The acanthus is one of the most common plant forms to make foliage ornament and decoration. In architecture, an ornament may be carved into stone or wood to resemble leaves from the Mediterranean species of the Acanthus genus of plants, which have deeply cut leaves with some similarity to those of the thistle and poppy.
The alfiz (meaning the container) is an architectonic adornment, consisting of a moulding, usually a rectangular panel, which encloses the outward side of an arch. It is an architectonic ornament of Etruscan origin, used in Visigothic, Asturian, Moorish, Mozarabic, Mudéjar and Isabelline Gothic architecture.
An apron, in architecture, is a raised section of ornamental stonework below a window ledge, stone tablet, or monument. Aprons were used by Roman engineers to build Roman bridges. The main function of an apron was to surround the feet of the piers.
An astragal is a convex ornamental profile that separates two architectural components in classical architecture. The name is derived from the ancient Greek astragalos which means cervical vertebra. Astragals were used for columns as well as for the moldings of the entablature.
An avant-corps, a French term literally meaning "fore-body", is a part of a building, such as a porch or pavilion, that juts out from the corps de logis, often taller than other parts of the building. It is common in façades in French Baroque architecture.
An awning or overhang is a secondary covering attached to the exterior wall of a building. It is typically composed of canvas woven of acrylic, cotton or polyester yarn, or vinyl laminated to polyester fabric that is stretched tightly over a light structure of aluminium, iron or steel, possibly wood or transparent material.
Balconet or balconette is an architectural term to describe a false balcony, or railing at the outer plane of a window-opening reaching to the floor, and having, when the window is open, the appearance of a balcony.
A baluster is a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its construction are wood, stone, and less frequently metal and ceramic. A group of balusters supporting a handrail, coping, or ornamental detail are known as a balustrade.
A bifora is a type of window divided vertically into two openings by a small column or a mullion or a pilaster; the openings are topped by arches, round or pointed. Sometimes the bifora is framed by a further arch; the space between the two arches may be decorated with a coat of arms or a small circular opening. The bifora was used in Byzantine architecture, including Italian buildings such as the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, in Ravenna. Typical of the Romanesque and Gothic periods, in which it became an ornamental motif for windows and belfries, the bifora was also often used during the Renaissance period. In Baroque architecture and Neoclassical architecture, the bifora was largely forgotten or replaced by elements like the three openings of the Venetian window. It was also copied in the Moorish architecture in Spain.
A bossage is an uncut stone that is laid in place in a building, projecting outward from the building. This uncut stone is either for an ornamental purpose, creating a play of shadow and light, or for a defensive purpose, making the wall less vulnerable to attacks.
In architecture the capital (from the Latin caput, or "head") or chapiter forms the topmost member of a column (or a pilaster). It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface. The capital, projecting on each side as it rises to support the abacus, joins the usually square abacus and the usually circular shaft of the column.
A cartouche (also cartouch) is an oval or oblong design with a slightly convex surface, typically edged with ornamental scrollwork. It is used to hold a painted or low-relief design. Since the early 16th century, the cartouche is a scrolling frame device, derived originally from Italian cartuccia. Such cartouches are characteristically stretched, pierced and scrolling.
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the structure.
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian cornice meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element - the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the top edge of a pedestal or along the top of an interior wall.
Cresting, in architecture, is ornamentation attached to the ridge of a roof, cornice, coping or parapet, usually made of a metal such as iron or copper. Cresting is associated with Second Empire architecture, where such decoration stands out against the sharp lines of the mansard roof. It became popular in the late 19th century, with mass-produced sheet metal cresting patterns available by the 1890s.
A dentil is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Revival, Greek Revival, Renaissance Revival, Second Empire, and Beaux-Arts architecture.
Egg-and-dart, also known as egg-and-tongue, egg and anchor, or egg and star, is an ornamental device adorning the fundamental quarter-round, convex ovolo profile of molding, consisting of alternating details on the face of the ovolotypically an egg-shaped object alternating with a V-shaped element (e.g., an arrow, anchor, or dart). The device is carved or otherwise fashioned into ovolos composed of wood, stone, plaster, or other materials.
An epigraph is an inscription or legend that serves mainly to characterize a building, distinguishing itself from the inscription itself in that it is usually shorter and it also announces the fate of the building.
A festoon, (originally a festal garland, Latin festum, feast) is a wreath or garland hanging from two points, and in architecture typically a carved ornament depicting conventional arrangement of flowers, foliage or fruit bound together and suspended by ribbons. The motif is sometimes known as a swag when depicting fabric or linen.
A finial or hip knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the apex of a dome, spire, tower, roof, gable, or any of various distinctive ornaments at the top, end, or corner of a building or structure.
The Green Man, and very occasionally the Green Woman, is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. The Green Man is most commonly depicted in a sculpture or other representation of a face that is made of or completely surrounded by leaves. The Green Man motif has many variations. Branches or vines may sprout from the mouth, nostrils, or other parts of the face, and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit. Found in many cultures from many ages around the world, the Green Man is often related to natural vegetation deities. Often used as decorative architectural ornaments, Green Men are frequently found in carvings on both secular and ecclesiastical buildings.
A gutta (literally means "drops") is a small water-repelling, cone-shaped projection used near the top of the architrave of the Doric order in classical architecture. It is thought that the guttae were a skeuomorphic representation of the pegs used in the construction of the wooden structures that preceded the familiar Greek architecture in stone. However, they have some functionality, as water drips over the edges, away from the edge of the building.
A keystone is a wedge-shaped stone at the apex of a masonry arch or typically a round-shaped one at the apex of a vault. In both cases it is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allowing the arch or vault to bear weight. In arches and vaults, keystones are often enlarged beyond the structural requirements and decorated. A variant in domes and crowning vaults is a lantern.
Lambrequin - an ornamental element in the form of a figured festoon, a ledge with a rounding at the bottom. A row of lambrequins forms a jagged edge. Such an ornament originated from the medieval custom of decorating the edge of the fabric, the veil with curly ledges, sometimes with tassels, pendants. Lambrequins were used in the design of tents for knightly tournaments, blankets for war horses. Hence the use of the term in heraldry. Then such a motif began to be repeated in wood carving and metal chasing.
A loggia is a covered exterior corridor or porch that is part of the ground floor or can be elevated on another level. The roof is supported by columns or arches and the outer side is open to the elements.
In architecture, a mascaron ornament is a face, usually human, sometimes frightening or chimeric whose alleged function was originally to frighten away evil spirits so that they would not enter the building. The concept was subsequently adapted to become a purely decorative element. The most recent architectural styles to extensively employ mascarons were Beaux Arts and Art Nouveau.
A medallion is a carved relief in the shape of an oval or circle, used as an ornament on a building or on a monument. Medallions were mainly used in the 18th and 19th centuries as decoration on buildings. They are made of stone, wood, ceramics or metal.
A niche is a recess in the thickness of a wall. By installing a niche, the wall surface will be deeper than the rest of the wall over a certain height and width. A niche is often rectangular in shape, sometimes a niche is closed at the top with an arch, such as the round-arched friezes in a pilaster strip decoration. Niches often have a special function such as an apse or choir niche that houses an altar, or a tomb.
An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found projecting from an upper floor but is also sometimes used on the ground floor.
The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art of most of Eurasia, often in forms that bear relatively little resemblance to the original. In ancient Greek and Roman uses it is also known as the anthemion. It is found in most artistic media, but especially as an architectural ornament, whether carved or painted, and painted on ceramics.
A pediment is an architectural element found particularly in Classical, Neoclassical and Baroque architecture, and its derivatives, consisting of a gable, usually of a triangular shape, placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. The tympanum, the triangular area within the pediment, is often decorated with relief sculpture. A pediment is sometimes the top element of a portico. For symmetric designs, it provides a center point and is often used to add grandness to entrances.
In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall surface, usually treated as though it were a column, with a capital at the top, plinth (base) at the bottom, and the various other column elements.
A protome is a type of adornment that takes the form of the head and upper torso of either a human or an animal. Protomes were often used to decorate ancient Greek architecture, sculpture, and pottery. Protomes were also used in Persian monuments.
A putto is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and sometimes winged. Originally limited to profane passions in symbolism, the putto came to represent the sacred cherub, and in Baroque art the putto came to represent the omnipresence of God.
Quoins are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner.
A rosette is a round, stylized flower design. The rosette derives from the natural shape of the botanical rosette, formed by leaves radiating out from the stem of a plant and visible even after the flowers have withered. The rosette design is used extensively in sculptural objects from antiquity, appearing in Mesopotamia, and in funeral steles' decoration in Ancient Greece. The rosette was another important symbol of Ishtar which had originally belonged to Inanna along with the Star of Ishtar. It was adopted later in Romaneseque and Renaissance architecture, and also common in the art of Central Asia, spreading as far as India where it is used as a decorative motif in Greco-Buddhist art.
A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently filled with decorative elements.
A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are typically built of stonework or brickwork, or else of timber structure with metal cladding, ceramic tiling, shingles, or slates on the exterior.
A sunroom, also frequently called a solarium, is a room that permits abundant daylight and views of the landscape while sheltering from adverse weather. Solaria of various forms have been erected throughout European history.
In Classical architecture a term or terminal figure is a human head and bust that continues as a square tapering pillar-like form. In the architecture and the painted architectural decoration of the European Renaissance and the succeeding Classical styles, term figures are quite common. Often they represent minor deities associated with fields and vineyards and the edges of woodland, Pan and fauns and Bacchantes especially, and they may be draped with garlands of fruit and flowers.
Trifora is a type of three-light window. The trifora usually appears in towers and belfrieson the top floors, where it is necessary to lighten the structure with wider openings. The trifora has three openings divided by two small columns or pilasters, on which rest three arches, round or acute. Sometimes, the whole trifora is framed by a further large arch. The space among arches is usually decorated by a coat of arms or a circular opening. Less popular than the mullioned window, the trifora was, however, widely used in the Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance periods. Later, the window was mostly forgotten, coming back in vogue in the nineteenth century, in the period of eclecticism and the rediscovery of ancient styles (Neo-Gothic, Neo-Renaissance, and so on). Compared to the mullioned window, the trifora was generally used for larger and more ornate openings.
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are called metopes. The raised spaces between the channels themselves (within a triglyph) are called femur in Latin or meros in Greek. In the strict tradition of classical architecture, a set of guttae, the six triangular "pegs" below, always go with a triglyph above (and vice versa), and the pair of features are only found in entablatures of buildings using the Doric order. The absence of the pair effectively converts a building from being in the Doric order to being in the Tuscan order.
In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification. As their military use faded, turrets were used for decorative purposes.
A tympanum (from Greek and Latin words meaning "drum") 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.
A volute is a spiral, scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals. The word derives from the Latin voluta ("scroll").
A wind vane is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. Although partly functional, wind vanes are generally decorative, often featuring the traditional cockerel design with letters indicating the points of the compass. Other common motifs include ships, arrows, and horses. Not all wind vanes have pointers. In a sufficiently strong wind, the head of the arrow or cockerel (or equivalent) will indicate the direction from which the wind is blowing.
Bratislava is the capital and largest city of Slovakia. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia at the foot of the Little Carpathians, occupying both banks of the River Danube and the left bank of the River Morava. The city's history has been influenced by people of many nations and religions, including Austrians, Bulgarians, Croats, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Jews, Romani, Serbs, and Slovaks. It was the coronation site and legislative center and capital of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1536 to 1783, eleven Hungarian kings and eight queens were crowned in St Martin's Cathedral. Most Hungarian parliament assemblies were held here from the 17th century until the Hungarian Reform Era, and the city has been home to many Hungarian, German, and Slovak historical figures.
Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question.
The First World War began on July 28, 1914, and lasted until November 11, 1918. It was a global war and lasted exactly 4 years, 3 months, and 2 weeks. Most of the fighting was in continental Europe. Soldiers from many countries took part, and it changed the colonial empires of the European powers. Before World War II began in 1939, World War I was called the Great War, or the World War. Other names are the Imperialist War and the Four Years' War. There were 135 countries that took part in the First World War, and nearly 10 million people died while fighting. Before the war, European countries had formed alliances to protect themselves. However, that made them divide themselves into two groups. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated on June 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and declared war on it. Russia then declared war on Austria-Hungary, which set off a chain of events in which members from both groups of countries declared war on each other.
The Secret State Police, abbreviated Gestapo, was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organization. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the Security Police. From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office. It became known as Amt 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organization to the Security Service. During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials.
The Second World War was a global war that involved fighting in most of the world. Most countries fought from 1939 to 1945, but some started fighting in 1937. Most of the world's countries, including all of the great powers, fought as part of two military alliances: the Allies and the Axis Powers. It involved more countries, cost more money, involved more people, and killed more people than any other war in history. Between 50 to 85 million people died, most of whom were civilians. The war included massacres, a genocide called the Holocaust, strategic bombing, starvation, disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons against civilians in history.
The Holocaust, sometimes called The Shoah, was a genocide in which Nazi Germany systematically killed mainly Jews during the Second World War. Around six million Jews were killed, as well as five million others that the Nazis claimed were inferior (mainly Slavs, communists, Roma people, disabled people, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses). These people were rounded up, put in ghettos, forced to work in extermination camps, and then killed in gas chambers.
Bratislava Castle stands on a hill on the west side of the city center of the Slovak capital. This hill, on the left bank of the Danube, is one of the foothills of the Carpathians. The building has four corner towers. The crown tower exhibits 13th-century crown jewels. There is an 80-meter-deep well in the courtyard. It has Gothic and Renaissance influences and a Baroque stairwell. There are fortifications surrounding the main building.
Saint Francis of Assisi (September 26, 1181 - October 3, 1226) is a Christian Saint. He is the founder of the Franciscan Order and patron saint of animals, the environment, merchants, Italy and Catholic Action. He was born in Assisi, Italy where a large basilica was built in his honor. On his feast day, October 4, many churches have a ceremony for people to bring their pets and working animals to church. Saint Francis was born to Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy cloth merchant, and his wife Pica. He was originally named Giovanni Francesco Bernardone. In his youth, he was first interested by French troubadours, known as wanderers who improvised songs on a stringed instrument. He later planned a career in military. When he was serving in the war between Assisi and Perugia in 1202, at the battle of Ponte Saint Giovanni, he was captured and imprisoned for a year and became extremely ill. When Francis returned to Assisi he had a religious conversion experience, including a reported message from Christ calling him to leave this worldly life. He began taking his Christianity faith seriously. He acted towards people as if the Gospels were his law, taking Jesus Christ as a literal example for loving one another. He dressed in rough clothes, ask and begged for his sustenance, and preached purity and peace. His family disapproved, and his father disinherited him in Ohio, so Francis renounced his wealth and inheritance. After that Francis started visiting hospitals and caring for the sick including of leprosy. In 1209 Francis started to attract followers, and with a blessing from the pope, he founded the Franciscans based on a simple statement by Jesus: "Leave all and follow me". In 1219, he went to Egypt to convert the Sultan so the conflict of the Crusades could end.
St Martin's Cathedral is a church in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Bratislava. It is situated at the western border of the historical city center below Bratislava Castle. It is the largest and one of the oldest churches in Bratislava, known especially for being the coronation church of the Kingdom of Hungary between 1563 and 1830. Together with the castle on the hill adjacent, and somewhat similar in its striking, but fairly stark Gothic lines and coloring, St Martin's tower and spire, at 85 meters, dominates Old Town's skyline. The tower virtually formed a part of the town's fortifications, built as it was into the city's defensive walls. As with the castle, the surroundings of St Martin's are as memorable as the structure itself. In the cathedral's case, this includes the picturesque remains of outbuildings in a spacious staired courtyard and a working seminary with robed students on a cobblestone side street. A small but significant neighbor of the cathedral is a monument to the synagogue, which stood next door for centuries until the Communist government demolished it around 1970 to make room for a new bridge, Nový Most. The cathedral contains the remains of Saint John the Merciful who died in the early 7th century.
The Slovak National Uprising or SNP was an armed uprising of the Slovak domestic resistance during the Second World War against the entry of the German Wehrmacht into the territory of the wartime Slovak Republic. It began on August 29, 1944, as a defense against the German occupation troops, indirectly it was also an attack against the authoritarian government headed by Jozef Tis, as well as an effort to be on the side of the victorious Allied powers of the Second World War. The center of the uprising was Banská Bystrica. German troops defeated the insurgent army, and on the night of October 27-28, 1944, part of its troops switched to guerrilla warfare. The partisans continued to fight against the Nazis until the liberation of the country by Soviet, Romanian, and Czecho-Slovak troops in the spring of 1945.
Wilhelm Stiassny (15 October 1842, Pressburg (Bratislava) - 11 July 1910, Bad Ischl) was a Jewish Austrian architect. From 1857 to 1861, he studied at the Polytechnic in Vienna and afterward studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Friedrich von Schmidt. In 1867 Stiassny was appointed delegate to the Paris Exposition by the Ministry of Commerce, and the following year he settled in Vienna as an architect. Until 1905 he oversaw the construction of 180 palaces, schools, residences, factories, hospitals, and synagogues, including the Rothschild Hospital at Währing (1873), the Hall of Ceremonies in the Jewish section of the Vienna Central Friedhof, the Königswarter Institute for the Blind at Hohewarte, the Kindergarten in the second district of Vienna, the Rothschild Hospital at Smyrna, and the synagogues at Malacky, Jablonec nad Nisou, Čáslav, and Weinberge (Vinohrady, now a part of Prague). From 1878 to 1900 Stiassny was a member of the aldermanic board of Vienna and of the Donauregulierungs-Commission. From 1879 he was a member of the board of trustees of the Jewish community of Vienna. In 1895, Stiassny founded the Society for the Conservation and Preservation of Art and Historical Monuments of Judaism, the world's first Jewish museum. He also served as head of the Jewish Colonization Association in Vienna.
Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, and some 227 structures in all, placing it among the largest Nazi concentration camps. Although initially intended for forced labor rather than extermination, it was used to murder people on an industrial scale during Operation Reinhard, the German plan to murder all Polish Jews within their own occupied homeland. In operation from 1 October 1941 to 22 July 1944, it was captured nearly intact. The rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during Operation Bagration prevented the SS from destroying most of its infrastructure, and Deputy Camp Commandant Anton Thernes failed to remove the most incriminating evidence of war crimes.
