SAH Archipedia uses terms from the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) to categorize and classify metadata for the entries in the database. For more information on the Getty AAT, click here

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prehistoric
Refers to the period antecedent to the first contemporary written accounts of a people. The time span for this period varies according to specific local habitation patterns and in different scholarly disciplines.

prehistoric sites
Sites that contain evidence of prehistoric human activity, often through archaeological investigation.

Psychedelic
Refers to the art and cultural movement of the mid- to late 1960s that was international in scope, but flourished mainly on the American West Coast. The movement advocated the exploration of the subconscious mind through drugs, sensory deprivation, and a total immersion of the senses through music and light shows. In the visual arts, the style is characterized by obsessively detailed images, ambiguous representations of space, and acidic colors.

Pueblo (Native American style)
No description available for this term.

Pueblo Revival
Refers mainly to the style of architecture found in the Southwestern United States which draws its inspiration from the Pueblos and the Spanish missions in New Mexico. The style developed at the turn of the 20th century and reached its greatest popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, although it is still commonly used for new buildings. Pueblo Revival imitates the appearance of traditional adobe construction, however through the use of modern materials such as concrete and brick. Typical attributes include rounded corners, irregular parapets, and thick, battered walls used to simulate adobe. Roofs are always flat, and a common feature is the use of wooden roof beams that are often decorative rather than supportive.

Quaker
A Christian sect that arose in the mid-17th century in England and the American colonies, advocating direct inward apprehension of God, emphasizing the immediacy of Christ's teaching and guidance, and rejecting outward rites and an ordained ministry. The Quaker system of church government centers around the monthly meeting. The group has a long tradition of opposing war and actively working for peace. Quakerism represents the extreme left wing of the 17th-century Puritan movement. Despite the fact that the term "Quaker" was probably originally derisive, it is used by the Quakers themselves today.

Queen Anne
Period, culture, and English style in architecture and decorative arts during the reign of Queen Anne from 1702 to 1714 and known for its straightforward simplicity. In architecture it is characterized by red brick, sash windows, and hipped roofs, applied largely to domestic structures. Decorative arts reflect a move toward simple ornamentation with the use of plain veneers, ball and claw feet, cabriole legs, and scallop shell motifs.

Queen Anne Style
Refers to the style of domestic architecture but also of furniture in England and the United States in the late 19th century. Drawn from the architecture of Queen Anne's reign (1702-1714) and mixed with features found in 17th century Dutch architecture, buildings are characterized by asymmetrical or irregular plans, the use of red brick and stone dressing, broken pediments, sash windows, and shaped gables while furniture features cabriole legs.

Quonset hut
No description available for this term.

ranch style
No description available for this term.

Realist (modern European fine arts styles)
Refers to the style of Western art that existed from the mid- through the late nineteenth century and developed in reaction to the Romantic style. It is characterized by subject matter, depictions of figures, and techniques that emphasize reality with precision and vividness of detail, including unpleasant characteristics, in contrast to what was considered the idealized, sanitized, and beautified Romantic view of the world. To indicate in a more general sense any phase of artistic tradition where the real is emphasized over the idealized, use "realism (artistic form of expression)."

Regency (British)
Refers to the style of architecture and decorative arts produced in England during the regency of George, Prince of Wales from 1811 to 1820 and then including the period of his reign as George IV from 1820 to 1830. Varied in style, furniture and architecture reflect a combination of classical and French Empire styles with Egyptian and Orientalizing motifs.

Regency Revival
Revival style found in the United States in the 1930s, that employees elements of Georgian and Regency style prototypes, usually resulting in buildings two stories high with a hipped roof, and brick walls with quoins at the corners and sometimes at the main entrance. Its also often features double-hung windows with shutters; an entrance porch, and a small octagonal window above the door.

regionalism (form of expression)
Refers to a general consciousness of and loyalty to a distinct subnational or supranational area usually characterized by a common culture, background, or interests. For the specific movement in American painting in the 1930s and 1940s, use "Regionalist."

Regionalist (American Scene)
Refers to the movement within American Scene painting, concentrated in the rural midwestern United States in the 1930s and capturing the flavor of life there in a literal painting style.(PDAT) For the concept of a general consciousness of and loyalty to a distinct subnational or supranational area, use "regionalism."

religious art
Use broadly for art depicting religious subjects or for art used in worship.

Renaisance Revival
No description available for this term.

Renaissance
Refers to the intellectual movement, style, and culture that originated in Italy in the late 14th century, spread throughout Europe, and culminated in the 16th century. Style is characterized by a deliberate reference to the art, architecture, literature, and ideals of Classical Rome and Greece.

Renaissance Revival
Refers to the style in 19th-century European and American architecture and decorative arts initially inspired by the Italian Renaissance and characterized by pilasters, rustication, and classical motifs. Later, it includes Renaissance styles based on regional or national variations such as the Elizabethan and Jacobean revivals and the French Renaissance revival.

retro (style)
A generic style, particularly in the context of clothing fashion and interior design, characterized by harking back to a former style that is nostalgically retrospective, particularly styles from the mid-20th century. Differing from "old-fashioned" in not being antiquated in form or character, but having reference to a previous style that is both not from as distant a time as "old-fashioned" and is still considered desirable and popular.

Richardsonian Romanesque
No description available for this term.

Rococo
Refers to that period primarily of decorative art that emerged in France ca. 1700 at the court of Louis XV, and dominated Europe until it was superseded by the Classical Revival in the late 18th century. The style is characterized by opulence, asymmetry, grace, gaiety, and a light palette of colors, in contrast to the heavier forms and darker colors of the Baroque.

Rococo Revival
Refers to the 19th century style originating in France and spreading to other parts of Europe, England, and the United States, that revived Rococo forms and motifs in interior design and decorative arts. Also applied to painting, it describes the work of artists who sought to recapture the lyricism, color, and vibrant surfaces of Rococo artists, particularly of Watteau.

Roman Catholicism
Refers to the branch of Christianity characterized by a uniform, highly developed ritual canon and organizational structure with doctrinal roots based in the teachings of the Apostles of Jesus Christ in the first century, in the Alexandrian school of theology, and in Augustinian thought. In this religious branch, faith is considered an acceptance of revelation; revelation appears as doctrine. In juridical terms, it refers to the branch of Christianity distinguished as a unified, monolithic sacramental system under the governance of papal authority. Throughout much of its history, the seat of the Pope has been in Rome, thus "Roman Catholicism" is often used to distinguish this concept from the Orthodox Catholic church.

Romanesque
Refers to the style and period most evident during the 11th and 12th centuries in western Europe. The style flourished in architecture with the new growth of cities and the accompanying churches, and the rebuilding of monasteries. The style is noted for regional differences, but overall is characterized by the influence and interpretation of Roman and succeeding architecture, great size, round arches, masonry vaults, and innovations in structure to provide adequate illumination. The style also developed in monumental relief sculpture, stained glass, book illumination, mural painting, ivory carving, and precious metalwork, and is characterized by flat, stylized forms, and richly detailed ornament.

Romanesque Revival
Refers to the style in European and American architecture dating from the 1820s to the end of the 19th century. Based on the style of the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque church architecture, it is characterized by semicircular arches, groin and barrel vaults, and the spare use of naturalistic ornament.

Romantic (modern European styles)
Refers to the European movement affecting visual arts, literature, music, and to a lesser degree architecture from the mid-18th to the mid-19th centuries. Viewed as a reaction to Neoclassical formality, it stressed emotion and the right to individual expression. Works encompass a range of styles but in general are painterly, dynamic, and reflect an interest in color over line.

Rundbogenstil
Refers to the style of architecture developed in Germany in the mid-19th century. Combining Italian, Early Christian, and Romanesque elements, the style is characterized by arcaded round arches.

Russian Orthodox Church
No description available for this term.

Rustic (European style)
Refers to the style of 18th and 19th century European and American architecture and furniture that mimics rough hewn logs or parts of a tree in its construction or decoration. It is especially identified with 18th century English garden furniture and with fanciful outdoor structures such as hermitages and grottoes.

rustic (style)
A generic style, particularly in the context of decorative arts and interior design, characterized by the use of rural motifs and themes, especially incorporating furniture made of wood or metal, the main components of which are carved and fretted to resemble the branches of trees. The style that appeared in the mid-18th century with the theme of the idealization of nature and the simple life. The style was especially popular in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Britain, and the United States.

Salado (culture or style)
Prehistoric culture of the American Southwest, which flourished from the mid-thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, and was centered in the Tonto Basin of southeastern Arizona. A farming and trading people, the Salado lived in walled adobe compounds, practiced burial (rather than cremation) of their dead, and created distinctive polychrome ceramics.

San Ildefonso
No description available for this term.

Sans Arc
Style and culture of a subdivision of the Lakota people who currently live primarily in the Cheyenne River Reservation.

Santa Fe Style
Style characterized by horizontally-oriented low buildings of one or two stories, flat roofs with little or no overhang, broad blank surfaces, few openings, components divided by small modules, materials of plaster, wood, brick, and tile, and colors in the ranges of reddish brown to cream. The style developed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States, as a statutory unified building style that incorporated synthesized elements of Pueblo Revival, Territorial, Native American, and American western styles, based on the Santa Fe Governor's Palace, Native American pueblos, and Spanish villages of the upper Rio Grande valley.

Santa Maria (pottery style)
No description available for this term.

Scandinavian Medieval styles
Styles belonging to Scandinavian Medieval cultures.

Scandinavian modern
Mid-20th century style of industrial and furniture design characterized by organic shapes, a lack of applied ornament, and extensive use of wood: often teak. Furniture in this style generally conforms to standards of construction, materials and proportion of traditional forms, though streamlined. The term is most often applied to furniture and industrial design such as tableware rather than to architecture, though it is also found in extended use.

Scottish Baronial
Refers to a Scottish architectural style in the mid-nineteenth century that revived forms associated with the traditional Scottish tower house such as machicolations, conical roofs, turrets, bartisans, and battlements.

Secession Movement
Describes the works of the groups of German and Austrian artists who rebeled against the Salon system and exhibited independently at the end of the 19th century. The exhibition of art and concerns about the art market formed the basis of the movement. The artists involved were not commited to a particular style but works tend to be lyrical, focus on nature, and avoid modern themes.

Second Empire
Refers to the architectural and decorative arts style in France between 1852 and 1870 during first the presidency and later the Empire of Napoleon III, but also affecting Europe and the United States. Noted for its eclecticism, opulence, and ostentation, the period reflects the revival of several historical styles including the Louis XVI, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles. In architecture, the style is identified more specifically with public and domestic buildings with mansard roofs, heraldic motifs, pedimented dormers, and French Renaissance detailing.

Seminole
No description available for this term.

Shaker (Christian sect)
Refers to a Christian millenarian sect that arose in 1747 in England out of a group of radical Quakers that had adopted the French Camisards' ritual practices of shaking, shouting, dancing, whirling, and singing in tongues; the sect was later spread to the United States by Ann Lee and her disciples. The sect advocates communal living, productive labor, and celibacy. Shaker communities in the United States flourished economically and created a distinctive and influential style of architecture, furniture, and handicraft before the sect declined in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Shaker dances and songs are also admired as folk art and the Shakers are responsible for numerous important inventions.

Shawnee (culture or style)
No description available for this term.

Shingle Style
Refers to the movement in America between 1879 and 1890 headed by John C. Stevens (1855-1940), characterized by the use of wood shingles to cover entire buildings and a predilection for functionalism rather than for historical, learned styles. This movement, which grew out of the Stick and Queen Anne movements, prevailed more among private homes and hotels rather than among industrial or commercial sites and featured free-flowing, open plans with interlocking interior and exterior spaces, irregular elevation, open porches, and irregular roof lines that contributed to an overall pastoral effect.

Shoshone
No description available for this term.

Sienese
Nationality, style, and culture of Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

Sinagua
No description available for this term.

Sioux
Refers to the culture of the Sioux, a North American Plains Indian people, or confederation of peoples, of Siouan linguistic stock. Sioux is an abbreviation of Nadouessioux, a name originally used to refer to them by the Ojibwa; the word Dakota means "allies." There were three main divisions of the Sioux: Santee, Yankton, and Teton, calling themselves, respectively, Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota.

Sitka (Native American style)
No description available for this term.

South American
Refers to the cultures of the continent of South America, which is bounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, Central America, and the Antarctic region.

South Asian
No description available for this term.

Southern Paiute
Style and culture of a North American Indian group who speak Ute, and who at one time occupied what are now southern Utah, northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada, and southeastern California, the latter group being known as the Chemehuevi. Although encroached upon and directed into reservations by the U.S. government in the 19th century, the Southern Paiute had comparatively little friction with settlers and the U.S. military; many found ways to stay on their traditional lands, usually by working on ranches or living on the fringes of the new towns.

southwest (style)
A generic style, particulary in the context of decorative arts and interior design, characterized by motifs and elements originating in New Mexico, Arizona, and nearby areas, including influences of Native American and Spanish design.

Southwestern Native American
Styles and cultures Southwestern Native America.

space age
Refers to the period from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s when rocketry was first used to launch satellites and manned missions to extraterrestrial space. Generally applied to works that were inspired by new techniques, materials, and designs developed for space flight; or the images, experiences, or psychological states recorded by astronauts during space missions. The term has been applied to works of art, design, music, and architecture characteristic of this period.

Spanish Colonial
Refers to the style and period dating from the early 16th century through the early 19th century, in areas colonized by Spain, particularly the Americas. The style is mainly seen in paintings, sculpture, and in ecclesiastical and military architecture. The style reflects the tastes of aristocratic landholders and the church, and generally imitates styles current in Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, and France, with some limited influence from native traditions of design and representation.

Spanish Colonial Revival
Refers to the movement in Colonial Revival architecture during the 1920s evident in the building programs of the American West and Southwest and generally features Spanish-style balconies, verandas and arcades, towers, pan-tiled roofs, and plazas and courtyards. Most notably, the style features a lack of architectural moldings and the heavy use of carved or cast ornament, classically-derived columns, window grilles, and wrought iron or turned spindles reminiscent of Spanish colonial architecture in Mexico.

Spanish Renaissance-Baroque styles
Styles belonging to Spanish Renaissance-Baroque cultures.

spoke dogs
Sticks used by wheelwrights to force the outer ends of spokes into the rim.

steel (alloy)
Any of various hard, strong, durable, malleable alloys of iron and carbon, often with other elements such as manganese, chromium, nickel, molybdenum, copper, tungsten, cobalt, or silicon; widely used as a structural material.

Stick Style
Refers to the theory coined by Vincent J. Scully in 1949 to address the style of mid-19th century American timber-framed domestic architecture and to correlate the desire to express structure with an externally conspicuous and organic wooden frame. The style reflects European traditions based on half-timbered Late Gothic domestic architecture of England, France, and Germany, on Swiss chalet styles, and on Scandinavian and Slavic vernacular building designs.

Streamlined Moderne
Style of architecture and design reaching its height in the late 1930s in the United States. In architecture, it is characterized by the use of horizontal lines, round corners, and sometimes nautical elements, such as railings and porthole windows. In design, these elements were expressed in a variety of new materials, such as Bakelite (TM) and chrome.

Stuart
Period, culture, and British style under the Stuarts, a Scottish and English dynasty of rulers, patrons, and collectors. It particularly refers to the elegant court styles created in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Surrealist
Refers to the international intellectual movement centered mainly in Paris from the 1920s to the late 1940s. Adopting some of the aesthetic experiments of Symbolism and the attitudes of Dada, the movement is characterized by an emphasis on exploring the limits of experience by fusing reality with the instinctual, the subconscious, and the realm of dreams, in order to create an absolute reality.

Susquehanna
No description available for this term.

sustainable architecture
Structure design that is specifically environmentally conscious, taking into account construction methods and materials that are locally available as well as the building's efficient use of resources, including systems of heating, cooling, power, water, and waste. Provides affordable, adequate shelter with minimal negative effect on the local and global environment; may be replicated and locally maintained.

sustainable development
Development designed to ensure that the utilization of resources and the environment today does not damage prospects for their use by future generations.

Swedish (culture or style)
Refers to the culture of the modern nation of Sweden, or in general to cultures that have occupied the area of the eastern section of the Scandinavian peninsula in northwestern Europe.

symbolism (artistic concept)
Method of representing things by symbols, or of giving a symbolic character to objects or acts.

Symbolist
Refers to the international intellectual movement that was first applied to literature in the late 19th century, spreading to painting and theater, and influencing European and American literature from the 20th century to the present. Affecting later movements such as Surrealism, it is characterized by a complex synthesis of psychology, mystical and occult practices, and linguistics used to challenge traditional relationships between representation and meaning.

Tanaina (culture or style)
No description available for this term.

Tanana
No description available for this term.

Taos (Native American style)
No description available for this term.

Temple Mound period
No description available for this term.

Territorial Style
Architectural style originating in the American Southwest, characterized by squared-off adobe construction, brick coping at the top of the structure, square beams rather than round vigas, and relatively formal Victorian-style windows.

Thule
No description available for this term.

Tiki (North American style)
A style reminiscent of the cultures of the islands of the South Pacific. Evident after World War II, its popularity is often attributed to returning U.S. soldiers who were exposed to authentic Oceanic culture during wartime service. The term is variously used to describe architecture, interior design, sculpture, and industrial design. The style peaked in the 1950s, but became resurgent as a fad in the early 21st century. For the small greenstone carvings of the Maori culture, use 'hei-tiki'. For authentic free-standing Oceanic sculpture of deities, use 'ki'i.'

Tlingit (culture or style)
No description available for this term.

Tsimshian (culture or style)
Refers to the artwork of the North American Indians of the Northwest Coast who traditionally lived on the mainland and islands around the Skeen and Ness rivers and Milbank Sound in what are now British Columbia, Canada and Alaska. They speak any of three Tsimshian dialects: Niska, coastal Tsimshian, and Kitksan (or Gitksan). Tsimshian is classified as a Penutian language.

Tudor
Period, culture, and English style in architecture and decorative arts during the reign of Tudor monarchs from 1485 to 1603. Influenced by Flemish Mannerism, architectural motifs and forms include ornamental brickwork, gables, and finials while decorative arts feature ornate silverware and richly carved woodwork.

Tudor Revival
Refers to the style of English architecture and interior design in the first half of the 19th century and again in the early 20th. Drawn from domestic architecture of the Tudor period dating 1485-1547, architectural forms and decorative motifs include diapered brickwork, half-timbering, stained glass, and Tudor roses, which were often combined with Gothic elements.

Tuscan order
Refers to the architectural order characterized by unfluted columns, torus bases, unadorned cushion capitals, and plain friezes.

Tuscarora (Iroquois speaking)
General reference for the culture and styles of the Iroquois-speaking Native North American tribe called Tuscarora. Their name derives from an Iroquoian term for “hemp gatherers”; they were noted for their use of indigenous hemp for fiber and medicine. They coalesced as a people around the Great Lakes at about the time of the rise of the historic Iroquois tribes' five nations that was based in the area of present New York state. At the time of European settlement in the 16th century, the Tuscarora primarily occupied what is now North Carolina.

Tyrolean
Nationality, styles, and culture of Tyrol, Austria, which was formerly a crown land of Austria-Hungary, embracing the present Austrian province of Tyrol and parts of northern Italy.

urban renewal
Activity of clearing, rebuilding, restoring, or refurbishing urban areas.

Usonian houses
Term applied to a group of Frank Lloyd Wright's small, single-family houses constructed during the late 1930s and early 1940s and generally characterized by low cost, natural materials, open planning, and a close relationship between the building and the site and climate. The term was coined by the architect.

Ute (culture or style)
No description available for this term.

Venetian (Republic, culture or style)
Nationality, culture, and style of the city of Venice and also of its historic Republic, which flourished from the late 7th century until 1797.

vernacular architecture
Architecture built of local materials to suit particular local needs, usually of unknown authorship and making little reference to the chief styles or theories of architecture.

Victorian
Refers to the style of artistic production produced in Great Britain and its colonies from 1837 to 1901 during the reign of Queen Victoria. Typically identified with heavy forms, bold patterns, elaborate ornamentation, and bright colors, the Victorian period encompasses a varied range of Classical and revival styles. However, Gothic forms and motifs that were identified as morally and aesthetically superior dominated.

Victorian Revival
No description available for this term.

Vietnamese (culture or style)
Refers to the cultures that developed in the region situated along the eastern coast of the Indochinese Peninsula known as modern North and South Vietnam. Artistic production in this region features a broad scope and an intermingling of styles, featuring dynastic temple construction that included variations of tower shrines, sanctuaries, porticoes, molded capitals, and recesses, and grandiose and refined sculptural programs featuring monster figures that decorated corners of architraves, figures of lions, solid snake-like ornamentation reminiscent of Indo-Khmer foliage motifs and Dong Song styles, and large icons and relief panels carved in sensual styles suggestive of Chen-la works. From the 15th through 18th centuries, architectural planning incorporated Confucian and Taoist elements and sculptural styles of this period feature elaborately-colored woodwork based upon the dragon-and-cloud decoration of the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties of China.

Wampanoag (culture or style)
Syle and culture of the Algonquian-speaking, Native American people of Rhode Island, southeastern Massachusetts, and the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay.

Western North American Paleo-Indian
Periods, styles, and cultures related to Western North American Paleo-Indians.

Western Pueblo
Cultures and styles of the more western Pueblo Native American people in the southwestern United States, particularly the Zuñi Desert Puebloans and the Hopi dry-farmers. The distinction between Eastern and Western Pueblo is based on the publications of certain scholars of the 1950s.

wood (plant material)
The principal tissue of trees and other plants that provides both strength and a means of conducting nutrients. Wood is one of the most versatile materials known.

Woodland Tradition
General term for the cultures and styles represented in prehistoric sites falling in time between approximately 1000 BCE and 1000 CE, between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the agriculturalist Mississippian cultures; including geographic regions from what is now eastern Canada south of the Subarctic region, the eastern United States, and along to the Gulf of Mexico. Characterized by agriculture, hunting, burial mounds, and a distinctive style of pottery. Over most of this area these cultures were replaced by the Mississippian culture in the 1st millennium CE, but in some regions they survived until historic times.

Yanktonai
The style and culture of a division of the Sioux people formerly inhabiting northern Minnesota, now located mainly in North and South Dakota and eastern Montana.

Zopfstil
Refers to the German late-18th-century Antique Revival style, known in German as the "pig-tail style."

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