Hasht Behesht
Hasht Behesht meaning "the Eight Heavens" in Persian, is a 17th-century pavilion in Isfahan, Iran. It was built by order of Suleiman I, the eighth shah of Iran's Safavid Empire, functioned as a private pavilion, it is located in Isfahan's famous Charbagh Street. As indicated on its name, the two-story pavilion of Hasht Behesht was built on the hasht-behesht plan, a type of floor plan consisting of a central hall surrounded by eight rooms; the building is of an octagonal shape, has two main entrances. Four larger sides of it feature large balconies, under which some tall and thin wooden columns are raised; the pavilion is decorated with mural paintings, perforated woodwork, prismatic mirrors and plasterwork. Wilber, D. N.. Persian Gardens and Garden Pavilions. Tokyo. Pp. 107–11. Ferrante, M.. "Le Pavillon de Hašt Bihišt, ou les Huit Paradis, à Ispahan: Relevés et problèmes s'y rattachant'". In Zander, G. Travaux de restauration de monuments historiques en Iran. Rome. Pp. 399–420
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman Empire, of the Byzantine Empire, of the brief Crusader state known as the Latin Empire, until falling to the Ottoman Empire. It was reinaugurated in 324 from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, dedicated on 11 May 330; the city was located in what is now the core of modern Istanbul. From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe; the city was famed for its architectural masterpieces, such as the Greek Orthodox cathedral of Hagia Sophia, which served as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the sacred Imperial Palace where the Emperors lived, the Galata Tower, the Hippodrome, the Golden Gate of the Land Walls, the opulent aristocratic palaces lining the arcaded avenues and squares. The University of Constantinople was founded in the fifth century and contained numerous artistic and literary treasures before it was sacked in 1204 and 1453, including its vast Imperial Library which contained the remnants of the Library of Alexandria and had over 100,000 volumes of ancient texts.
It was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times as the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and as the guardian of Christendom's holiest relics such as the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross. Constantinople was famed for its complex defences; the first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, surrounded the city on both land and sea fronts. In the 5th century, the Praetorian Prefect Anthemius under the child emperor Theodosius II undertook the construction of the Theodosian Walls, which consisted of a double wall lying about 2 kilometres to the west of the first wall and a moat with palisades in front; this formidable complex of defences was one of the most sophisticated of Antiquity. The city was built intentionally to rival Rome, it was claimed that several elevations within its walls matched the'seven hills' of Rome; because it was located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara the land area that needed defensive walls was reduced, this helped it to present an impregnable fortress enclosing magnificent palaces and towers, the result of the prosperity it achieved from being the gateway between two continents and two seas.
Although besieged on numerous occasions by various armies, the defences of Constantinople proved impregnable for nearly nine hundred years. In 1204, the armies of the Fourth Crusade took and devastated the city, its inhabitants lived several decades under Latin misrule. In 1261 the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos liberated the city, after the restoration under the Palaiologos dynasty, enjoyed a partial recovery. With the advent of the Ottoman Empire in 1299, the Byzantine Empire began to lose territories and the city began to lose population. By the early 15th century, the Byzantine Empire was reduced to just Constantinople and its environs, along with Morea in Greece, making it an enclave inside the Ottoman Empire. According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, the first known name of a settlement on the site of Constantinople was Lygos, a settlement of Thracian origin founded between the 13th and 11th centuries BC; the site, according to the founding myth of the city, was abandoned by the time Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded Byzantium in around 657 BC, across from the town of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.
The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the Latin Byzantium, are not clear, though some suggest it is of Thraco-Illyrian origin. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas; the Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men and Antes, though this was more just a play on the word Byzantion. The city was renamed Augusta Antonina in the early 3rd century AD by the Emperor Septimius Severus, who razed the city to the ground in 196 for supporting a rival contender in the civil war and had it rebuilt in honour of his son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, popularly known as Caracalla; the name appears to have been forgotten and abandoned, the city reverted to Byzantium/Byzantion after either the assassination of Caracalla in 217 or, at the latest, the fall of the Severan dynasty in 235. Byzantium took on the name of Kōnstantinoupolis after its refoundation under Roman emperor Constantine I, who transferred the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium in 330 and designated his new capital as Nova Roma'New Rome'.
During this time, the city was called'Second Rome','Eastern Rome', Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the sole remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, its wealth and influence grew, the city came to have a multitude of nicknames; as the largest and wealthiest city in Europe during the 4th–13th centuries and a centre of culture and education of the Mediterranean basin, Constantinople came to be known by prestigious titles such as Basileuousa and Megalopol
Wambierzyce
Wambierzyce, the "Silesian Jerusalem", is one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in southern Poland. The village is situated at an altitude of 370–410 m in the picturesque Cedron valley on the eastern slopes of the Table Mountains in Lower Silesian Voivodeship; the place was first mentioned in 1330 Alberndorf, 1398 Alberdorf, 1418 Alberti villa, 1560 Alberichsdorf, which evolved into the name Albendorf. Czech pilgrims from Bohemia and Moravia called the place Vambeřice; when Lower Silesia became part of Poland in 1945/1946, the Polish name Wambierzyce became the official name of the village. Today Wambierzyce is part of the district called Gmina Radków in Kłodzko County, it lies 4 kilometres south-east of Radków, 17 kilometres west of Kłodzko, 84 kilometres south-west of the regional capital Wrocław. The wooden statue of Our Lady, dating from the thirteenth century, was placed in a mighty linden tree located at this site. According to the legend a blind man regained his eyesight after praying before the statue.
After that miracle a stone altar was erected in front of the tree. The first wooden chapel was built in 1263. A larger church was destroyed during the Thirty Years' War; the present pilgrimage church'Visitation of Our Lady' goes back to a church built in 1695–1710 following a design thought to resemble the Temple in Jerusalem. However, all but the mighty Renaissance façade had to be torn down three years because the structure had become unsafe; the fourth and present church in Baroque style was built 1715–1723, financed by the local nobleman and owner Count Franz Anton von Götzen. Around the church and village a huge calvary was built. In 1936 the church received the status of a'Basilica minor' from Pope Pius XI. Pope John Paul II awarded the Madonna of Wambierzyce the title of "Queen of Families" in 1980. Basilica of the Visitation, Wambierzyce Tourism in Poland
Skylight
A skylight is a light-transmitting structure that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting purposes. Open skylights were used in Ancient Roman architecture, such as the oculus of the Pantheon. Glazed'closed' skylights have been in use since the Industrial Revolution made advances in glass production manufacturing. Mass production units since the mid-20th century have brought skylights to many contexts. Energy conservation has brought new motivation, design innovation, transmission options, efficiency rating systems for skylights. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, it was France that had the leading technology in architectural glass. One of the earliest forms of the glass skylight can be seen at the Palace of Versailles in the Galerie des Batailles, added onto the existing palace by Louis Philippe in the year 1830. Another form that displays early sky lighting technology is the Halle aux blés built in 1763-67; this form of natural overhead lighting allowed for illumination while decoration could cover the entire interior wall, it is the option least obstructed by other buildings.
This means that sky lighting as we know it, in many forms today, was pioneered in France during the early 18th century or late 17th century. According to architectural glass, the earliest functional skylights would have been formed by either glass casting, crown glass, cylinder blown sheet, machine drawn cylinder sheet, or fourcault process. Skylighting types include roof windows, unit skylights, tubular daylighting devices, sloped glazing, custom skylights. Uses include: daylighting elements used to allow direct and/or indirect sunlight, via toplighting. Providing a visual connection to the outdoor environment to interior occupants. Sustainable building — passive solar heating, with operable units. Open skylightAn unglazed hole in a roof. Fixed unit skylightA fixed skylight consists of a structural perimeter frame supporting glazing infill. A fixed skylight is non-operable. Operable skylightAn operable unit skylight uses a hinged sash attached to and supported by the frame; when within reach of the occupants, this type is called a roof window.
Retractable skylight A retractable skylight rolls - on a set of tracks - off the frame, so that the interior of the facility is open to the outdoors, i.e. not impeded by a hinged skylight. The terms retractable skylight and retractable roof are used interchangeably, though skylight implies a degree of transparency. Tubular daylight device Active daylighting uses a tubular daylighting device—TDD, it is a roof-mounted fixed unit skylight element, condensing sunlight, distributed by a light conveying optic conduit to a light diffusing element. Being small in diameter, they can be used for daylighting smaller spaces such as hallways, bounce light in darker corners of spaces. TDDs harvest daylight through a roof-mounted dome with diameters ranging from about 10 inches for residential applications to 22 inches for commercial buildings. Made from acrylic or polycarbonate formulated to block ultraviolet rays, the dome captures and redirects light rays into an aluminum tubing system that resembles ductwork.
Image:Skylight on the roof terrace of Liverpool Central Library. JPG|TDD skylight on the roof terrace of Liverpool Central Library Sloped glazingSloped glazing differs from other “skylights” in that one assembly contains multiple infill panels in a framing system designed for a specific project and installed in sections on site. Pavement lightsPavement lights are walk-on skylights, they are set into sidewalks, open areas, well-lit interior floors. Prism lightsPrism lights are sometimes used as skylights. Skylights are used in designing daylighting for residential and commercial buildings. Increased daylighting can result in less electrical lighting use and smaller sized window glazing, saving energy, lowering costs, reducing environmental impacts. Daylighting can cut lighting energy use in some buildings by up to 80%. Toplighting works well with sidelighting to maximize daylighting: toplighting is able to bring light into centralized areas of a building daylight is available throughout the day from both ambient lighting from the sky and direct exposure to the sun.
Modern transparent and/or translucent glazing can be utilized to avoid glare, aid in capturing sunlight at low angles and diffuse light to wider areas of floor space. On overcast days, toplighting from skylights is three to ten times more efficient than sidelighting. Many recent advances in both glass and plastic infill systems have benefited all skylight types; some advances increase thermal performance, some are focused on preserving and utilizing daylight potential, some are designed to enhance strength, fire resistance and other performance measures. Contemporary skylights using glass infill use sealed insulating glass units made with two panes of glass; these types of products are NFRC-ratable for visible transmittance. Assemblies with three panes can sometimes be cost-justified in the coldest climate zones, but they lose some light by adding the third layer of glass. Glass units include at least one low emissivity coating applied to one or more glass surfaces to reduce the U-factor and SHGC by suppressing radiant heat flow.
Many varieties of Low-E coatings reduce daylight potential to different degrees. High purity inert gas is used in the space between panes, advances in thermally effic
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by Declaration of former President Thomas Jefferson. UVA is a World Heritage site of the United States, it is known for its historic foundations, student-run honor code, secret societies. The original governing Board of Visitors included Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe. Monroe was the sitting President of the United States at the time of its foundation and earlier Presidents Jefferson and Madison were UVA's first two rectors. Jefferson designed the original courses of study and Academical Village; as the first elected member to the research-driven Association of American Universities in the American South, since 1904, it remains the only AAU member in Virginia. The university is classified as a Research University with Very High Research by the Carnegie Foundation, its recent research efforts have been recognized by such scientific media as the journal Science, which credited UVA faculty with two of the top ten global breakthroughs of 2015.
UVA faculty and alumni have founded a large number of companies, such as Reddit. UVA offers 121 majors across three professional schools; the historic 1,682-acre campus is internationally protected by UNESCO and has been ranked as one of the most beautiful collegiate grounds in the country. UVA additionally maintains 2,913 acres southeast of the city, at Morven Farm; the university manages the College at Wise in Southwest Virginia, until 1972 operated George Mason University and the University of Mary Washington in Northern Virginia. Virginia student athletes compete in 27 collegiate sports and the Cavaliers lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in men's team NCAA championships with 18, additionally placing second in women's national titles with seven. UVA was awarded the men's Capital One Cup in 2015 after fielding the top overall men's athletics program in the nation. In 1802, while serving as President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote to artist Charles Willson Peale that his concept of the new university would be "on the most extensive and liberal scale that our circumstances would call for and our faculties meet," and that it might attract talented students from "other states to come, drink of the cup of knowledge".
Virginia was home to the College of William and Mary, but Jefferson lost all confidence in his alma mater because of its religious nature – it required all its students to recite a catechism – and its stifling of the sciences. Jefferson had flourished under William and Mary professors William Small and George Wythe decades earlier, but the college was in a period of great decline and his concern became so dire by 1800 that he expressed to British chemist Joseph Priestley, "we have in that State, a college just well enough endowed to draw out the miserable existence to which a miserable constitution has doomed it." These words would ring true some seventy years when William and Mary fell bankrupt after the Civil War and the Williamsburg college was shuttered in 1881 being revived in a limited capacity as a small college for teachers until well into the twentieth century. In 1817, three Presidents and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Marshall joined 24 other dignitaries at a meeting held in the Mountain Top Tavern at Rockfish Gap.
After some deliberation, they selected nearby Charlottesville as the site of the new University of Virginia. Farmland just outside Charlottesville was purchased from James Monroe by the Board of Visitors as Central College; the school laid its first building's cornerstone late in that same year, the Commonwealth of Virginia chartered the new university on January 25, 1819. John Hartwell Cocke collaborated with James Madison and Joseph Carrington Cabell to fulfill Jefferson's dream to establish the university. Cocke and Jefferson were appointed to the building committee to supervise the construction. Like many of its peers, the university owned slaves, they served students and professors. The university's first classes met on March 7, 1825. In contrast to other universities of the day, at which one could study in either medicine, law, or divinity, the first students at the University of Virginia could study in one or several of eight independent schools – medicine, mathematics, ancient languages, modern languages, natural philosophy, moral philosophy.
Another innovation of the new university was that higher education would be separated from religious doctrine. UVA had no divinity school, was established independently of any religious sect, the Grounds were planned and centered upon a library, the Rotunda, rather than a church, distinguishing it from peer universities still functioning as seminaries for one particular strain of Protestantism or another. Jefferson opined to philosopher Thomas Cooper that "a professorship of theology should have no place in our institution", never has there been one. There were two degrees awarded by the university: Graduate, to a student who had completed the courses of one school. Jefferson was intimately involved in the university to the end, hosting Sunday dinners at his Monticello home for faculty and students until his death. So taken with the import of what he viewed the university's foundations and potential to be, counting it amongst his greatest accomplishments, Jefferson insisted his grave mention only his status as author of the Declaration of Independence and Virginia Statute for Religious Fre
The Rotunda (University of Virginia)
The Rotunda is a building located on The Lawn on the original grounds of the University of Virginia. It was designed by Thomas Jefferson to represent the "authority of nature and power of reason" and was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Construction began in 1822 and was completed shortly after Jefferson's death in 1826; the grounds of the new university were unique in that they surrounded a library housed in the Rotunda rather than a church, as was common at other universities in the English-speaking world. The Rotunda is seen as a lasting symbol of Jefferson's belief in the separation of church and education, as well as his lifelong dedication to both education and architecture, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, is part of the landmark University of Virginia Historic District, designated in 1971. The collegiate structure, the immediate area around it, Jefferson's nearby home at Monticello combine to form one of only four modern man-made sites in the United States to be internationally protected and preserved as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The original construction cost of the Rotunda was $57,773. The building stands 77 feet in both diameter. Jefferson's design was influenced by the architectural drawings of Andrea Palladio and is an example of Palladian architecture; the direct source for Jefferson's inspiration is believed to be a drawing of the Pantheon in the 1721 Leoni translation of Palladio, which Jefferson owned and referred to during the building process. Jefferson used the detailed measurements of the Pantheon to guide the proportions of his Rotunda; the Pantheon's dome is 143 feet in diameter, while Jefferson's Rotunda is 77 feet, "being half that of the Pantheon and one fourth in area, one eighth in volume."Jefferson deferred to Palladio's model for significant details of the building. In a letter to Thomas Appleton the United States consul in Liguria, Jefferson requested pricing for "ten Corinthian capitals for columns of 32 I. diminished diam. and 8 do. Half capitals of the same diam. for pilasters of 30 minutes projection from the wall, to be copied from those of the Rotunda, or Pantheon, of Rome, as represented in Palladio."
During the Marquis de Lafayette's grand tour of the United States in 1824 and 1825, the Marquis and former President James Madison dined with Thomas Jefferson in the Dome Room of the unfinished Rotunda at the University's inaugural banquet, Lafayette toasted Jefferson as the "Father of the University of Virginia". This moved Jefferson, he had the phrase inscribed on his grave. A bust of Lafayette was given to the University in 1904 by the Government of France to honor the friendship between the two men. Today it stands in the North Oval Room; the building was constructed with slave labor. The University being the first at which students could specialize in the field of Astronomy, Jefferson toyed with the idea of painting the interior of the Dome Room with images of the night sky to aid the students in their learning, he went so far as to begin designing a new mechanism with which students would be able to "float" through the air and study heavenly bodies from closer different viewpoints. They would be equipped with a control to move the stars around the Dome.
The idea was abandoned but would have been the first planetarium in the United States. The Transit of Venus of 1882 was observed from the steps of the Rotunda, in a coordinated effort with McCormick Observatory. A structure called the Annex known as "New Hall," was added to the north side of the Rotunda in 1853 to provide additional classroom space needed due to overcrowding. In 1895, the Rotunda was gutted by a disastrous fire that started in the Annex. University students saved what was, for them, the most important item within the Rotunda — a life-size likeness of Mr. Jefferson carved from marble, given to the University by Alexander Galt in 1861. Shortly after the fire, the faculty drew up a recommendation to the Board of Visitors, recommending a program of rebuilding that called for the reconstruction of the Rotunda and the replacement of the lost classroom space of the Annex with a set of buildings at the south end of the Lawn. In the new design, the wooden dome was replaced with a fireproof tile dome by the Guastavino Company of New York in 1898-1899.
The Rotunda was rebuilt with a modified design by Stanford White, a nationally known architect and partner in the New York City firm McKim and White. Whereas Jefferson's Rotunda had three floors, White's had a larger Dome Room. In addition, the Annex was not rebuilt. In 1976 during America's Bicentennial, White's Rotunda interior was gutted and rebuilt, at a cost of $2.4 million, to Jefferson's original design. In the Bicentennial issue of the AIA Journal, the American Institute of Architects called Jefferson's Rotunda and nearby home at Monticello "the proudest achievement of American architecture in the past 200 years". There is a plaque, on the south side of the Rotunda, listing the names of students and graduates of The University who were killed during the Civil War. Other plaques on the south side list those killed during World War I while plaques on the north side list those killed in World War II and the Korean War. Today, doctoral students defend their dissertations in the North Oval Room, many events (including monthly dinners for residents of the Law
Byzantine architecture
Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire, or Eastern Roman Empire. The Byzantine era is dated from 330 CE, when Constantine the Great moved the Roman capital to Byzantium, which became Constantinople, until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. However, there was no hard line between the Byzantine and Roman empires, early Byzantine architecture is stylistically and structurally indistinguishable from Roman architecture; this terminology was introduced by modern historians to designate the medieval Roman Empire as it evolved as a distinct artistic and cultural entity centered on the new capital of Constantinople rather than the city of Rome and its environs. Its architecture influenced the medieval architecture throughout Europe and the Near East, became the primary progenitor of the Renaissance and Ottoman architectural traditions that followed its collapse. Early Byzantine architecture drew upon earlier elements of Roman architecture. Stylistic drift, technological advancement, political and territorial changes meant that a distinct style resulted in the Greek cross plan in church architecture.
Buildings increased in geometric complexity and plaster were used in addition to stone in the decoration of important public structures, classical orders were used more mosaics replaced carved decoration, complex domes rested upon massive piers, windows filtered light through thin sheets of alabaster to illuminate interiors. Most of the surviving structures are sacred in nature, with secular buildings known only through contemporaneous descriptions. Prime examples of early Byzantine architecture date from the Emperor Justinian I's reign and survive in Ravenna and Istanbul, as well as in Sofia. One of the great breakthroughs in the history of Western architecture occurred when Justinian's architects invented a complex system providing for a smooth transition from a square plan of the church to a circular dome by means of pendentives. In Ravenna, the longitudinal basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, the octagonal, centralized structure of the church of San Vitale, commissioned by Emperor Justinian but never seen by him, was built.
Justinian's monuments in Istanbul include the domed churches of Hagia Sophia and Hagia Irene, but there is an earlier, smaller church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, which might have served as a model for both in that it combined the elements of a longitudinal basilica with those of a centralized building. Secular structures include the ruins of the Great Palace of Constantinople, the innovative walls of Constantinople and Basilica Cistern. A frieze in the Ostrogothic palace in Ravenna depicts an early Byzantine palace. Hagios Demetrios in Thessaloniki, Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai, Jvari Monastery in present-day Georgia, three Armenian churches of Echmiadzin all date from the 7th century and provide a glimpse on architectural developments in the Byzantine provinces following the age of Justinian. Remarkable engineering feats include the 430 m long Sangarius Bridge and the pointed arch of Karamagara Bridge; the period of the Macedonian dynasty, traditionally considered the epitome of Byzantine art, has not left a lasting legacy in architecture.
It is presumed that Basil I's votive church of the Theotokos of the Pharos and the Nea Ekklesia served as a model for most cross-in-square sanctuaries of the period, including the Cattolica di Stilo in southern Italy, the monastery church of Hosios Lukas in Greece, Nea Moni of Chios, the Daphni Monastery near Athens. The cross-in-square type became predominant in the Slavic countries which were progressively Christianized by missionaries during the Macedonian period; the Hagia Sophia church in Ochrid, the eponymous cathedral in Kiev testify to a vogue for multiple subsidiary domes set on drums, which would gain in height and narrowness with the progress of time. In Istanbul and Asia Minor the architecture of the Komnenian period is non-existent, with the notable exceptions of the Elmali Kilise and other rock sanctuaries of Cappadocia, of the Churches of the Pantokrator and of the Theotokos Kyriotissa in Istanbul. Most examples of this architectural style and many of the other older Byzantine styles only survive on the outskirts of the Byzantine world, as most of the most significant and ancient churches/ buildings were in Asia Minor, but in World War I all churches that ended up within Turkish borders were destroyed,converted into mosques, or abandoned in the Greek and Christian genocides spanning from 1915–1923.
Only national forms of architecture can be found in abundance due to this. Those styles can be found in many Transcaucasian countries; the Paleologan period is well represented in a dozen former churches in Istanbul, notably St Saviour at Chora and St Mary Pammakaristos. Unlike their Slavic counterparts, the Paleologan architects never accented the vertical thrust of structures; as a result, there is little grandeur in the late medieval architecture of Byzantium. The Church of the Holy Apostles is cited as an archetypal structure of the late period, when the exterior walls were intricately decorated with complex brickwork patterns or with glazed ceramics. Other churches from the years predati
