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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tabernacles (Christian buildings)
Places of worship that are distinguished from churches by not being of ecclesiastical architectural design, and by being temporary places of worship or the meeting houses of Protestant Nonconformists.

tack rooms
Rooms in or attached to a horse barn or stable for the storage and maintenance of riding tack and often of stud records or for the display of prizes or other honors of the stable.

tahōtō
Buildings that replaced the pagoda in some temple complexes of Esoteric Buddhism; literally "many-jewelled pagoda", "pagoda of many tiers", or "multi-treasure tower". These were introduced to Japan during the Heian period (794-1185) and are characterized by a white, plaster hemisphere rising from a square substructure. A famous example of these is the Ishiyamadera Pagoda in Otsu near Kyoto, erected in 1154.

tank farms
Designates areas where a large number of high-capacity storage tanks are located, usually used for crude oil or other petroleum products.

tanneries
Buildings or parts of buildings where tanning occurs, which is the treating of hides or skins with tannins to produce leather.

taverns
Primarily 17th- to early 19th-century English and American places of eating, drinking, and public accommodations, which often became local centers of social gatherings; distinguished from "inns" which emphasize their overnight accommodations and also provide food and drinking facilities; for establishments that emphasize drinking, especially liquors, use "pubs" or "saloons."

taxiways
Usually paved strips for taxiing at an airport.

tea rooms
Establishments where tea and other nonalcoholic refreshments and pastries or light meals are served. For establishments that sell tea leaves, use "tea stores."

teachers colleges (buildings)
Buildings that house four-year colleges offering courses for the training of primary and secondary school teachers and granting bachelor's degrees and often advanced degrees.

teaching hospitals
Hospitals where formal medical training takes place, usually affiliated with nursing or medical schools.

teahouses
Designates small buildings for the Japanese tea ceremony.

technology center
No description is available for this term.

telecommunications buildings
No description is available for this term.

telegraph offices
Buildings or parts of buildings housing equipment and personnel for the transmission and receipt of telegraphs, which comprise information relayed by coded signals over a distance, which was at its height from the mid-19th through early 20th centuries.

telegraph stations
Buildings or other structures housing or supporting telegraph switching or repeater equipment.

telephone booths
Small structures, typically large enough for a single person to comfortably enter and furnished with a payphone for public use. They are typically characterized by having a door for privacy and windows to alert others that the booth is in use.

telephone exchanges
Buildings housing the central switching point for telephone communications.

television stations
Broadcasting stations for sending and receiving television programming transmissions; for rooms and spaces designed for the origination or recording of television programs, use "television studios."

television studios
A series of rooms specifically designed for the origination of live or taped television programs;(MHDSTT) for the larger facilities, including offices and equipment, from where the transmissions are sent and received, use "television stations."

television towers
Tall, usually metal, freestanding or guyed towers used as or carrying television transmitting antennas.

temples (buildings)
Buildings housing places devoted to the worship of a deity or deities. In the strictest sense, it refers to the dwelling place of a deity, and thus often houses a cult image. In modern usage a temple is generally a structure, but it was originally derived from the Latin "templum" and historically has referred to an uncovered place affording a view of the surrounding region. For Christian or Islamic religious buildings the terms "churches" or "mosques" are generally used, but an exception is that "temples" is used for Protestant, as opposed to Roman Catholic, places of worship in France and some French-speaking regions.

temporary city
No description is available for this term.

temporary housing
Housing that is intended to provide accommodation for residents for a relatively short period of time.

temporary structures
Buildings, monuments, and other structures that are intended to be non-permanent, sometimes transportable. Erected for festive or sporting events or to provide access to or protection or support of facilities under construction.

tenement houses
Use only for buildings containing rental apartments that are in large cities, occupied by poorer people, generally built to minimum standards of sanitation, safety, and comfort, and often in run-down condition.

tennis clubs
Buildings or rooms occupied by associations formed to combine the operations of persons interested in the promotion or playing of tennis.

tensile structures
Structures under tensile loads, such as cable or membrane structures.

tent roofs
Roofs with a square, octagonal, or other base and steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak. May include Russian and Victorian wooden structures as well as membrane and thin shell structures comprising roofs of modern structures and actual tents. For such roofs in the specific context of Russian architecture, use "saters."

tents (portable buildings)
Collapsible shelters of canvas, skins, plastic, or other flexible and water-repellent material stretched and sustained by poles, usually secured by ropes to pegs in the ground.

terminal care facilities
Facilities specializing in the care of the dying or the incurably ill.

terminals (buildings)
Transportation buildings, or stations, which are usually built to act as a terminal point for airlines, a railway, a bus service, or another type of transportation.

terrace houses
Designates lines of dwellings situated on a sloping, terraced, or similar site.

terraces (landscaped-site elements)
Level paved or planted areas, usually elevated above surrounding terrain and adjacent to buildings or parts of garden complexes.

test sites
Locations where, usually very destructive, weapons are exploded distant from an observation point; also, where scientific field explorations or investigations are conducted, as in archaeology or geology. For complexes where weapons are tested under close scrutiny, use "proving grounds."

tetrastyle
Of buildings, particularly classic Greek and Roman temples and buildings like them in structure, having a row or rows of four columns at one or both ends.

textile mill structures
Industrial structures found at textile mills.

textile mills
Facilities where textiles and textile products are created, often including the weaving and sewing processes, as well as the preparation of the fibers or other materials from which textiles are made.

theater elements
Architectural elements found in theaters.

theater spaces
Spaces and rooms located in theaters.

theaters (buildings)
Buildings having a stage or projection screen for the presentation of dramatic performances and providing seating areas for spectators.

theaters (institutions)
Institutions that maintain facilities for the presentation of dramatic performances to spectators.

theme parks
Amusement parks organized round a unifying idea or group of ideas, for example, Medieval castles or science fiction.

theme towns
Towns which invent or reinvent themselves on a particular theme in order to attract tourism. Generally, residential areas of such towns do not incorporate the adopted theme.

theological seminaries (buildings)
Buildings that house schools providing education in, for example, theology and religious history, primarily, but not exclusively, to prepare students for jobs as priests, ministers, or church workers; usually sponsored or controlled by a church or other religious organization. For buildings that house schools devoted especially to the training of rabbis, use "rabbinical seminaries."

tholoi
Use to designate circular buildings of classical date, with or without a peristyle.

three-deckers (dwellings)
Multiple dwellings comprised of three housing units set one above the other; for dwellings having three housing units set side by side on one level, use "triplexes (multiple dwellings)."

thrift shops
Retail stores that sell secondhand goods at reduced prices.

through trusses
Bridge trusses supporting loads on their lower chords and having lateral bracing between their top chords.

thrust stages
Open stages that project into the audience.

ticket offices
Rooms or spaces from which tickets are sold, as for films, travel, or sporting events.

tinworks
Establishments where tin is mined or processed.

tipis
Conical tent dwellings of poles gathered together at the top, spread into a circle on the ground, and covered with skins or canvas; common to Native American tribes of the Great Plains.

tipples
Structures where coal is unloaded from mining cars by means of a tipping device.

tobacco barns
Agricultural structures in which tobacco is dried and cured, with or without supplemental heat.

tobacconists' shops
Stores whose primary commodities are tobacco products and smoking accessories.

tokonoma
In Japanese architecture, an interior space that may have evolved historically from the private altars of Zen Buddhist monks, used for the display of devotional objects; then later as elevated seating for warriors or dignitaries. The most recent use of the space in Japanese houses is for the display of flower arrangements and scrolls that set the mood of the tea ceremony, or other art objects.

toll bridges
Bridges at which toll is charged for passage.

toll plazas
Rows of toll booths on a toll road, where traffic is stopped or slowed to collect tolls.

tollbooths
Booth, stalls, or offices at which tolls, duties, or customs are collected, particularly booths at which the toll for the right of passage across a bridge or along a road are collected.

tollhouses
Houses or other buildings designed or used primarily for the collection of tolls or dues.

tombs
Elaborations constructed over or around burial sites; for simple interments in the earth, use "graves."

tombstones (sepulchral monuments)
Refers to stones or metal plates designating graves or tombs, almost always located outdoors, usually vertically-placed freestanding slabs or slabs placed horizontally on the ground, over graves or at the entrances of tombs. In early use, referred to the covers of stone coffins or the stone coffins themselves. For stones placed flush with the floor over a tomb in an interior space, use "tomb slabs."

topiary
Trees or shrubs pruned and trained into various geometric, zoomorphic, or fantastic shapes.

torii
Gateways to Shinto shrines, generally composed of two columns and two horizontal spanning members often with slight upward curvature at their ends.

totem poles
Poles carved and painted with a series of totemic symbols, erected before the homes of Native Americans of the northwestern coast of North America.

tourist cabins
One of a number of small, individually housed units in a motel.

tourist centers
Communities of any size for which tourism is a significant commercial activity.

tourist towns
Communities of modest size that have tourism as an important industry.

tourist villages
Communities of small size where the central economic activities are built around tourism.

tower buildings
Modern high-rise buildings whose main mass rises, with the tall slender proportions of a tower, from a larger low base. For usually detached or isolated buildings or other structures high in proportion to their lateral dimensions, use "towers (single built works)."

tower houses (defensive structures)
Distinctly vertical dwellings, built for defensive purposes, usually of stone and with at least three to four stories.

towers (building divisions)
Parts of buildings with walls rising considerably above the rest, usually with vertical proportions, and to some extent architecturally distinct. For usually detached or isolated buildings or other structures high in proportion to their lateral dimensions, use "towers (single built works)."

towers (single built works)
Detached or isolated buildings or other structures high in proportion to their lateral dimensions. For parts of buildings with walls rising with vertical proportions considerably above the rest, use "towers (building divisions)." For modern high-rise buildings with a towerlike main mass rising from a larger low base, use "tower buildings."

town halls
Principal public administration buildings of towns and villages housing offices for transaction of government business and places for public assembly.

town houses
Use only for individual freestanding urban dwellings. For attached urban dwellings each having its own private entrance, use "row houses."

Town lattice trusses
Trusses of closely spaced intersecting diagonal members, usually of wood, following a design patented by Ithiel Town in 1820. Trusses of closely spaced intersecting diagonal members, usually of wood, following a design patented by Ithiel Town in 1820.

townhouses
No description is available for this term.

towns
Distinctions among villages, towns, and cities are relative and vary according to their individual regional contexts. Towns generally are units of compact settlement larger than villages and less important and internally complex than cities in the region.

townscapes (built environment)
The built forms of towns, cities, or other built-up areas, in combination, as perceived visually and aesthetically. For representations of towns or cities, as in drawings or photographs, use "townscapes (representations)."

townships
Any of various international territorial divisions, typically a section of a county forming a unit of local government. In the United States, surveyed tracts of public land measuring 6 miles square and divided into 36 sections of 1 square mile each.

towpaths
Paths along canals or rivers, used by people oranimals for towing boats.

tract houses
Groups of similarly designed houses located in subdivisions; used to distinguish from those houses that are custom designed and built.

tracts (land areas)
Expanses or extended areas of land, outdoor space, or territory.

trade marts
Designates buildings or building complexes providing wholesalers with a single location having display spaces for product vendors of various trades, such as apparel, furnishings, or business equipment.

trade routes
A route followed by traders, particularly caravans, or by merchant ships.

trading posts
Buildings or outdoor sites set up for purposes of trade, especially in frontier or other a region not fully developed.

traffic circles
Circular arrangements constructed at the intersection of two or more roads in order to facilitate the passage from one road to another.

trailers (vehicles)
Cars, carriages, or other nonmotorized wheeled vehicles that include a chassis and are primarily intended to be towed by other vehicles.

trails (recreation areas)
Various types of paths or tracks worn by the passage of persons or animals travelling in a wilderness area, or deliberately maintained for passage through various outdoor environments.

train sheds
The parts of railroad stations that cover the tracks.

training centers
Buildings, often containing educational, research, and recreational facilities, erected by corporations specifically for the training of corporate personnel.

transepts
Transverse arms of cruciform buildings, usually churches.

transmission towers
Use only for tall concrete, metal, or timber structures of various plans designed to carry power lines; for tall metal structures used to hold radio or television antennas, use "radio towers" or "television towers."

transom windows
The openings above transoms when fitted as windows.

transoms (opening components)
Horizontal members across a window or door opening near the top.

transportation buildings
Buildings designed or utilized for the needs of boarding and unloading passengers and the transportaion vehicles transporting them, such as a train station, bus station, or airport.

transportation complexes
Buildings or complexes providing transportation facilities or otherwise serving transportation needs.

transportation infrastructure
General term for facilities that allow the movement of people and goods from one location to another, including rails, roads, bridges, and other facilities for air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space transport and travel.

transportation museums (buildings)
Describes buildings housing museums that specialize in the history, objects, vehicles, and other materials associated with transportation.

treasuries (rooms)
Rooms or spaces that serve as storage places for valuable objects. For buildings designed for this purpose use 'treasuries (buildings).'

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