Information about exedra

Ruins of the floor of a late Roman villa. The floored part is the exedra. The rest of the room disappeared and shows the columns of the hypocaust.

In architecture, an exedra is a semicircular recess, often crowned by a half-dome, which is usually set into a building's facade. The original Greek sense (a seat out of doors) was applied to a room that opened onto a stoa, ringed with curved high-backed stone benches, a suitable place for a philosophical conversation. An exedra may also be expressed by a curved break in a colonnade, perhaps with a semi-circular seat.

Rome

The exedra achieved particular popularity in Roman architecture during the Roman Empire. In the 1st century CE, Nero's architects incorporated exedrae throughout the planing of his Domus Aurea, enriching the volumes of the party rooms, a part of what made Nero's palace so breathtakingly pretentious to traditional Romans, for no one had ever seen domes and exedrae in a dwelling before. An exedra was normally a public feature: when rhetoricians and philosophers disputed in a Roman gymnasium it was in an exedra opening into the peristyle that they gathered. A basilica featured a large exedra at the far end from its entrance, where the magistrates sat in hearing cases.

Later uses

An exedra adopted by Leo von Klenze for a neoclassical interior space, at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia

Following precedents from Rome, exedrae continued to be in widespread use architecturally after the fall of Rome. In Byzantine architecture and Romanesque architecture this familiar feature developed into the Apse and is fully treated there. A famous use of the exedra is in Bramante's Belvedere extension of the Vatican palace.

In Muslim architecture, the exedra becomes a mihrab and invariably retains religious associations, wherever it is seen, even on the smallest scale, as a prayer niche.

Both Baroque and Neoclassical architecture used exedras. Baroque architects (for example, Cortona in his Villa Pigneto to enrich the play of light and shade and give rein to expressive volumes, Neoclassical architects to articulate the rhythmic pacing of a wall elevation. A classic example of a Baroque exedra on a (comparatively) reduced scale within its context, is the central niche of the Trevi Fountain (illus. at that entry) in Rome, sheltering a statue of Neptune.

The interior exedra was richly exploited by Scottish neoclassical architect Robert Adam and his followers. During the 18th century an exedra became a popular garden feature or folly, often used as an ornamental curved screening wall to hide another part the garden, examples can be found at Belton House and West Wycombe Park.

Many classicizing bandshells in public parks are exedrae, for the shape, with its half-dome heading, reflects sound forwards. The Hollywood Bowl's shell (illus. at that entry) takes the form of the head of a gargantuan exedra, stripped of classicizing details.

External link

LacusCurtius website: "Exedra," in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, (1875)

Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. A wider definition often includes the design of the total built environment: from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of construction details and,
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dome is a common structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere.

Description

Domes do not have to be perfectly spherical in cross-section, however; a section through a dome may be an ellipse.
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Stoa (plural, stoae or stoæ) in Ancient Greek architecture; covered walkways or porticos, commonly for public usage. Early stoae were open at the entrance with columns lining the side of the building, creating an enveloping, protective atmosphere and were usually
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colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, as in the famous elliptically curving colonnades that Bernini added to the facade of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, which embrace and define the Piazza.
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Architecture of Ancient Rome adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for their own purposes, which were so different from Greek buildings as to create a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body of classical architecture.
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The Roman Empire is the name given to both the imperial domain developed by the city-state of Rome and also the corresponding phase of that civilization, characterized by an autocratic form of government. This article however is about the latter.
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The Domus Aurea (Latin for "Golden House") was a large landscaped "portico villa", designed to take advantage of artificially created landscapes, rather than a monumental palace,^[1]
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The gymnasium in ancient Greece functioned as a training facility for competitors in public games. It was also a place for socializing and engaging in intellectual pursuits. The name comes from the Greek term gymnos meaning naked.
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peristyle is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building that surrounds a court that may contain an internal garden. "Tetrastoon" (Greek: "four arcades") is another name for this feature.
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Christianity

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Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct entity after AD 330, when Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium, which was later renamed Constantinople and is now Istanbul.
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Romanesque architecture is the term that is used to describe the architecture of Europe which emerged in the late 10th century and evolved into the Gothic style during the 12th century. The Romanesque style in England is more traditionally referred to as Norman architecture.
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APSE standing for Ada Programming Support Environment is a program or set of programs to support software development in the Ada programming language.

This represented the second stage of the U.S.
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Donato Bramante (1444 – March 11, 1514) was an Italian architect, who introduced the Early Renaissance style to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his most famous design was St. Peter's Basilica.
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Belvedere in Italian literally means beautiful view.

It is used as a generic architectural term (see Belvedere (structure)), and has been used to name many things:

Specific buildings

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Apostolic Palace, also called the Papal Palace or the Palace of the Vatican, is the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City.

The palace is a complex of buildings, comprising the Papal Apartment, the Catholic Church's government offices, a handful of
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A mihrab (Arabic: ألمحراب pl. محاريب) is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla, that is, the direction of Kaaba that Muslims should face when praying.
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Baroque was a Western cultural epoch, commencing roughly at the turn of the 17th century in Rome, that was exemplified by drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music..
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Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw upon Western classical art and culture (usually that of
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Pietro da Cortona, byname of Pietro Berettini (November 1 1596- May 16, 1669) was a prolific artist and architect of High Baroque. Cortona is best known for painting fresco ceilings, a pursuit in which he had ample competition in the Rome of his day, but he was equally
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The Villa Pigneto or Sacchetti, or also the Casino al Pigneto del Marchese Sacchetti was an architecturally prominent building designed by the Baroque artist Pietro da Cortona.
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niche in classical architecture is an exedra or an apse that has been reduced in size, retaining the half-dome heading usual for an apse. Nero's Domus Aurea (AD 64-69) was the first semi-private dwelling that possessed rooms that were given richly varied floor plans, shaped with
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Trevi Fountain (Italian: Fontana di Trevi) is the largest — standing 25.9 meters (85 feet) high and 19.8 meters (65 feet) wide — and most ambitious of the Baroque fountains of Rome. It is located in the rione of Trevi.
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Robert Adam (3 July 1728 – 3 March 1792) was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer.

Biography

Adam was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, the second son of William Adam (1689–1748), a stonemason and architect who was
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Belton House is a country house near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. Coordinates:
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West Wycombe Park is a luxurious country house near the village of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England. Built between 1740 and 1800.
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Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheatre at 2301 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood, California, USA, that is used primarily for music performances. The "bowl" in this context is the natural cavity in the earth into which the amphitheater is built, rather than the shape of the band
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