Drexel University,
Department of Architecture

Architecture and Society Home Page
Professor Mark L. Brack

Welcome to the Drexel University Architecture and Society home page. On the pages to follow, you will find images and text selected from Professor Brack's Architecture and Society classes offered at Drexel. Along with each Study Aid (which are the same as those handed out in class), you will find a link to images of buildings or settlements that you are required to memorize. This web site is only intended to supplement those images already found in your text book, reader, and study aids.
Course Description

Architecture is an open history book. If you can read the language of the "built environment," any street or house will have a story to tell of economics, taste, settlement, and social relationships--for every human establishment upon the landscape represents long and significant patterns of thought concerning society and architecture.

Although architectural history is often taught as the succession of European and American styles or famous monuments, this class will have a somewhat different approach. While the "high-style" designs of notable architects will command most of our attention, we will also examine the larger contexts or influences surrounding architecture. These include: urbanism, landscape history, vernacular traditions, technology and engineering, social and political history, the development of new building types, anthropology, and intellectual history. We will also consider the architecture of non-Western cultures. With this class, you will begin to develop skills that will enable you to read the language or history of the built environment.
Basic Vocabulary List - Arch Soc I
adobeapseaqueductarcade
archarcuatedatriumbarrel vault
basebayblind arcadecantilever
cardo/documanuscapitalcaryatidcasement window
cellacenteringcitadelclerestory
cloistercofferscolonnadecolumn
Composite ordercorbeled vaultCorinthian ordercornice
crossingcruciformdentilsdome
Doric orderdormersdrumegg & dart
elevationengaged columnentasisentablature
facadefenestrationfluted shaftforum
friezegableGreek crossgroin vault
hipped roofIonic orderkeystonelintel
lunettemegaronmoldingmonastery
nicheobeliskparapetpediment
pendentivespierpilasterpodium
polychromyporticopost & lintelpyramid
terra cottathermal windowtrabeationtransepts
triglyphTuscan ordervaultvilla
volutesvoussoirsziggurat
Basic Vocabulary List - Arch Soc II
aediculebelvederebracketbroken pediment
buttresscampanilecasement windowcentering
chateauclerestorycloistercolonnade
conventcrocketscrossingcupola
dormerselevationfan vaultfenestration
flying buttressesgallerygarlandsGothic arch
groin vaulthalf-timberinghip roofhyphens
lintelloggialunettemansard roof
missionmonastrymullionmuntin
ogee curveoriel windowpalazzoPalladian motif
pavilionpiano nobilepiazzapier
quatrefoilquoinsreredosribbed vault
row houserusticationshed roofsill
spirestepped gablestring courseterra cotta
tracerytrefoiltransomtriforium
trompe l'oeiltympanumvolutes
Credits
 Web Design: Craig P. Lennox
Special Thanks to Joy Moody


Arch Soc I Arch Soc II Arch Soc III Drexel University
These images can only be used by Drexel University students for educational purposes only.


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