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61-422: Historically, the dais was a part of the floor at the end of a medieval hall , raised a step above the rest of the room. On this, the master of the household or assembly (e.g. the lord of the manor ) dined with his senior associates and friends at the high table, while the other guests occupied the lower area of the room. In medieval halls, there was generally a deeply recessed bay window at one or both ends of

122-553: A 1941 essay, the architectural historian Sir John Summerson called it "surface modulation". The earliest decoration and ornament often survives from prehistoric cultures in simple markings on pottery, where decoration in other materials (including tattoos ) has been lost. Where the potter's wheel was used, the technology made some kinds of decoration very easy; weaving is another technology which also lends itself very easily to decoration or pattern, and to some extent dictates its form. Ornament has been evident in civilizations since

183-719: A European adaptation of the Islamic arabesque (a distinction not always clear at the time). As printing became cheaper, the single ornament print turned into sets, and then finally books. From the 16th to the 19th century, pattern books were published in Europe which gave access to decorative elements, eventually including those recorded from cultures all over the world. Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura (Four Books on Architecture) (Venice, 1570), which included both drawings of classical Roman buildings and renderings of Palladio's own designs utilizing those motifs, became

244-601: A Pompeian home would typically divide the wall into three or more sections under which there would be a dado taking up roughly one-sixth of the height of the wall. The wall sections would be divided by broad pilasters connected by a frieze which bands across the top of the wall. The ornament found at the Casa Degli Amorini Dorati in Pompeii reflected this standard style and included objects that had clearly been reused, and rare and imported objects. Several of

305-603: A cave to many layered surfaces made with modern technology. Floors may be stone, wood, bamboo, metal or any other material that can support the expected load. The levels of a building are often referred to as floors, although sometimes referred to as storeys . Floors typically consist of a subfloor for support and a floor covering used to give a good walking surface. In modern buildings the subfloor often has electrical wiring, plumbing, and other services built in. As floors must meet many needs, some essential to safety, floors are built to strict building codes in some regions. Where

366-431: A chemical sealer, like stained concrete or epoxy finishes, usually have a slick finish presenting a potential slip and fall hazard, however there are anti skid additives and coatings which can help mitigate this and provide increased traction. Reliable, science-backed floor slip resistance testing can help floor owners and designers determine if their floor is too slippery, or allow them to choose an appropriate flooring for

427-447: A dimpled rubberized or plastic layer much like bubble wrap that provide little tiny pillars for the one-half-inch (12.7 mm) sheet material above. These are manufactured in 2 ft × 2 ft (61 cm × 61 cm) squares and the edges fit together like a mortise and tenon joint. Like a floor on joists not on concrete, a second sheeting underlayment layer is added with staggered joints to disperse forces that would open

488-497: A feature of the latter class. The history of art in many cultures shows a series of wave-like trends where the level of ornament used increases over a period, before a sharp reaction returns to plainer forms, after which ornamentation gradually increases again. The pattern is especially clear in post-Roman European art, where the highly ornamented Insular art of the Book of Kells and other manuscripts influenced continental Europe, but

549-636: A fibrous mesh and concrete building composite floor cladding is used for smaller high quality tile floors; these "concrete" subfloors have a good thermal match with ceramic tiles and so are popular with builders constructing kitchen, laundry and especially both common and high end bathrooms and any other room where large expanses of well supported ceramic tile will be used as a finished floor. Floors using small (4.5 in or 11.4 cm and smaller) ceramic tiles generally use only an additional 1 ⁄ 4 -inch (6.4 mm) layer of plywood (if that) and substitute adhesive and substrate materials making do with both

610-488: A flexible joints and semi-flexible mounting compounds and so are designed to withstand the greater flexing which large tiles cannot tolerate without breaking. A ground-level floor can be an earthen floor made of soil , or be solid ground floors made of concrete slab . Ground level slab floors are uncommon in northern latitudes where freezing provides significant structural problems, except in heated interior spaces such as basements or for outdoor unheated structures such as

671-463: A floor covering. Both terms are used interchangeably but floor covering refers more to loose-laid materials. Materials almost always classified as floor covering include carpet , area rugs , and resilient flooring such as linoleum or vinyl flooring. Materials commonly called flooring include wood flooring , laminated wood, ceramic tile , stone , terrazzo , and various seamless chemical floor coatings. The choice of material for floor covering

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732-445: A floor or perform a useful service. Examples include floor medallions , which provide a decorative centerpiece of a floor design, or gratings used to drain water or to rub dirt off shoes. Floors may be built on beams or joists or use structures like prefabricated hollow core slabs . The subfloor builds on those and attaches by various means particular to the support structure, but the support and subfloor together always provides

793-419: A gazebo or shed where unitary temperatures are not creating pockets of troublesome meltwaters. Ground-level slab floors are prepared for pouring by grading the site, which usually also involves removing topsoil and other organic materials well away from the slab site. Once the site has reached a suitable firm inorganic base material that is graded further so that it is flat and level, and then topped by spreading

854-471: A history of ornament ) of 1893, who in the process developed his influential concept of the Kunstwollen . Riegl traced formalistic continuity and development in decorative plant forms from Ancient Egyptian art and other ancient Near Eastern civilizations through the classical world to the arabesque of Islamic art . While the concept of the Kunstwollen has few followers today, his basic analysis of

915-485: A joint under the stress of live loads like a person walking. Three layers are common only in highest-quality construction. The two layers in high-quality construction will both be thick 3 ⁄ 4 inch (19.1 mm) sheets (as will the third when present), but they may have a combined thickness of only half that in cheaper construction – 1 ⁄ 2  in (12.7 mm) panel overlaid by 1 ⁄ 4  in (6.4 mm) plywood subflooring. At

976-403: A layer-cake of force dispersing sand and gravel. Deeper channels may be dug, especially the slab ends and across the slab width at regular intervals in which a continuous run of rebar is bent and wired to sit at two heights within forming a sub-slab "concrete girder". Above the targeted bottom height (coplanar with the compacted sand and gravel topping) a separate grid of rebar or welded wire mesh

1037-697: A millennium, and after a period when they were replaced by Gothic forms , powerfully revived in the Italian Renaissance and remain extremely widely used today. Ornament in the Roman empire utilized a diverse array of styles and materials, including marble, glass, obsidian, and gold. Roman ornament, specifically in the context of Pompeii, has been studied and written about by scholar Jessica Powers in her book chapter "Beyond Painting in Pompeii's Houses: Wall Ornaments and Their Patrons." Instead of studying ornamental objects in isolation, Powers argues that, if

1098-663: A number of original themes, including figures of plants and animals of the region. The Ancient Greek civilization created many new forms of ornament, which were diffused across Eurasia , helped by the conquests of Alexander the Great , and the expansion of Buddhism , which took some motifs to East Asia in somewhat modified form. In the West the Ancient Roman Latinized forms of the Greek ornament lasted for around

1159-467: A rich and linked tradition of plant-based ornament for over three thousand years; traditional ornament from other parts of the world typically relies more on geometrical and animal motifs. The inspiration for the patterns usually lies in the nature that surrounds the people in the region. Many nomadic tribes in Central Asia had many animalistic motifs before the penetration of Islam in the region. In

1220-412: A special floor structure like a floating floor is laid upon another floor, both may be called subfloors. Special floor structures are used for a number of purposes: Floor covering is a term to generically describe any material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface. Flooring is the general term for a permanent or temporary covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such

1281-611: A stiffer, higher-quality subfloor, especially for the later class. Since the wall base and flooring interact forming a joint, such later added semi-custom floors will generally not be hardwood, for that joint construction would be in the wrong order unless the wall base trim was also delayed pending the choosing. The subfloor may also provide underfloor heating and if floor radiant heating is not used, will certainly suffer puncture openings to be put through for forced air ducts for both heating and air conditioning , or pipe holes for forced hot water or steam heating transport piping conveying

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1342-655: A suitable style. "The great question is," Thomas Leverton Donaldson asked in 1847, "are we to have an architecture of our period, a distinct, individual, palpable style of the 19th century?". In 1849, when Matthew Digby Wyatt viewed the French Industrial Exposition set up on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, he disapproved in recognizably modern terms of the plaster ornaments in faux-bronze and faux woodgrain: Both internally and externally there

1403-497: A throne. In life drawing rooms of art schools , the platform where the model poses for the students is sometimes referred to as the dais. A dais for giving speeches is called a rostrum . The first written record of the word dais in English is from the thirteenth century. It stopped being used in English around 1600 but was revived by antiquarians in the early 19th century with the disyllabic pronunciation. It comes from

1464-458: Is a good deal of tasteless and unprofitable ornament... If each simple material had been allowed to tell its own tale, and the lines of the construction so arranged as to conduce to a sentiment of grandeur, the qualities of "power" and "truth," which its enormous extent must have necessarily ensured, could have scarcely fail to excite admiration, and that at a very considerable saving of expense. Contacts with other cultures through colonialism and

1525-508: Is a live load on the floor above. In Europe and North America only a few rare floors have no separate floor covering on top, and those are normally because of a temporary condition pending sales or occupancy; in semi-custom new construction and some rental markets, such floors are provided for the new home buyer or renter to select their preferred floor coverings, usually a wall-to-wall carpet or one-piece vinyl floor covering. Wood clad ( hardwood ) and tile covered finished floors generally require

1586-455: Is affected by factors such as cost, endurance, noise insulation, comfort and cleaning effort, and sometimes concern about allergens . Some types of flooring must not be installed below grade (lower than ground level), and laminate or hardwood should be avoided where there may be moisture or condensation. The subfloor may be finished in a way that makes it usable without any extra work. See: A number of special features may be used to ornament

1647-563: Is caused by the wood rubbing against other wood, usually at a joint of the subfloor. Firmly securing the pieces to each other with screws or nails may reduce this problem. Floor vibration is a problem with floors. Wood floors tend to pass sound, particularly heavy footsteps and low bass frequencies . Floating floors can reduce this problem. Concrete floors are usually so massive they do not have this problem, but they are also much more expensive to construct and must meet more stringent building requirements due to their weight. Floors with

1708-477: Is usually added to reinforce the concrete , and will be tied to the under slab "girder" rebar at intervals. The under slab cast girders are used especially if it the slab be used structurally, i.e., to support part of the building. Floors in wood-frame homes are usually constructed with joists centered no more than 16 inches (41 centimeters) apart, according to most building codes . Heavy floors, such as those made of stone , require more closely spaced joists. If

1769-607: The Great Male Renunciation . Ornament in architecture and furniture resumed in the later 19th century Napoleon III style , Victorian decorative arts and their equivalents from other countries, to be decisively reduced by the Arts and Crafts movement and then Modernism . The detailed study of Eurasian ornamental forms was begun by Alois Riegl in his formalist study Stilfragen : Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik ( Problems of style: foundations for

1830-566: The Islamic ornaments there, including arabesques , calligraphy , and geometric patterns . Interest in classical architecture was also fueled by the tradition of traveling on The Grand Tour , and by translation of early literature about architecture in the work of Vitruvius and Michelangelo . During the 19th century, the acceptable use of ornament, and its precise definition became the source of aesthetic controversy in academic Western architecture, as architects and their critics searched for

1891-534: The plenum , or come directly from underneath (or from an attic). Pipes for plumbing, sewerage, underfloor heating, and other utilities may be laid directly in slab floors, typically via cellular floor raceways . However, later maintenance of these systems can be expensive, requiring the opening of concrete or other fixed structures. Electrically heated floors are available, and both kinds of systems can also be used in wood floors as well. Wood floors, particularly older ones, will tend to 'squeak' in certain places. This

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1952-416: The span between load-bearing walls is too long for joists to safely support, then a heavy crossbeam (thick or laminated wood, or a metal I-beam or H-beam ) may be used. A "subfloor" of plywood or waferboard is then laid over the joists. In modern buildings, there are numerous services provided via ducts or wires underneath the floor or above the ceiling . The floor of one level typically also holds

2013-456: The " International Style ". What began as a matter of taste was transformed into an aesthetic mandate. Modernists declared their way as the only acceptable way to build. As the style hit its stride in the highly developed postwar work of Mies van der Rohe , the tenets of 1950s modernism became so strict that even accomplished architects like Edward Durrell Stone and Eero Saarinen could be ridiculed and effectively ostracized for departing from

2074-482: The Anglo-French deis , meaning "table" or "platform", which comes from Medieval Latin discus , meaning "table", earlier "disc" or "dish". [REDACTED] Media related to Dais at Wikimedia Commons This architectural element –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Floor A floor is the bottom surface of a room or vehicle. Floors vary from simple dirt in

2135-826: The Roman temple, the extravagant use of ornament served as a means of self-glorification, as scholar Owen Jones notes in his book chapter, Roman Ornament. Roman ornament techniques include surface-modeling, where ornamental styles are applied onto a surface. This was a common ornamental style with marble surfaces. One common ornamental style was the use of acanthus leaf, a motif adopted from the Greeks. The use of acanthus leaf and other naturalist motifs can be seen in Corinthian capitals, in temples, and in other public sites. A few medieval notebooks survive, most famously that of Villard de Honnecourt (13th century) showing how artists and craftsmen recorded designs they saw for future use. With

2196-482: The aesthetic rules. At the same time, the unwritten laws against ornament began to come into serious question. "Architecture has, with some difficulty, liberated itself from ornament, but it has not liberated itself from the fear of ornament," John Summerson observed in 1941. The very difference between ornament and structure is subtle and perhaps arbitrary. The pointed arches and flying buttresses of Gothic architecture are ornamental but structurally necessary;

2257-484: The applied arts, including pottery , furniture , metalwork . In textiles , wallpaper and other objects where the decoration may be the main justification for its existence, the terms pattern or design are more likely to be used. The vast range of motifs used in ornament draw from geometrical shapes and patterns, plants, and human and animal figures. Across Eurasia and the Mediterranean world there has been

2318-459: The arrival of the print , ornament prints became an important part of the output of printmakers, especially in Germany, and played a vital role in the rapid diffusion of new Renaissance styles to makers of all sorts of object. As well as revived classical ornament, both architectural and the grotesque style derived from Roman interior decoration, these included new styles such as the moresque ,

2379-450: The beginning of recorded history , ranging from Ancient Egyptian architecture to the assertive lack of ornament of 20th century Modernist architecture . Ornaments also depict a certain philosophy of the people for the world around. For example, in Central Asia among nomadic Kazakhs, the circular lines of the ornaments signalled the sequential perception of time in the wide steppes and the breadth and freedom of space. Ornament implies that

2440-481: The cause of aesthetic simplification, dismissing the knots of intricately patterned ornament that articulated the skin of his structures. With the work of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus through the 1920s and 1930s, lack of decorative detail became a hallmark of modern architecture and equated with the moral virtues of honesty, simplicity, and purity. In 1932 Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock dubbed this

2501-512: The ceiling of the level below (if any). Services provided by subfloors include: In floors supported by joists, utilities are run through the floor by drilling small holes through the joists to serve as conduits. Where the floor is over the basement or crawlspace , utilities may instead be run under the joists, making the installation less expensive. Also, ducts for air conditioning (central heating and cooling) are large and cannot cross through joists or beams; thus, ducts are typically at or near

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2562-732: The classically inspired Carolingian and Ottonian art largely replaced it. Ornament increased over the Romanesque and Gothic periods, but was greatly reduced in Early Renaissance styles, again under classical influence. Another period of increase, in Northern Mannerism , the Baroque and Rococo , was checked by Neoclassicism and the Romantic period . Ornament in male clothing went out of fashion around 1800, in

2623-570: The colorful rhythmic bands of a Pietro Belluschi International Style skyscraper are integral, not applied, but certainly have ornamental effect. Furthermore, architectural ornament can serve the practical purpose of establishing scale, signaling entries, and aiding wayfinding, and these useful design tactics had been outlawed. And by the mid-1950s, modernist figureheads Le Corbusier and Marcel Breuer had been breaking their own rules by producing highly expressive, sculptural concrete work. The argument against ornament peaked in 1959 over discussions of

2684-433: The dais, which provided retirement or greater privacy than the open hall. The dais area often had its own doorway for admission from the master's chambers, whereas most of the guests entered through a doorway leading into the main area of the hall. At military parades , the dais is the raised, sometimes covered, platform from where the troops are reviewed, addresses are made, and salutes are taken. It can also have stairs and

2745-523: The decorative wall panels were identified as being from the Greek East or Egypt, not from Pompeii. This points to the elaborate trade routes that flourished across the Roman Empire, and that home owners were interested in using materials from outside of Pompeii to embellish their homes. In addition to homes, public buildings and temples are locations where Roman ornament styles were on display. In

2806-535: The development of forms has been confirmed and refined by the wider corpus of examples known today. Jessica Rawson has recently extended the analysis to cover Chinese art , which Riegl did not cover, tracing many elements of Chinese decoration back to the same tradition; the shared background helping to make the assimilation of Chinese motifs into Persian art after the Mongol invasion harmonious and productive. Styles of ornamentation can be studied in reference to

2867-401: The heat from furnace to the local room's heat exchangers (radiators). Some subfloors are inset below the top surface level of surrounding flooring's joists and such subfloors and a normal height joist are joined to make a plywood box both molding and containing at least two inches (5 cm) of concrete (A mud floor" in builders' parlance). Alternatively, only a slightly inset floor topped by

2928-425: The highest end, or in select rooms of the building there might be three sheeting layers, and such stiff subflooring is necessary to prevent the cracking of large floor tiles of 9–10 inches (22.9–25.4 cm) or more on a side. The structure under such a floor will frequently also have extra "bracing" and "blocking" joist-to-joist intended to spread the weight to have as little sagging on any joist as possible when there

2989-433: The information is provided, objects must be approached in their original context. This information might include the location where the work was found, other objects located or found nearby, or who the patron was who might have commissioned the work. Jessica Powers' chapter primarily discusses the Casa Degli Amorini Dorati in Pompeii, where 18 wall ornaments were found, the most of any Pompeiian home. Interior wall ornament in

3050-412: The intended purpose before installation. The flooring may need protection sometimes. A gym floor cover can be used to reduce the need to satisfy incompatible requirements. Floor cleaning is a major occupation throughout the world and has been since ancient times. Cleaning is essential for hygiene , to prevent injuries due to slips, and to remove dirt. Floors are also treated to protect or beautify

3111-528: The most influential book ever written on architecture. Napoleon had the great pyramids and temples of Egypt documented in the Description de l'Egypte (1809) . Owen Jones published The Grammar of Ornament in 1856 with colored illustrations of decoration from Egypt, Turkey, Sicily and Spain. He took residence in the Alhambra Palace to make drawings and plaster castings of the ornate details of

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3172-449: The new discoveries of archaeology expanded the repertory of ornament available to revivalists. After about 1880, photography made details of ornament even more widely available than prints had done. Modern millwork ornaments are made of wood, plastics, composites, etc. They come in many different colours and shapes. Modern architecture , conceived of as the elimination of ornament in favor of purely functional structures, left architects

3233-433: The ornamented object has a function that an unornamented equivalent might also fulfill. Where the object has no such function, but exists only to be a work of art such as a sculpture or painting, the term is less likely to be used, except for peripheral elements. In recent centuries a distinction between the fine arts and applied or decorative arts has been applied (except for architecture), with ornament mainly seen as

3294-407: The panels on the walls of the Casa Degli Amorini Dorati were removed during archeological work in the 1970s, revealing that the panels had been stuck on different walls before the one on which they were found. Jessica Powers argues that these panels illustrate the home owner and correlating patrons' willingness to utilize damaged or secondhand materials in their own home. Moreover, the materials used in

3355-403: The problem of how to properly adorn modern structures. There were two available routes from this perceived crisis. One was to attempt to devise an ornamental vocabulary that was new and essentially contemporary. This was the route taken by architects like Louis Sullivan and his pupil Frank Lloyd Wright , or by the unique Antoni Gaudí . Art Nouveau , popular around the turn of the 20th century,

3416-456: The specific culture which developed unique forms of decoration, or modified ornament from other cultures. The Ancient Egyptian culture is arguably the first civilization to add pure decoration to their buildings. Their ornament takes the forms of the natural world in that climate, decorating the capitals of columns and walls with images of papyrus and palm trees. Assyrian culture produced ornament which shows influence from Egyptian sources and

3477-530: The strength of a floor one can sense underfoot. Nowadays, subfloors are generally made from at least two layers of moisture-resistant ("AC" grade, one side finished and sanded flat) plywood or composite sheeting, jointly also termed Underlayments on floor joists of 2x8, 2x10, or 2x12's ( dimensional lumber ) spaced generally on 16-inch (40.6 cm) centers, in the United States and Canada. Some flooring components used solely on concrete slabs consist of

3538-466: The surface. The correct method to clean one type of floor can often damage another, so it is important to use the correct treatment. [REDACTED] Media related to Floors at Wikimedia Commons Ornament (architecture) In architecture and decorative art , ornament is decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from

3599-496: The term; most ornaments do not include human figures, and if present they are small compared to the overall scale. Architectural ornament can be carved from stone, wood or precious metals, formed with plaster or clay, or painted or impressed onto a surface as applied ornament ; in other applied arts the main material of the object, or a different one such as paint or vitreous enamel may be used. A wide variety of decorative styles and motifs have been developed for architecture and

3660-452: Was described by architect Adolf Loos in his 1908 manifesto, translated into English in 1913 and polemically titled Ornament and Crime , in which he declared that lack of decoration is the sign of an advanced society. His argument was that ornament is economically inefficient and "morally degenerate", and that reducing ornament was a sign of progress. Modernists were eager to point to American architect Louis Sullivan as their godfather in

3721-566: Was in part a conscious effort to evolve such a "natural" vocabulary of ornament. A more radical route abandoned the use of ornament altogether, as in some designs for objects by Christopher Dresser . At the time, such unornamented objects could have been found in many unpretending workaday items of industrial design, ceramics produced at the Arabia manufactory in Finland, for instance, or the glass insulators of electric lines. This latter approach

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