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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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").
Jovan Ilkić (Zemun, 1857 - Neusiedl am See, 1917) was a Serbian architect. He significantly influenced the development of architecture in Serbia in the last quarter of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He realized about a hundred projects. He was born into a merchant family in Zemun, where he completed elementary school and junior high school. In Vienna, he graduated from the Real Gymnasium, and then enrolled in architectural studies with Teofil Hansen at the Academy of Fine Arts. He graduated in 1883. Until August of the same year, he was employed in the Hansen bureau for the construction of the Parliament in Vienna, and then he came to Serbia, at the invitation of King Milan Obrenović, to complete the work on the decoration of the Old Palace. After arriving in Serbia, he got a job in the Ministry of Construction, where he worked as a contract engineer from 1883 to 1899 and as a regular engineer from 1900 to 1910.
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Belgrade is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe and the World. One of the most important prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinča culture, evolved within the Belgrade area in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region and, after 279 BC, Celts settled the city, naming it Singidűn. It was conquered by the Romans under the reign of Augustus and awarded Roman city rights in the mid-2nd century. It was settled by the Slavs in the 520s, and changed hands several times between the Byzantine Empire, the Frankish Empire, the Bulgarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Hungary before it became the seat of the Serbian king Stefan Dragutin in 1284.
Budapest is the capital and the most populous city of Hungary. The history of Budapest began when an early Celtic settlement transformed into the Roman town of Aquincum, the capital of Lower Pannonia. The Hungarians arrived in the territory in the late 9th century, but the area was pillaged by the Mongols in 1241. After the reconquest of Buda from the Ottoman Empire in 1686, the region entered a new age of prosperity, with Pest-Buda becoming a global city after the unification of Buda, Óbuda, and Pest on 17 November 1873, with the name Budapest given to the new capital.
Geneva is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic and Canton of Geneva. Geneva is a global city, a financial center, and a worldwide center for diplomacy due to the presence of numerous international organizations, including the headquarters of many agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross. Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe when the Romans took it in 121 BC. It became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, and acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the Bishopric of Vienne in the 4th.
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provinces. Trieste belonged to the Habsburg monarchy from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century, the monarchy was one of the Great Powers of Europe and Trieste was its most important seaport. Trieste, a deep-water port, is a maritime gateway for northern Italy, Germany, Austria, and Central Europe. It is considered the end point of the maritime Silk Road, with its connections to the Suez Canal and Turkey. The city lies at the intersection of Latin, Slavic, and Germanic cultures where Central Europe meets the Mediterranean Sea, and is home to diverse ethnic groups and religious communities.
Hephaestus is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire, and volcanoes. Hephaestus's Roman counterpart is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera's parthenogenous child. He was cast off Mount Olympus by his mother Hera because of his lameness, the result of a congenital impairment; or in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances. As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece, particularly Athens.
Hermes is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"a conductor of souls into the afterlife.
The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior (significantly superior by the end of the conflict) and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success. The war was a comprehensive and unmitigated disaster for the Ottomans, who lost 83% of their European territories and 69% of their European population. As a result of the war, the League captured and partitioned almost all of the Ottoman Empire's remaining territories in Europe.
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 Second Balkan War, also called the Inter-Allied War, was a conflict that broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked, entering Bulgaria. With Bulgaria also having previously engaged in territorial disputes with Romania and the bulk of Bulgarian forces engaged in the south, the prospect of an easy victory incited Romanian intervention against Bulgaria. The Ottoman Empire also took advantage of the situation to regain some lost territories from the previous war. When Romanian troops approached the capital Sofia, Bulgaria asked for an armistice, resulting in the Treaty of Bucharest, in which Bulgaria had to cede portions of its First Balkan War gains to Serbia, Greece and Romania. In the Treaty of Constantinople, it lost Adrianople to the Ottomans.
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 Serbo-Bulgarian War was a war between the Kingdom of Serbia and Principality of Bulgaria that erupted on 14 November 1885 and lasted until 28 November 1885. Despite Bulgaria being a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks did not intervene in the war. Serbia took the initiative in starting the war but was decisively defeated. Austria demanded Bulgaria stop its invasion, and a truce resulted. Final peace was signed on 3 March 1886 in Bucharest. The old boundaries were not changed. As a result of the war, European powers acknowledged the act of Unification of Bulgaria which happened on 18 September 1885.
Milorad Ruvidić was a Serbian architect who lived and worked in the formative period of the Belle Époque that swept the continent and changed the landscape of all major European capitals, including Belgrade. Milorad Ruvidić was born on 5 April 1863 in the village of Lipolist in Šabac, Serbia. As the son of Marija and Very Reverend Rajko Ruvidić, he attended the Gymnasium in Belgrade (better known as Realka High School), opting to pursue further studies in technical sciences. Milorad Ruvidić graduated in September 1884 from the Technical Faculty of Belgrade's Velika škola, with twelve other colleagues who received government scholarships to study abroad. In 1884 he moved to Berlin and received his technical and artistic education in architecture at a Polytechnic Institute, better known as Königlich Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg. In 1893 he returned to Serbia where he entered the Royal Serbian government's Ministry of Public Works, where he was concerned with building construction.
Niš is the third largest city in Serbia and the administrative center of the Nišava District and is located in the southern part of Serbia. Several Roman emperors were born in Niš or used it as a residence among which are Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor and the founder of Constantinople, Constantius III, Constans, Vetranio, Julian, Valentinian I, Valens, and Justin I. Emperor Claudius Gothicus decisively defeated the Goths at the Battle of Naissus. After about 400 years of Ottoman rule, the city was liberated in 1878 and became part of the Principality of Serbia, though not without great bloodshed-remnants of which can be found throughout the city.
Tuzla is the third-largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the administrative center of Tuzla Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Tuzla is the economic, cultural, educational, health, and tourist center of northeast Bosnia. It is an educational center and is home to two universities. It is also the main industrial machine and one of the leading economic strongholds of the country with a wide and varied industrial sector including an expanding service sector thanks to its salt lake tourism. The city of Tuzla is home to Europe's only salt lake as part of its central park and has more than 350,000 people visiting its shores every year. The history of the city goes back to the 9th century; modern Tuzla dates back to 1510 when it became an important garrison town in the Ottoman Empire. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tuzla is also regarded as one of the most multicultural cities in the country and has managed to keep the pluralist character of the city throughout the Bosnian War and after, with Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats, and a small minority of Bosnian Jews residing in Tuzla.
Alexander I (14 August 1876 - 11 June 1903) was the King of Serbia from 1889 to his death in 1903. Prince Alexander was born on 14 August 1876 to King Milan I and Natalie of Serbia. In 1889, King Milan abdicated and proclaimed Alexander as the King but under a regency until he was 18. At the age of 16, Alexander dismissed the regents and their government and took authority into his own hands. In May 1894 King Alexander arbitrarily abolished his father's liberal constitution and restored the conservative one of 1869. He also made Milan the commander-in-chief of the military. In the summer of 1900, King Alexander married Draga Mašin so that he could produce an heir. Soon after, a conspiracy began among a group of Army officials and politicians aiming to replace King Alexander with Prince Peter of the Karađorđević dynasty, the rivals of Alexander's family. On 11 June, 1903 the conspirators invaded King Alexander's palace and killed him and the Queen.
Sankt Blasien is a municipality in Germany. It is located in the Black Forest, so in the southwest of Germany, surrounded by lots of forest. It is known for the Sankt Blasien Abbey from the 9th century. This abbey remained a monastery until the early 19th century. The building was then used as a factory in the 19th century but has now been restored to its original tradition. Sankt Blasien developed as a health resort from 1880 onwards. Famous guests included Ludwig Börne, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The last guests for treatment arrived around 1945.
Stanko Arambašić (Veliko Selo near Belgrade - Smederevo, November 21, 1798), commander of the Serbian National Army. In the Habsburg-Turkish war 1788-1791, he fought against the Turks in Mihaljević's frajkor, and then as a buljubasa, he was on the side of the Belgrade vizier Hadži Mustafa Pasha between 1793 and 1797, against the janissaries of the Vidin outlaw Osman Pazvantoglu. On August 2, 1793, he distinguished himself in defeating the Janissaries near Kolar, south of Smederevo. During June 1795, he participated with a detachment of Serbs in the defense of Belgrade, and in the defeat and expulsion of the Janissaries. He collaborated in the organization of the Serbian national army in the spring of 1797 and became its commander. In December of the same year, together with the Turkish regular troops, he defeated the Janissaries in the suburbs of Belgrade and, during the persecution, captured Požarevac on January 16, 1798. The Turks tricked him into killing him.
Janko Veselinović (13 May 1862 - 26 June 1905) was a Serbian writer. Janko Veselinović was born in Crnobarski Salaši on 1 May 1862 in an Eastern Orthodox priestly family. He completed elementary school in Šabac in 1878 and enrolled in Teacher's College in Belgrade from which he dropped out. He worked as a teacher between 1880 and 1882 as well as between 1886 and 1889. From 1893 he worked as an assistant for the Srpske Novine newspaper editor. As an enemy of the regime, he lost his job between 1899 and 1900 and he was arrested on three separate occasions, in 1888, 1899, and 1903. He died on 19 June 1905.
Stevan D. Popović (July 30, 1844, in Šabac - September 24, 1902, in Belgrade) was Serbian Minister of Culture and educator. Popović devoted himself to philosophical and pedagogical studies in Berlin, Zurich and Gotha. In 1868 he became an official in the Serbian Ministry of Culture. In 1870, Stevan D. Popović became a professor at the teacher training college in Novi Sad, which he co-founded. He was given the directorship in 1877 after he had lived in Leipzig from 1874 to 1875 and was appointed secretary in the Ministry of Culture in 1875. From 1880 he worked for the latter again as a secretary, from 1883 as a consultant, and in 1884 he was appointed Minister of Culture. Of his pedagogical writings, the primary school method should be mentioned. In 1870 he became a full member of the Serbian Society of Learners, the predecessor organization of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, founded in 1886, of which he became an honorary member in 1892.
