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52-398: The cornice continues round the top of the pediment, as well as below it; the rising sides are often called the "raking cornice". The tympanum is the triangular area within the pediment, which is often decorated with a pedimental sculpture which may be freestanding or a relief sculpture. The tympanum may hold an inscription, or in modern times, a clock face. The main variant shapes are

104-411: A palazzo into a church. Three windows on each of three storeys (and the door) alternate regular and segmental pediments; there is no pediment at the top of the facade, just a large cornice, as was usual. In St Peter's Basilica there is a conventional pediment over the main entrance, but the complicated facade stretches beyond it to both sides and above, and though large in absolute terms it makes

156-572: A feature also seen at the Al-Khazneh (so-called "Treasury") tomb at Petra in modern Jordan . The broken pediments on each of the four sides of the Arch of Septimius Severus at Leptis Magna in Libya are very small elements, raking at an extremely steep angle, but not extending beyond the entablature for the columns below. There are two faces to each pediment, both carved, with one lying parallel to

208-572: A full pediment above. This effectively divorced the pediment from the columns beneath it in the original temple front ensemble, and thereafter it was no longer considered necessary for a pediment to be above columns. The most famous example of the Greek scheme is the Parthenon , with two tympanums filled with large groups of sculpted figures. An extreme but very influential example of the Roman style

260-502: A miser character being damned, and even making comments about politics by showing Charlemagne bowing his head. Another example from France, the Coucy Doujon tympanum was carved between 1225 and 1230 and is evidence that tympanums were used in secular settings as well. The large tympanum was positioned above the door to the largest tower, as a way to tell anyone entering the building a message. The message for this particular tympanum

312-479: A much more acute angle at the top were used, especially over doorways and windows, but while the rising sides of the cornice is elaborate, the horizontal bottom element was typically not very distinct. Often there is a pointed arch underneath, and no bottom element at all. "Pediment" is typically not used for these; they are often called a "canopy". From the Renaissance onwards, some pediments no longer fitted

364-566: A pediment, however the evolution of tympanums gives them more specific implications. Pediments first emerged in classical Greece 700-480 BCE, with early examples such as the pantheon remaining famous to this day. Pediments spread across the Hellenistic world with the rest of classical architecture. Inscriptions at the time were sometimes blank but often contained statues of the gods and representations of geographic features, there are uncountable stories and messages in these inscriptions however

416-595: A relatively small impression. Many later buildings used a temple front with pediment as a highlight of a much wider building. The St Peter's facade also has many small pedimented windows and aedicular niches, using a mixture of segmental, broken, and open pediments. Variations using multiple pediments became very popular in Baroque architecture , and the central vertical line of church facades often ascended through several pediments of different sizes and shapes, in Rome five at

468-528: A segment of a circle, in the manner of a depressed arch. Both traditional and segmental pediments have "broken" and "open" forms. In the broken pediment the raking cornice is left open at the apex. The open pediment is open along the base, with a gap in the cornice for part or all of the space under the pediment. All these forms were used in Hellenistic architecture, especially in Alexandria and

520-427: Is Christ in the middle and the saved souls on the left, serving as a reminder for pilgrims of why they made their journey. The imagery on this tympanum is primarily meant to remind the viewer of the power of gods judgement, part of many ways that tympanums through the era mentally prepare pilgrims for the experience of the church. There are many more subtle messages however, such as encouraging donations through depicting

572-599: Is a large marble monument in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. It was built in Miletus in the 2nd century AD and destroyed in an earthquake in the 10th or 11th century. In the early 1900s, it was excavated by a German archeological team, rebuilt, and placed on display in the museum in Berlin. Only fragments had survived and reconstruction involved significant new material, a practice which generated criticism of

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624-430: Is found in classical Greek temples, Etruscan, Roman, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and Beaux-Arts architecture. Greek temples, normally rectangular in plan, generally had a pediment at each end, but Roman temples, and subsequent revivals, often had only one, in both cases across the whole width of the main front or facade. The rear of the typical Roman temple was a blank wall, usually without columns, but often

676-548: Is not entirely original, as little of the base and lower floor survived the centuries; additional material includes brick, cement, and steel. The gate is affixed by iron girders to the wall behind it. While in Miletus, niches on the second story featured statues of emperors, some fighting against barbarians. The gate was built in the 2nd century AD, most likely during the reign of Emperor Hadrian about 120 to 130 AD. It replaced an existing Doric propylon and served as

728-630: Is relatively unknown, featuring a figure likely from Coucy family history fighting a lion. Lions had many symbolic meanings in the Romanesque era and this one is likely a reference to a king or an event from the crusades. Despite the secular theme, it has a very similar style, form, and purpose to the many tympanums on nearby churches. Retaining the shape and inscription and showing a large central character with classically inspired detail, movement and emotion. Market Gate of Miletus The Market Gate of Miletus ( German : das Markttor von Milet )

780-551: Is the Pantheon, Rome , where a portico with pediment fronts a circular temple. In ancient Rome , the Renaissance , and later architectural revivals , small pediments are a non-structural element over windows , doors , and aediculae , protecting windows and openings from rain, as well as being decorative. From the 5th century pediments also might appear on tombs and later non-architectural objects such as sarcophagi . In

832-486: Is the swan's neck pediment , a broken pediment with two S-shaped profiles resembling a swan's neck, typically volutes ; this is mostly found in furniture rather than buildings. It was popular in American doorways from the 1760's onwards. Very often there is a vase-like ornament in the middle, between the volutes. Non-triangular variations of pediments are often found over doors, windows, niches, and porches. The pediment

884-407: Is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and an arch . It often contains pedimental sculpture or other imagery or ornaments. Many architectural styles include this element. Alternatively, the tympanum may hold an inscription, or in modern times, a clock face. Tympanums are by definition inscriptions enclosed by

936-555: The Church of the Gesù ( Giacomo della Porta 1584) and six at Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi ( Martino Longhi the Younger , 1646), the top three folding into each other, using the same base line. This facade has been described as "a veritable symphony in repetitious pedimentry, bringing together a superimposed array of broken pediments, open pediments and arched pediments". The Gesù is

988-641: The Middle East . The so-called "Treasury" or Al-Khazneh , a 1st-century rock-cut tomb in Petra , Jordan, is a famously extreme example, with not merely the pediment, but the whole entablature , very "broken" and retreating into the cliff face. Broken pediments where the gap is extremely wide in this way are often called "half-pediments". They were adopted in Mannerist architecture , and applied to furniture designed by Thomas Chippendale . Another variant

1040-595: The Tempio Malatestiano (1450s, incomplete), Santa Maria Novella (to 1470), San Sebastiano in Mantua (unfinished by the 1470s), Sant'Andrea, Mantua (begun 1472), and Pienza Cathedral c.  1460 ), where the design was probably his. Here the cornice comes out and then retreats back, forming the top of pilasters with no capitals, a very unclassical note, which was to become much used. In most of these Alberti followed classical precedent by having

1092-431: The "segmental", "curved", or "arch" pediment, where the straight line triangle of the cornice is replaced by a curve making a segment of a circle, the broken pediment where the cornice has a gap at the apex, and the open pediment , with a gap in the cornice along the base. Both triangular and segmental pediments can have "broken" and "open" forms. Pediments are found in ancient Greek architecture as early as 580 BC, in

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1144-429: The 9th or 10th century. This transformation continued throughout the later parts of the early Middle Ages, gradually shifting into the large circular stained glass windows of the gothic era known as rose windows. Classical pediments more closely transformed into rose windows than tympanums, and when pedimental shapes reappeared over gothic and Romanesque portals, inspiration can be traced in other directions. According to

1196-472: The Gospel of Luke, above Jesus on the cross was written "this is the king of jews" to mock his powerlessness. This inspired buildings as early as the arch of Constantine and old Saint Peters basilica which featured an engraving a Christ with a poem inscribed in second person perspective, an essential feature of later tympanum inscriptions. Early reliquaries and pilgrimage churches employed this convention, such as

1248-456: The Hellenistic period pediments became used for a wider range of buildings, and treated much more freely, especially outside Greece itself. Broken and open pediments are used in a way that is often described as "baroque". The large 2nd-century Market Gate of Miletus , now reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin , has a pediment that retreats in the centre, so appears both broken and open,

1300-594: The Shrine of Saint Martin at Tours which in 558 installed engravings of the life of Christ and the churches patron saint (Saint Martin). These engravings situated directly above the main entrances had poems inscribed directing visitors on how they should feel entering the church. This was quickly replicated in Carolingian era churches such as the abbey of Saint Gall in Switzerland, completing the decorative style of

1352-523: The Sony Tower, Sony Plaza, and AT&T Building), a famous work of Post-Modern architecture , where a broken pediment at the top of a typical skyscraper wittily evokes a Thomas Chippendale -style tallboy at a massive scale. Marco Polo House in London (1989, now demolished) was similar. Tympanum (architecture) A tympanum ( pl. : tympana ; from Greek and Latin words meaning "drum")

1404-401: The archaic Temple of Artemis, Corfu , which was probably one of the first. Pediments return in Renaissance architecture and are then much used in later styles such as Baroque , Neoclassical , and Beaux-Arts architecture , which favoured the segmental variant. A variant is the "segmental" or "arch" pediment, where the normal angular slopes of the cornice are replaced by one in the form of

1456-455: The bottom. The giant curving volute or scroll used at the sides of the middle zone at Sant'Agostino was to be a very common feature over the next two centuries. As in Gothic architecture, this often reflected the shapes of the roofs behind, where the nave was higher than the side-aisles. Sant'Agostino also has a low, squashed down pediment at the top of the full-width section. This theme

1508-458: The decade of the 2000s. The gate had deteriorated from a combination of indoor atmospheric effects and incompatible building materials. Fragments of the gate have spontaneously loosened and fallen, necessitating the addition of a fence in front of the structure to protect visitors. The state of the structure was documented prior to restoration, from about 2003 through 2004, including the production of three-dimensional photogrammetric models due to

1560-548: The gate were destroyed along with a protective brick wall. The right wing collapsed and the structure was damaged by fire and shrapnel; the loss of the brick wall also exposed the gate to weathering for two years. After winter passed, a temporary roof was constructed to protect the gate from the elements. From 1952 to 1954, the structure was extensively restored under the supervision of archaeologist H. H. Völker. However, little documentation exists detailing what specific work took place. The next major restoration work took place in

1612-513: The home church of the Jesuit order , who favoured this style, which was first seen in many cities around Europe in a new main Jesuit church. Pediments became extremely common on the main facades of English country houses , and many across northern Europe; these might be placed over a porch with columns, or simply decorations to an essentially flat facade. In England, if there was any sculpture within

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1664-505: The lack of respect for the conventions of Greek trabeated architecture remains rather disconcerting. Conventional Roman pediments have a slightly steeper pitch than classical Greek ones, perhaps because they ended tiled roofs that received heavier rainfall. In Carolingian and Romanesque architecture pediments tended towards the equilateral triangle , and the enclosing cornice has little emphasis; they are often merely gable ends with some ornament. In Gothic architecture pediments with

1716-497: The last judgement, which was the subject of a large portion of tympanums, however, the Conques tympanum is far more detailed in its figures and scenes in a way reminiscent of Roman reliefs. This work was meant to be horrifying to the people who passed under it, on the right demons torture the souls of the damned, sinners are fed to grotesque monsters, and people are crammed into small spaces as they await their judgment. Contrasting this

1768-619: The museum. The gate was damaged in World War II and underwent restoration in the 1950s. Further restoration work took place in the first decade of the 21st century. The gate is a large marble monument, about 30 meters wide, 16 meters tall, and 5 meters deep. The two-story structure has three doorways and a number of projections and niches. At roof level and in between the floors are ornate friezes with bull and flower reliefs. The structure's protruding pediments are supported by Corinthian and Composite columns . The gate

1820-401: The northern entrance to the southern market, or agora , in Miletus , an ancient Greek city in what is now Turkey. The gate underwent restoration in the 3rd century following damage from an earthquake. When Justinian strengthened the defenses of Miletus in 538, the gate was incorporated into the city walls. In the 10th or 11th century, an earthquake caused the gate to collapse. Fragments of

1872-597: The now abstracted form purely for decoration. After the collapse of the Roman empire, regions with significant classical architecture quickly adopted and transformed the features. In France examples such as the Baptistry of St. Jean at Poitiers created in the 6th through 7th century CE defined Merovingian architecture. The form became abstracted in this period, replacing sculptures with geometric engravings and mosaics, and using small alternating curved and triangular pediments above windows on churches such as St. Generoux from

1924-471: The past in new designs. Part manifesto, part architectural scrapbook accumulated over the previous decade, the book represented the vision for a new generation of architects and designers who had grown up with Modernism but who felt increasingly constrained by its perceived rigidities. Multiple Postmodern architects and designers put simplified reinterpretations of the pediment found in Classical decoration at

1976-418: The pediment occupy the whole width of the facade, or at least that part that projects outwards. Santa Maria Novella and Sant'Agostino, Rome (1483, by Giacomo di Pietrasanta , perhaps designed by Alberti) were early examples of what was to become a very common scheme, where the pediment at the top of the facade was much less wide, forming a third zone above a middle zone that transitioned the width from that of

2028-685: The second storey columns on top, followed by reconstructing the pediments. A base and ground floor were then inserted below. Brick and cement reinforced with steel supplemented the few remains of the lower structure. Original column fragments were bored out, leaving a thickness of 3 to 4 centimetres (1.2 to 1.6 in), and filled with steel and mortar. In the 1920s and 1930s, the museum was criticized for portraying its monuments as originals when they consisted significantly of non-original material. The gate suffered significant damage from aerial bombardment in World War II. The roof and skylight above

2080-481: The sides. Large pediments with columns, often called the "temple front", became widely used for important public buildings such as stock exchanges , reserve banks , law courts, legislatures, and museums, where an impression of solidity, reliability, and respectability was desired. Postmodernism , a movement that questioned Modernism (the status quo after WW2), promoted the inclusion of elements of historic styles in new designs. An early text questioning Modernism

2132-488: The steeply pitched roofs and became freestanding, sometimes sloping in the opposite direction to the roof behind. When classical-style low triangular pediments returned in Italian Renaissance architecture , they were initially mostly used to top a relatively flat facade, with engaged elements rather than freestanding porticos supported by columns. Leon Battista Alberti used them in this way in his churches:

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2184-500: The structure were scavenged and used in surrounding buildings, but the majority subsided into the ground. German archaeologist Theodor Wiegand conducted a series of excavations in Miletus from 1899 through 1911. In 1903, the Market Gate of Miletus was excavated and from 1907 to 1908, fragments of the gate were transported to Berlin. Wiegand wrote in his diaries that he gave a presentation using models to Kaiser Wilhelm II , who

2236-573: The symbolism remained closely related to the philosophy and democracy associated with classical Greek city states. These themes continued when the Romans spread the style further into Europe, picking up an aspect of authoritarian symbolism in provinces captured by conquest. Originally serving as the end of a gabled roof, in later imperial Rome the form was adjusted. Pediments started being placed above any doorway and curved instead of triangle shapes were introduced, ignoring structural value and instead using

2288-593: The temple front for churches, but in the Baroque, and especially outside Italy, this distinction was abandoned. The first use of pediments over windows in the Renaissance was on the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni in Florence, completed in 1523 by Baccio d'Agnolo . Vasari says the innovation caused ridicule initially, but later came to be admired and widely adopted. Baccio was accused of turning

2340-508: The top of their creations. As with other elements and ornaments taken from styles of the pre-Modern past, they were in most cases highly simplified. Especially when it comes to office architecture, Postmodernism was only skin deep; the underlying structure was usually very similar, if not identical, to that of Modernist buildings. In 1984 Philip Johnson designed what is now called 550 Madison Avenue in New York City (formerly known as

2392-496: The tympanum, it was often restricted to a coat of arms . Neoclassical architecture returned to "purer" classical models mostly using conventional triangular pediments, often over a portico with columns. Large schemes of pedimental sculpture were used where the budget allowed. In 19th-century styles freer treatments returned, and large segmental pediments were especially popular in eclectic styles such as Beaux-Arts architecture , often overwhelmed by sculpture within, above, and to

2444-472: The tympanum. The Romanesque era (1000–1200) saw massive change in church architecture. Pilgrimage required churches to rethink layouts and symbolism and the ever-rising Benedictine order changed rules on how churches should operate and appear. Architecturally the Romanesque era saw an increased appreciation for classical forms, coupled with an increase in church construction related to several factors including political turmoil and as thanks to god for not ending

2496-465: The wall of the monument, and the other at right angles to that. The Arch of Augustus in Rimini , Italy (27 BC), an early imperial monument, suggests that at this stage provincial Roman architects were not well practiced in the classical vocabulary; the base of the pediment ends close to, but not over, the capitals of the columns. Here the whole temple front is decoration applied to a very solid wall, but

2548-558: The world in the year 1000. Tympanums are one of the most prominent features of Romanesque architecture, building on the French legacy of architectural innovation while also appearing on churches across Europe. The tympanum above the west portal of the Sainte-Foy church in Conques is possibly the most famous tympanum; carved in the early 1100s it is emblematic of the style, purpose and culture of Romanesque tympanums. This tympanum depicts

2600-528: Was by architect Robert Venturi , Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), in which he recommended a revival of the 'presence of the past' in architectural design. He tried to include in his own buildings qualities that he described as 'inclusion, inconsistency, compromise, accommodation, adaptation, superadjacency, equivalence, multiple focus, juxtaposition, or good and bad space.' Venturi encouraged 'quotation', which means reusing elements of

2652-606: Was developed by Andrea Palladio in the next century. The main facade of his San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (begun 1566) has "two interpenetrating temple fronts", a wider one being overlaid with a narrower and higher one, respectively following the roof lines of the aisles and nave. Several of Palladio's villas also introduced the pediment to country house architecture, which was to be become extremely common in English Palladian architecture . In cities, Palladio reserved

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2704-503: Was so impressed that he ordered the gate's reconstruction at full scale "like a theater backdrop" in the Pergamon Museum. From 1925 to 1929, the gate was reassembled in the recently expanded museum from over 750 tons of fragments. However, the fragments did not constitute the entirety of the gate, and fill material had to be used in the reconstruction. Reconstruction began by assembling the middle-floor entablature and placing

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