present day. From the Renaissance , revivals of Classicism have kept alive not only

7020-470: The earlier mudbrick and wood walls, were strong enough to support the weight of a tiled roof. The earliest finds of roof tiles of the Archaic period in Greece are documented from a very restricted area around Corinth , where fired tiles began to replace thatched roofs at the temples of Apollo and Poseidon between 700 and 650 BC. Spreading rapidly, roof tiles were within fifty years in evidence for

7137-714: The end of overhanging eaves in Greek architecture, as they made the need for an extended roof as rain protection for the mudbrick walls obsolete. Vaults and arches were not generally used, but begin to appear in tombs (in a "beehive" or cantilevered form such as used in Mycenaea) and occasionally, as an external feature, exedrae of voussoired construction from the 5th century BC. The dome and vault never became significant structural features, as they were to become in ancient Roman architecture . Most ancient Greek temples were rectangular, and were approximately twice as long as they were wide, with some notable exceptions such as

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7254-460: The enormous Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens with a length of nearly 2 1 ⁄ 2 times its width. A number of surviving temple-like structures are circular, and are referred to as tholos . The smallest temples are less than 25 metres (approx. 75 feet) in length, or in the case of the circular tholos , in diameter. The great majority of temples are between 30 and 60 metres (approx. 100–200 feet) in length. A small group of Doric temples, including

7371-654: The entrance to temple sanctuaries and other significant sites with the best-surviving example being the Propylaea on the Acropolis of Athens . The bouleuterion was a large public building with a hypostyle hall that served as a court house and as a meeting place for the town council ( boule ). Remnants of bouleuterion survive at Athens, Olympia and Miletus, the latter having held up to 1,200 people. Every Greek town had an open-air theatre . These were used for both public meetings as well as dramatic performances. The theatre

7488-431: The exterior. The period brought the vocabulary of classical architecture to smaller and more modest buildings than had been the case before, replacing English vernacular architecture (or becoming the new vernacular style) for almost all new middle-class homes and public buildings by the end of the period. Georgian architecture is characterized by its proportion and balance; simple mathematical ratios were used to determine

7605-404: The extremely similar St. George's Church, Dublin . The 1818 Act allocated some public money for new churches required to reflect changes in population, and a commission to allocate it. Building of Commissioners' churches gathered pace in the 1820s, and continued until the 1850s. The early churches, falling into the Georgian period, show a high proportion of Gothic Revival buildings, along with

7722-511: The floor above. Often, when a new street or set of streets was developed, the road and pavements were raised up, and the gardens or yards behind the houses remained at a lower level, usually representing the original one. Town terraced houses for all social classes remained resolutely tall and narrow, each dwelling occupying the whole height of the building. This contrasted with well-off continental dwellings, which had already begun to be formed of wide apartments occupying only one or two floors of

7839-451: The height of a window in relation to its width or the shape of a room as a double cube. Regularity, as with ashlar (uniformly cut) stonework, was strongly approved, imbuing symmetry and adherence to classical rules: the lack of symmetry, where Georgian additions were added to earlier structures remaining visible, was deeply felt as a flaw, at least before John Nash began to introduce it in a variety of styles. Regularity of housefronts along

7956-406: The hunt and the wilderness; Aphrodite , goddess of love; Ares , God of war; Hermes , the god of commerce and travellers, Hephaestus , the god of fire and metalwork; and Dionysus , the god of wine and fruit-bearing plants. Worship, like many other activities, was done in the community, in the open. However, by 600 BC, the gods were often represented by large statues and it was necessary to provide

8073-688: The interior of large monumental tombs such as the Lion Tomb at Knidos (c. 350 BC). The Greek word for the family or household, oikos , is also the name for the house. Houses followed several different types. It is probable that many of the earliest houses were simple structures of two rooms, with an open porch or pronaos , above which rose a low pitched gable or pediment . This form is thought to have contributed to temple architecture. The construction of many houses employed walls of sun-dried clay bricks or wooden framework filled with fibrous material such as straw or seaweed covered with clay or plaster, on

8190-498: The largest recorded statues of the age, such as the lost chryselephantine statues of Zeus at the Temple of Zeus at Olympia and Athena at the Parthenon, Athens, both over 40 feet high, were once housed in them. The religion of ancient Greece was a form of nature worship that grew out of the beliefs of earlier cultures. However, unlike earlier cultures, man was no longer perceived as being threatened by nature, but as its sublime product. The natural elements were personified as gods of

8307-591: The late 1950s, Bradshaw Gass & Hope 's Police Headquarters in Salford of 1958 being a good example. Architects such as Raymond Erith , and Donald McMorran were among the few architects who continued the neo-Georgian style into the 1960s. Both in the United States and Britain, the Georgian style is still employed by architects like Quinlan Terry , Julian Bicknell , Ben Pentreath , Robert Adam Architects , and Fairfax and Sammons for private residences. A debased form in commercial housing developments, especially in

8424-449: The length of the house and opened at one side onto a small courtyard which admitted light and air. Larger houses had a fully developed peristyle (courtyard) at the centre, with the rooms arranged around it. Some houses had an upper floor which appears to have been reserved for the use of the women of the family. City houses were built with adjoining walls and were divided into small blocks by narrow streets. Shops were sometimes located in

8541-522: The light to the naos entering through the door. It has been suggested that some temples were lit from openings in the roof. A door of the Ionic Order at the Erechtheion (17 feet high and 7.5 feet wide at the top) retains many of its features intact, including mouldings, and an entablature supported on console brackets. (See Architectural Decoration, below) The widest span of a temple roof

8658-402: The longer sides. A slightly greater adjustment has been made to the entablature. The columns at the ends of the building are not vertical but are inclined towards the centre, with those at the corners being out of plumb by about 65 mm (2.6 in). These outer columns are both slightly wider than their neighbours and are slightly closer than any of the others. Ancient Greek architecture of

8775-408: The main nave was generally wider and shorter than in medieval plans, and often there were no side-aisles. Galleries were common in new churches. Especially in country parishes, the external appearance generally retained the familiar signifiers of a Gothic church, with a tower or spire, a large west front with one or more doors, and very large windows along the nave, but all with any ornament drawn from

8892-423: The mid-1760s a range of Neoclassical modes were fashionable, associated with the British architects Robert Adam , James Gibbs, Sir William Chambers , James Wyatt , George Dance the Younger , Henry Holland and Sir John Soane . John Nash was one of the most prolific architects of the late Georgian era known as Regency style , he was responsible for designing large areas of London. Greek Revival architecture

9009-540: The mills and factories that were growing increasingly large by the end of the period. But as the period came to an end many commercial projects were becoming sufficiently large, and well-funded, to become "architectural in intention", rather than having their design left to the lesser class of "surveyors". Georgian architecture was widely disseminated in the English colonies during the Georgian era . American buildings of

9126-525: The most famous of which painted with floral and motifs of sea life . The Mycenaean culture, which flourished on the Peloponnesus , was different in character. Its people built citadels, fortifications and tombs, and decorated their pottery with bands of marching soldiers rather than octopus and seaweed. Both these civilizations came to an end around 1100 BC, that of Crete possibly because of volcanic devastation, and that of Mycenae because of an invasion by

9243-627: The most formal type, for temples and other public buildings, is divided stylistically into three Classical orders , first described by the Roman architectural writer Vitruvius . These are: the Doric order , the Ionic order , and the Corinthian order , the names reflecting their regional origins within the Greek world. While the three orders are most easily recognizable by their capitals, they also governed

9360-537: The narrowing is not regular, but gently curved so that each column appears to have a slight swelling, called entasis below the middle. The entasis is never sufficiently pronounced as to make the swelling wider than the base; it is controlled by a slight reduction in the rate of decrease of diameter. The Parthenon , the Temple to the Goddess Athena on the Acropolis in Athens, is referred to by many as

9477-563: The need for a tower or steeple. The archetypal Georgian church is St Martin-in-the-Fields in London (1720), by Gibbs, who boldly added to the classical temple façade at the west end a large steeple on top of a tower, set back slightly from the main frontage. This formula shocked purists and foreigners, but became accepted and was very widely emulated, at home and in the colonies, for example at St Andrew's Church, Chennai in India. And in Dublin,

9594-611: The neighbouring Havering Street which contains smaller but also Grade II listed houses, and several other early 19th century terraces on the Commercial Road, Albert Gardens and Arbour Square became part of the Albert Gardens Conservation area in 1969. Havering Street, Arbour Square, and Albert Gardens are some of the last remaining original late-Georgian houses in the E1 postcode area of London's East End. In

9711-481: The new dynasty, seems to have deliberately adopted German stylistic elements in their honour, especially vertical bands connecting the windows. The styles that resulted fall within several categories. In the mainstream of Georgian style were both Palladian architecture —and its whimsical alternatives, Gothic and Chinoiserie , which were the English-speaking world 's equivalent of European Rococo . From

9828-500: The norm. Even the wealthy were persuaded to live in these in town, especially if provided with a square of garden in front of the house. There was an enormous amount of building in the period, all over the English-speaking world, and the standards of construction were generally high. Where they have not been demolished, large numbers of Georgian buildings have survived two centuries or more, and they still form large parts of

9945-433: The optical illusions that make edges of objects appear concave and for the fact that columns that are viewed against the sky look different from those adjacent that are viewed against a shadowed wall. Because of these factors, the architects adjusted the plans so that the major lines of any significant building are rarely straight. The most obvious adjustment is to the profile of columns, which narrow from base to top. However,

10062-475: The origin of the style lies in simple wooden structures, with vertical posts supporting beams which carried a ridged roof. The posts and beams divided the walls into regular compartments which could be left as openings, or filled with sun dried bricks, lathes or straw and covered with clay daub or plaster. Alternately, the spaces might be filled with rubble. It is likely that many early houses and temples were constructed with an open porch or "pronaos" above which rose

10179-472: The other defining their distribution. Examples: The ideal of proportion that was used by ancient Greek architects in designing temples was not a simple mathematical progression using a square module. The math involved a more complex geometrical progression, the so-called golden mean . The ratio is similar to that of the growth patterns of many spiral forms that occur in nature such as rams' horns, nautilus shells, fern fronds, and vine tendrils and which were

10296-581: The other materials was more favourable. Raked roofs were mostly covered in earthenware tiles until Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn led the development of the slate industry in Wales from the 1760s, which by the end of the century had become the usual material. Versions of revived Palladian architecture dominated English country house architecture. Houses were increasingly placed in grand landscaped settings, and large houses were generally made wide and relatively shallow, largely to look more impressive from

10413-518: The particular artistic character that defines ancient Greek architecture are to be seen in the pottery of the Dorian Greeks from the 10th century BC. Already at this period it is created with a sense of proportion, symmetry and balance not apparent in similar pottery from Crete and Mycenae. The decoration is precisely geometric, and ordered neatly into zones on defined areas of each vessel. These qualities were to manifest themselves not only through

10530-544: The period in Great Britain. Some windows were subsequently bricked-in. Their height increasingly varied between the floors, and they increasingly began below waist-height in the main rooms, making a small balcony desirable. Before this the internal plan and function of the rooms can generally not be deduced from the outside. To open these large windows the sash window , already developed by the 1670s, became very widespread. Corridor plans became universal inside larger houses. Internal courtyards became more rare, except beside

10647-442: The pinnacle of ancient Greek architecture. Helen Gardner refers to its "unsurpassable excellence", to be surveyed, studied and emulated by architects of later ages. Yet, as Gardner points out, there is hardly a straight line in the building. Banister Fletcher calculated that the stylobate curves upward so that its centres at either end rise about 65 millimetres (2.6 inches) above the outer corners, and 110 mm (4.3 in) on

10764-403: The preceding Mycenaean and Minoan cultures and that of the ancient Greeks, with much of the techniques and an understanding of their style being lost when these civilisations fell. Mycenaean architecture is marked by massive fortifications, typically surrounding a citadel with a royal palace, much smaller than the rambling Minoan "palaces", and relatively few other buildings. The megaron ,

10881-461: The precise forms and ordered details of Greek architecture, but also its concept of architectural beauty based on balance and proportion. The successive styles of Neoclassical architecture and Greek Revival architecture followed and adapted ancient Greek styles closely. The mainland and islands of Greece are very rocky, with deeply indented coastline, and rugged mountain ranges with few substantial forests. The most freely available building material

10998-461: The processional gateway ( propylon ), the public square ( agora ) surrounded by storied colonnade ( stoa ), the town council building ( bouleuterion ), the public monument, the monumental tomb ( mausoleum ) and the stadium . Ancient Greek architecture is distinguished by its highly formalised characteristics, both of structure and decoration. This is particularly so in the case of temples where each building appears to have been conceived as

11115-426: The rise of stone architecture came the appearance of fired ceramic roof tiles . These early roof tiles showed an S-shape, with the pan and cover tile forming one piece. They were much larger than modern roof tiles, being up to 90 cm (35.43 in) long, 70 cm (27.56 in) wide, 3–4 cm (1.18–1.57  in ) thick and weighing around 30 kg (66 lb) apiece. Only stone walls, which were replacing

11232-468: The rooms towards the street. City houses were inward-facing, with major openings looking onto the central courtyard, rather than the street. The rectangular temple is the most common and best-known form of Greek public architecture. This rectilinear structure borrows from the Late Helladic, Mycenaean megaron , which contained a central throne room, vestibule, and porch. The temple did not serve

11349-492: The same function as a modern church, since the altar stood under the open sky in the temenos or sacred precinct, often directly before the temple. Temples served as the location of a cult image and as a storage place or strong room for the treasury associated with the cult of the god in question, and as a place for devotees of the god to leave their votive offerings , such as statues, helmets and weapons. Some Greek temples appear to have been oriented astronomically. The temple

11466-523: The same period is usually referred to as Neo-Georgian ; the work of Edwin Lutyens and Vincent Harris includes some examples. The British town of Welwyn Garden City , established in the 1920s, is an example of pastiche or Neo-Georgian development of the early 20th century in Britain. Versions of the Neo-Georgian style were commonly used in Britain for certain types of urban architecture until

11583-452: The sea vividly blue. The clear light and sharp shadows give a precision to the details of the landscape, pale rocky outcrops and seashore. This clarity is alternated with periods of haze that varies in colour to the light on it. In this characteristic environment, the ancient Greek architects constructed buildings that were marked by the precision of detail. The gleaming marble surfaces were smooth, curved, fluted, or ornately sculpted to reflect

11700-545: The semi-detached form, "a revolution of striking significance and far-reaching effect". Until the Church Building Act 1818 , the period saw relatively few churches built in Britain, which was already well-supplied, although in the later years of the period the demand for Non-conformist and Roman Catholic places of worship greatly increased. Anglican churches that were built were designed internally to allow maximum audibility, and visibility, for preaching , so

11817-429: The stables, and the functional parts of the building were placed at the sides, or in separate buildings nearby hidden by trees. The views to and from the front and rear of the main block were concentrated on, with the side approaches usually much less important. The roof was typically invisible from the ground, though domes were sometimes visible in grander buildings. The roofline was generally clear of ornament except for

11934-402: The street, often with a few steps up to the door. There was often an open space, protected by iron railings, dropping down to the basement level, with a discreet entrance down steps off the street for servants and deliveries; this is known as the "area" . This meant that the ground floor front was now removed and protected from the street and encouraged the main reception rooms to move there from

12051-558: The sun, cast graded shadows and change in colour with the ever-changing light of day. Historians divide ancient Greek civilization into two eras, the Hellenic period (from around 900 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC), and the Hellenistic period (323 BC – 30 AD). During the earlier Hellenic period, substantial works of architecture began to appear around 600 BC. During the later (Hellenistic) period, Greek culture spread as

12168-403: The terrace on the north side was replaced by a block of flats in 1937. The Raine's School building now houses part of Tower Hamlets College . The school building was entirely refurbished in 1994 by Sprunt Architects, featuring a new open learning centre within the listed heart of the building. Running north from the square on the west side is West Arbour Street; and running north on the east side

12285-468: The training of every architect , designer , builder , carpenter , mason and plasterer , from Edinburgh to Maryland . Georgian succeeded the English Baroque of Sir Christopher Wren , Sir John Vanbrugh , Thomas Archer , William Talman , and Nicholas Hawksmoor ; this in fact continued into at least the 1720s, overlapping with a more restrained Georgian style. The architect James Gibbs

12402-455: The wooden columns were of a very different form to Doric columns, being narrow at the base and splaying upward. The earliest forms of columns in Greece seem to have developed independently. As with Minoan architecture, ancient Greek domestic architecture centred on open spaces or courtyards surrounded by colonnades . This form was adapted to the construction of hypostyle halls within the larger temples. The evolution that occurred in architecture

12519-484: Was a transitional figure, his earlier buildings are Baroque, reflecting the time he spent in Rome in the early 18th century, but he adjusted his style after 1720. Major architects to promote the change in direction from Baroque were Colen Campbell , author of the influential book Vitruvius Britannicus (1715–1725); Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and his protégé William Kent ; Isaac Ware ; Henry Flitcroft and

12636-412: Was across the cella , or inner chamber. In a large building, this space contains columns to support the roof, the architectural form being known as hypostyle . It appears that, although the architecture of ancient Greece was initially of wooden construction, the early builders did not have the concept of the diagonal truss as a stabilising member. This is evidenced by the nature of temple construction in

12753-577: Was added to the repertory, beginning around 1750, but increasing in popularity after 1800. Leading exponents were William Wilkins and Robert Smirke . In Britain, brick or stone are almost invariably used; brick is often disguised with stucco . The Georgian terraces of Dublin are noted for their almost uniform use of red brick, for example, whereas equivalent terraces in Edinburgh are constructed from stone. In America and other colonies wood remained very common, as its availability and cost-ratio with

12870-635: Was built in the early 1840s, and renamed Albert Gardens in 1937. In 1899 there was a proposal to build houses on the central garden in the square but the London County Council compulsorily purchased the land and opened Albert Square Garden to the public in 1906. In the north of the garden is a 19th-century drinking fountain topped by a statue, 'Shepherd Boy', which was erected in 1903 by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association Together with

12987-544: Was generally part of a religious precinct known as the acropolis . According to Aristotle , "the site should be a spot seen far and wide, which gives good elevation to virtue and towers over the neighbourhood". Small circular temples, tholoi were also constructed, as well as small temple-like buildings that served as treasuries for specific groups of donors. During the late 5th and 4th centuries BC, town planning became an important consideration of Greek builders, with towns such as Paestum and Priene being laid out with

13104-455: Was laid out as a garden enclosure in 1819. By 1830, contemporary maps show buildings on all sides of the square and many of the surrounding roads. The south and west sides of the square are still made up of the original three and four storey Georgian townhouses which are Grade II listed . The east side was demolished and replaced by the Raine's School building (also Grade II listed) in 1913, while

13221-417: Was lit by windows that were high on the inside, but just above ground level outside. A single block was typical, with perhaps a small court for carriages at the front marked off by railings and a gate, but rarely a stone gatehouse , or side wings around the court. Windows in all types of buildings were large and regularly placed on a grid; this was partly to minimize window tax , which was in force throughout

13338-718: Was the opponent of Gothic in the Battle of the Styles of the early Victorian period. In the United States the Federalist Style contained many elements of Georgian style, but incorporated revolutionary symbols. In the early decades of the twentieth century when there was a growing nostalgia for its sense of order, the style was revived and adapted and in the United States came to be known as the Colonial Revival . The revived Georgian style that emerged in Britain during

13455-551: Was towards the public building, first and foremost the temple, rather than towards grand domestic architecture such as had evolved in Crete, if the Cretan "palaces" were indeed domestic, which remains uncertain. Some Mycenaean tombs are marked by circular structures and tapered domes with flat-bedded, cantilevered courses. This architectural form did not carry over into the architecture of ancient Greece, but reappeared about 400 BC in

13572-574: Was used for ancient Greek buildings, including rubble, but the finest ashlar masonry was usually employed for temple walls, in regular courses and large sizes to minimise the joints. The blocks were rough hewn and hauled from quarries to be cut and bedded very precisely, with mortar hardly ever being used. Blocks, particularly those of columns and parts of the building bearing loads were sometimes fixed in place or reinforced with iron clamps, dowels and rods of wood, bronze or iron fixed in lead to minimise corrosion. Door and window openings were spanned with

13689-420: Was usually set in a hillside outside the town, and had rows of tiered seating set in a semicircle around the central performance area, the orchestra . Behind the orchestra was a low building called the skênê , which served as a store-room, a dressing room, and also as a backdrop to the action taking place in the orchestra. A number of Greek theatres survive almost intact, the best known being at Epidaurus by

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