Exterior view of the entrance to the William L. Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan with three arches and Corinthian columns, and ivy growing across the facade from right to left. The building was designed by Albert Kahn and opened in 1923. "Noted Detroit architect Albert Kahn (1869-1942) designed the Clements Library in the Italian Renaissance style, based on Vignola's casino for the Villa Farnese, ca.1587, in Caprarola, Italy. In Kahn's plan, the casino, a one-story building, was enlarged to two stories, the roof flattened, the windows lengthened, and an elegant triple-arched entrance created. Finally, Kahn further ornamented the limestone exterior with relief sculpture and inlaid marble, the whole resulting in a building of extraordinary beauty and architectural coherence,"--from The History of the William L Clements Library from the University of Michigan website. Printed on back of photograph: ...designed by Albert Kahn Associated Architects & Engineers, Inc. Hedrich Blessing Studio 450 East Ohio Street Chicago NEG. No 8685-G Clements Library.
Detail view of Corinthian capitals and top of doorway to the Treasury or Al-Khazneh in Petra, Jordan. "The Treasury’s façade (24.9 meters wide x 38.77 meters high) most clearly embodies the Hellenistic style and reflects the influence of Alexandria, the greatest city in the Eastern Mediterranean at this time. Its architecture features a broken pediment and central tholos (a circular building) on the upper level; this architectural composition originated in Alexandria. Ornate Corinthian columns are used throughout ... The sculptural decoration also underscores a connection to the Hellenistic world. On the upper level, Amazons (bare-breasted) and Victories stand, flanking a central female figure (on the tholos), who is probably Isis-Tyche, a combination of the Egyptian Goddess, Isis, and Tyche, the Greek Goddess of good fortune. The lower level features the Greek twin gods, Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri, who protected travelers and the dead on their journeys. There are other details from the artistic traditions of the Hellenistic world, including eagles, the symbols of royal Ptolemies, vines, vegetation, kantharoi (vase with large handles), and acroteria (architectural ornaments on a pediment). However, the tomb also features rosettes, a design originally associated with the ancient Near East,"--Kahn Academy website.
Material/Medium
sandstone
Measurements
Treasury’s façade (24.9 meters wide x 38.77 meters high)
View of the Treasury or Al-Khazneh at Petra, Jordan, with Corinthian columns. "The rock city of Petra, and particularly “The Treasury,” building - or “Al Khazneh” as it was called for nearly two millennia before being discovered by the Western world in 1812 by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, who disguised himself as a Bedouin to gain access ... it was built possibly as early as the fifth century BCE by the Nabataeans, a culture of traders who established the city and its Greek-themed architecture as a sort of welcoming overture to their primary trading partners in the Mediterranean ... “One of the things that we’ve discovered relatively recently is that it was determined that for these rock-cut facades, and not just Al Khazneh or The Treasury, all of these were not sculpted from the bottom up, but rather from the top down,” says Corbett. “They [the stonecutters] would identify presumably the surface in the mountain that they thought was ideal for the façade that they wanted to create, and presumably they did have engineers and architects who had pre-planned what they wanted these facades to look like.” Once the rock was selected by the engineers of the day and the site decided upon, the construction itself could take place, which may be the most intriguing aspect of the Petra story,"--The engineering behind a world wonder, by David Walsh, ASME online.
Material/Medium
sandstone
Measurements
Treasury’s façade (24.9 meters wide x 38.77 meters high)
View of the bottom section of the Treasury at Petra, Jordan. "The Treasury’s façade (24.9 meters wide x 38.77 meters high) most clearly embodies the Hellenistic style and reflects the influence of Alexandria, the greatest city in the Eastern Mediterranean at this time. Its architecture features a broken pediment and central tholos (a circular building) on the upper level; this architectural composition originated in Alexandria. Ornate Corinthian columns are used throughout. Above the broken pediments, the bases of two obelisks appear and stretch upwards into the rock ... There are no inscriptions or ceramic evidence associated with the tomb that allows us to date it. Considering that it was located at the most important entrance to Petra through the Siq, it was probably a tomb for one of the Nabataean Kings. Aretas IV (reigned, 9 B.C.E. – 40 C.E.) is the most likely candidate, because he was the Nabataeans’ most successful ruler, and many buildings were erected in Petra during his reign"--Kahn Academy website.
Material/Medium
sandstone
Measurements
Treasury’s façade (24.9 meters wide x 38.77 meters high)
View of ruins including the Celsus Library in Ephesus, Turkey. "built in 117 A.D. It was a monumental tomb for Gaius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, the governor of the province of Asia; from his son Galius Julius Aquila. The grave of Celsus was beneath the ground floor, across the entrance and there was a statue of Athena over it. Because Athena was the goddess of the wisdom ... The facade of the library has two-stories, with Corinthian style columns on the ground floor and three entrances to the building. There is three windows openings in the upper story. They used an optical trick that the columns at the sides of the facade are shorter than those at the center, giving the illusion of the building being greater in size,"--Ephesus website.
Detail view of columns and niche with statue at the Celsus Library in Ephesus, Turkey. "The facade of the library has two-stories, with Corinthian style columns on the ground floor and three entrances to the building. There is three windows openings in the upper story. They used an optical trick that the columns at the sides of the facade are shorter than those at the center, giving the illusion of the building being greater in size. The statues in the niches of the columns today are the copies of the originals. The statues symbolize wisdom (Sophia), knowledge (Episteme), intelligence (Ennoia) and valor (Arete),"--Ephesus website.
Detail view of facade of the Temple of Hadrian in Ephesus, Turkey. "The facade of the temple has four Corinthian columns supporting a curved arch, in the middle of which contains a relief of Tyche, goddess of victory. The side columns are square. The pedestal with inscriptions in front of the temple, are the bases for the statues of the emperors between 293-305 CE, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius I, and Galerius; the originals of the statues have not been found yet,"--Ephesus website.
Interior view of the Pantheon with columns and niches. "The interior volume is a cylinder above which springs the half sphere of the dome, a whole sphere can be inscribed in the interior volume, with the diameter at the floor of the cylinder of 43.3 m (143 feet) equaling the interior height, five rows of twenty-eight square coffers of diminishing size radiate from the central unglazed oculus with a diameter of 8.7 m (29 feet) at the top of the dome," from Architecture Week's Great Buildings website.
Material/Medium
concrete
Measurements
Dome span: 142 feet, diameter at floor of cylinder: 143 feet.
Reproduction Type
digital photograph
Reproduction Source
jpg
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