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The tower of Babel was built by the people of Babylon in an attempt to reach heaven.
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In architecture, back filling refers to the mass of materials used in filling up the space between two walls, or between the inner and outer faces of a wall, or upon the haunches of an arch or vault.
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In building, the term back priming refers to coating up, for protective purposes, those parts of a structure and those materials which will be out of sight when the building is completed. Wooden door and window frames, for example, are back primed prior to being fitted as their back edges are in contact with brickwork after being fitted, and liable to come into contact with moisture.
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Back putty (bedding putty) is the putty which is run into a window frame and into which the pane of glass is bedded.
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In architecture a backjoint is a rebate or chase in masonry left to receive a permanent slab or other filling.
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Backstein Gothic describes a distinctive style of Gothic architecture that developed in northern Germany during the 14th century. The Backstein Gothic is a simplified form of Gothic architecture employing brick due to an absence of natural building stone. Because of the nature of the building materials available, the Backstein Gothic lacks decoration and instead uses large expanses of simple unbroken surfaces and enormous vertical windows.
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Badger hair is peculiar in that the hairs taper both to the root and the tip, and when made into a decorator's brush forms a compact and sturdy mass with widely separated tips resulting in a brush used for softening and graining.
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In architecture, a bague is the annular moulding or group of mouldings dividing a long shaft or clustered column into two or more parts.
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In architecture, a balcony is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, usually resting on brackets or consoles, and enclosed by a parapet; for example as a balcony in front of a window. The term is also applied to a projecting gallery in places of amusement; for example the balcony in a theatre.
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In architecture a baldachin or baldacchino, is a structure in form of a canopy, sometimes supported by columns, and sometimes suspended from the roof or projecting from the wall; generally placed over an altar; as in the baldachin over the High Altar in St. Peter's. Baldachins are common in Baroque churches.
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In architecture a ball-flower is an ornament resembling a ball placed in a circular flower, the petals of which form a cup round it. They are usually inserted in a hollow moulding. Ball-flower ornaments occur chiefly in 14th century Gothic architecture.
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In architecture the term balloon describes a ball or globe on the top of a pillar, church, etc., as at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
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In architecture a baluster (now banister) is a small column or pilaster, used as a support to the rail of an open parapet, to guard the side of a staircase, or the front of a gallery.
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In architecture a balustrade is a row of balusters topped by a rail, serving as an open parapet, as along the edge of a balcony, terrace, bridge, staircase, or the eaves of a building.
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In architecture the term band describes a continuous tablet, stripe, or series of ornaments, such as carved foliage, of colour, or of brickwork, etc. In Gothic architecture, band describes the moulding, or suite of mouldings, which encircles the pillars and small shafts.
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In architecture the term bandelet describes a small band or fillet; any little band or flat moulding, compassing a column, like a ring.
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A banker is the name given to the stone bench on which masons cut and square their work.
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In architecture a banquette is a narrow window seat or a raised shelf at the back or the top of a buffet or dresser.
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In early times, a baptistery was a cold plunging-bath, and from the 4th century a Christian baptismal pool, from whence the term evolved to describe a separate building, usually polygonal in shape, sometimes round, used for baptismal services. Small churches were often changed into baptisteries when larger churches were built close by. The term is also applied to that part of a church containing a font and used for baptismal services.
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In architecture, bar tracery is an ornamental stonework resembling bars of iron twisted into the forms required.
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In architecture bargeboard or vergeboard is the ornament of woodwork upon the gable of a house, used extensively in the 15th century. It was generally suspended from the edge of the projecting roof and in a position parallel to the gable wall.
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A bargecourse is the part of the tiling which projects beyond the principal rafters, in buildings where there is a gable.
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A bark-stove or bark-bed is a sort of hothouse for forcing or for growing plants that require a great heat combined with moisture, both of which are supplied by the fermentation that sets up in a bed of spent tanner's bark contained in a brick pit under glass.
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Baroque is a term first applied to ill-shaped pearls, but now denoting fantastic, bizarre, and decadent forms in art and even in nature. It is especially used in connection with an architectural style. Baroque is a European style of architecture confined to churches and palaces.
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A barracoon was formerly a negro barrack or slave depot. They were formerly plentiful on the west coast of Africa, in Cuba, Brazil, etc.
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In architecture, a barrel drain is a drain in the form of a cylindrical tube.
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A barrel top pot is a chimney pot with a top shaped like a barrel lying on its side, open at both sides.
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In architecture a barrel vault (Cradle vault, cylindrical vault or wagon vault) is a kind of vault having two parallel abutments, and the same section or profile at all points. It may be rampant, as over a staircase or curved in plan, as around the apse of a church.
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A barrow is a mound of earth or stones raised to mark the resting-place of the dead. Barrows are distinguished, according to their shape, as long, bowl, bell, cone, broad barrows. The practice of barrow-burial is of unknown antiquity and almost universal, barrows being found all over Europe, in Northern Africa, Asia Minor, Afghanistan, Western India, and in America. In the earliest barrows the enclosed bodies were simply laid upon the ground, with stone or bone implements and weapons beside them. In barrows of later date the remains are generally enclosed in a stone cist. Frequently cremation preceded the erection of the barrow, the ashes being enclosed in an urn or cist. A detailed description of an ancient barrow-burial is given in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.
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In architecture, a bartizan is a small, overhanging structure for lookout or defence, usually projecting at an angle of a building or near an entrance gateway, and pierced with one or more apertures for archers.
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A basement is the outer wall of the ground story of a building, or of a part of that story, when treated as a distinct substructure and also describes the rooms of a ground floor, collectively.
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Originally a basilica was the palace of a king; but afterwards, the term applied to an apartment provided in the houses of persons of importance, where assemblies were held for dispensing justice; and hence, the term is applied to any large hall used for this purpose. The Roman basilica was used by the Romans as a place of public meeting, with court rooms, etc., attached. The term basilica also describes a church building of the earlier centuries of Christianity, the plan of which was taken from the basilica of the Romans. The name is still applied to some churches by way of honorary distinction.
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Basso-rilievo is an architectural term for a sculptured work in which the figures project less than half their true proportions.
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In architecture, bastard ashlar is the name given to the stones used for ashlar work, roughly squared at the quarry.
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A bastel house is a home in which the residential quarters are above a livestock shelter and storage space.
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A batement light is a window or one division of a window having vertical sides, but with the sill not horizontal, as where it follows the rake of a staircase.
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A batten door is a door made of boards of the whole length of the door, secured by battens nailed crosswise.
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In architecture, battening describes furring done with small pieces nailed directly upon the wall.
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In architecture, the term batter describes something, usually a wall, which slopes.
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In architecture, a battlement is a solid upright part of a parapet in ancient fortifications. The term is also applied to the whole parapet, consisting of alternate solids and open spaces. At first they were purely a military feature, but were afterwards copied on a smaller scale with decorative features and used for churches and other buildings.
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A bay window is a window rising from the ground and forming a bay or recess in a room, and projecting outward from the wall, either in a rectangular, polygonal, or semicircular form.
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In architecture, bays are the compartments into which the roof of a building is divided. The term is also applied to the spaces between columns.
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In architecture a bead is a small moulding of rounded surface, the section being usually an arc of a circle. It may be continuous, or broken into short embossments.
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The beaded base pot is a variation of the plain beaded pot clay chimney pot, comprising a plain, straight clay cylinder pot with a bead around the upper part of the body and a thickened base section.
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A beaded pot or common beaded pot is a plain, straight-sided clay chimney pot with a rounded lip or bead around the top part of the body.
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In architecture a beak is a continuous slight projection ending in an arris or narrow fillet forming that part of a drip from which the water is thrown off.
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In architecture a beakhead is an ornament that was used in rich Norman doorways, resembling a head with a beak.
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In architecture, bed-moulding describes the moulding of a cornice immediately below the corona.
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Bedlam, a corruption of Bethlehem (Hospital), was the name of a religious house in London, converted, after the general suppression by Henry VIII, into a hospital for the mentally ill. The original Bedlam stood in Bishopsgate Street, its modern successor is in St George's Fields. The patients were at one time treated as little better than wild beasts, and hence Bedlam came to be typical of any scene of wild confusion.
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A beehive house is a primitive structure built generally of unhewn stones without cement, and having a domed roof, reminiscent of a straw beehive.
Beehive houses are principally found in Scotland and Ireland, dating in age from ancient times to the 19th century with some being inhabited still at the start of the 20th century. Some, believed to be monastic are to be found on the islands off the coast of Kerry, with five remarkable examples on the island of St Michael's Rock, the largest of which is circular outside, rectangular within measuring 15 feet by twelve feet. The walls are usually about seven or eight feet high, converging internally to an apex at a height of 16.5 feet.
Beehive houses in Scotland were described at the start of the 20th century as being of a similar construction to their Irish counterparts, with the walls covered with grass and weeds to keep the wind and rain out, and with two rooms; one room for living and the other used as a store house or dairy.
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A Beehive Pot is a chimney pot consisting of a straight, round tube, which tapers suddenly but slightly towards the top and is terminated usually with a round lip. Beehive pots resemble the Ogee Pot, but have straight sides below the top taper, rather than tapering in towards the base.
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Originally a belfry was a military siege tower which was pushed against the wall of a fortress being besieged so that missiles could be easily thrown down upon the defenders inside. Later the term was applied to a church steeple.
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In architecture, bell describes that part of the capital of a column included between the abacus and neck moulding; the term is also used for the naked core of a nearly cylindrical shape, assumed to exist within the leafage of a capital.
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A bell arch is an unusual form of arch, following the curve of an ogee.
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A bell roof is a roof shaped according to the general lines of a bell.
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A bell-gable or bell-turret is a gable in which a bell or bells are suspended so that they may be rung.
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In architecture belly refers to the hollow part of a curved or bent timber, the convex part of which is the back.
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A belvedere is a small building, or a part of a building, more or less open, constructed on top of a house in a location commanding a fine prospect (belvedere being Italian for 'a fine prospect').
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In architecture a bema was that part of an early Christian church which was reserved for the higher clergy; the inner or eastern part of the chancel.
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In architecture a bench table is a projecting course at the base of a building, or round a pillar, sufficient to form a seat.
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In the Ethiopic church, a Bethlehem is a small building attached to a church edifice, in which the bread for the Eucharist is made.
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Beton is a concrete composed of lime and gravel, formerly used to form artificial foundations on insecure sites.
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In architecture, a bilection is that portion of a group of mouldings which projects beyond the general surface of a panel.
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In architecture, a billet-moulding is an ornament used in string courses and the archivolts of windows and doors. It consists of cylindrical blocks with intervals, the blocks lying lengthwise of the cornice, sometimes in two rows, breaking joint.
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In architecture, a binding beam is the main timber in double flooring.
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In architecture a binding joist is the secondary timber in double-framed flooring.
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In architecture, a bird's-beak is a moulding whose section is thought to resemble a beak.
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In architecture a bird's-mouth (or crow's foot) is an interior angle or notch cut across a piece of timber, for the reception of the edge of another, as that in a rafter to be laid on a plate.
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Bishop pots were various designs of clay chimney pot characterised by a serrated top with eight triangles. Various different body decorations were produced, making varieties such as the Lancashire bishop pot and the Leeds bishop pot.
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The Black Hole of Calcutta was a small chamber, 20 feet square, in the old fort of Calcutta, in which, after their capture by Surajah Dowlah, the whole garrison of 146 men were confined during the night of June the 21st, 1756. Only twenty-three of the captives survived. The spot is now marked by a monument.
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In architecture, a black house is an old style of British home. The black house was a long, single-storey cottage of dry stone walls and roofed with turf or straw.
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Blackfriars Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames in London commenced in 1864 it was completed in 1869 at a cost of 265,000 pounds from the designs of J Cubitt, although the original design by Page, the architect of Westminster Bridge had first been accepted. Blackfriars Bridge crosses the Thames in five spans, the piers being made of granite surmounted by recesses resting on short pillars of polished red Aberdeen granite and with ornamental stone parapets. Originally the bridge was gilded providing a very dramatic and rich appearance.
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In architecture the principal rafters of a roof are known as the blade.
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In architecture, a blank door or blank window is a depression in a wall of the size of a door or window, either for symmetrical effect, or for the more convenient insertion of a door or window at a future time, should it be needed.
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In sign writing, a blender is a short, square-ended brush, generally made of sable or ox hair, and used for blending light and dark colours in shaded effects.
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In architecture, blocage is the roughest and cheapest sort of rubblework, used in masonry.
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In architecture, the blocking course is the finishing course of a wall showing above a cornice.
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In decorating, the term blueing applies to the adding of a small amount of blue to certain white pigments or paints in order to neutralise their yellowish tint and make them appear whiter.
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A boaster is a stone mason's broad-faced chisel. Preparing stone with a boaster is known as boasting.
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In architecture bolection is another name for a bilection.
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In architecture a bolster is the rolls forming the ends or sides of the Ionic capital.
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In architecture, bolster work refers to members which are bellied or curved outward like cushions, as in the friezes of certain classical styles.
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In architecture a bond is the union or tie of the several stones or bricks forming a wall. The bricks may be arranged for this purpose in several different ways, as in English or block bond, where one course consists of bricks with their ends toward the face of the wall, called headers, and the next course of bricks with their lengths parallel to the face of the wall, called stretchers; Flemish bond, where each course consists of headers and stretchers alternately, so laid as always to break joints; Cross bond, which differs from the English by the change of the second stretcher line so that its joints come in the middle of the first, and the same position of stretchers comes back every fifth line; Combined cross and English bond, where the inner part of the wall is laid in the one method, the outer in the other.
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In building, bonderising refers to the chemical treatment of small metal units rendered rust inhibitive and suitable for painting.
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In masonry, a bondstone is a stone running through a wall from one face to another, to bind it together.
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In architecture, a boss is a projecting ornament placed at the intersection of the ribs of ceilings, whether vaulted or flat, and in other situations. The name boss is also given to a wooden vessel used for the mortar used in tiling or masonry, which is hung by a hook from the laths, or from the rounds of a ladder.
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In architecture, bossage describes a stone in a building, left rough and projecting, to be afterward carved into shape. The term is also applied to Rustic work, consisting of stones which seem to advance beyond the level of the building, by reason of indentures or channels left in the joinings.
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A bothie (or bothy) is a house, usually of one room, for the accommodation of a number of workmen engaged in the same employment. Bothies were most common in the north-east of Scotland, and were chiefly used for the accommodation of unmarried male farm servants engaged on the larger farms, who as a rule had to do their cooking and keep the bothie in order for themselves. The bothie system was often condemned.
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A boudoir is a small room, elegantly fitted up, destined for retirement (hence the name which derives from the French bonder, to pout, to be sulky). The boudoir is the peculiar property of the lady, where only her most intimate friends are admitted.
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A boulevard was formerly the ramparts of a fortified town, but when these were levelled, and the whole planted with trees and laid out as promenades, the name boulevard was still retained. Modern usage applies it also to many streets which are broad and planted with trees, although they were not originally ramparts. The most famous boulevards are those of Paris.
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In architecture, a boultel is a moulding, the convexity of which is one fourth of a circle, being a member just below the abacus in the Tuscan and Roman Doric capital. the term is also applied to one of the shafts of a clustered column.
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A bow window is a elliptically curved window projecting from the face of a wall. Bow windows originated with the late Gothic style. While a bay window reaches to the ground, a bow window differs in not reaching the ground.
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A bower is a lady's private room.
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In architecture, a box beam is a beam made of metal plates so as to have the form of a long box.
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In architecture a box drain is a drain constructed with upright sides, and with a flat top and bottom.
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In architecture box girder is another name for a box beam.
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In architecture, boxing is the external case of thin material used to bring any member to a required form.
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In architecture a brace is a piece of material used to transmit, or change the direction of, weight or pressure; any one of the pieces, in a frame or truss, which divide the structure into triangular parts. It may act as a tie, or as a strut, and serves to prevent distortion of the structure, and transverse strains in its members. A boiler brace is a diagonal stay, connecting the head with the shell.
In scaffolding, a brace is a tube inserted diagonally in a scaffold to give stability and to prevent the tendency for the framework to fold.
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In architecture, brattishing is carved openwork, as of a shrine, battlement, or parapet.
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A breakwater is a work constructed in front of a harbour to serve as a protection against the violence of the waves. The name is also given to any structure which is erected in the sea with the object of breaking the force of the waves without and producing a calm within, such as the common breakwaters found extending into the sea along Britain's coasts.
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In architecture a breastsummer (brestsummer or bressummer) is a summer or girder extending across a building flush with, and supporting, the upper part of a front or external wall. They are used principally above shop windows.
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Breche violet is a very decorative type of marble quarried in the Carrara Mountains. Breche violet is of a basic creamy white, clouded colour with delicate tones of blue-grey, broken into irregular angular shapes by veins. The primary veins are blue-violet in colour, the secondary veins a variety of colours. The quarries were exhausted prior to 1960, and breche violet is no longer produced, but can still be found in older buildings.
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A breteche or bretesche is a sort of roofed wooden balcony or cage, crenelated and machicolated, attached by corbels, sometimes immediately over a gateway.
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Bricks are blocks of clay or other ceramic material, kneaded and then usually baked and used for the construction and decorative facing of buildings. Bricks may be dried in the sun but are more usually baked in a kiln. They cost relatively little, resist dampness and heat, and can supposedly last longer than stone - in tests however, modern bricks have a life span of only about forty years after which they start to decay. The colour of a brick varies according to the clay used and in proportions according to architectural tradition. The typical red or brownish colour found in British bricks is caused by the presence of iron oxide in the clay.
Brick was the chief building material of ancient Mesopotamia and Palestine, which had little wood or stone. The inhabitants of Jericho in Palestine were building with brick about 7000 BC. Sumerian and Babylonian builders constructed ziggurats, palaces, and city walls of sun-dried brick and covered them with more durable kiln-baked, often brilliantly glazed brick, arranged in decorative pictorial friezes.
Later the Persians and the Chinese built in brick (the Great Wall of China is built of brick). The Romans built such large structures as baths, amphitheatres, and aqueducts in brick, which they often covered with marble facing - ironically they built their houses from the far more resilient flint. During the Middle Ages, in the Byzantine Empire, in northern Italy, in the Low Countries, and in Germany, indeed wherever stone was scarce, builders valued brick for its decorative and structural qualities. They made handsome use of warm, red, unglazed brick laid in a variety of intricate patterns, such as checker, herringbone, basket weave, or Flemish bond. Such traditions continued during the Renaissance and in English Georgian architecture, and were taken to North America by the colonists although brick was already known to the American Indians of pre-Columbian civilizations. In dry regions they made houses of sun-dried adobe brick. The great pyramids of the Olmec, Maya, and other groups were made of brick faced with stone.
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In architecture, brick nogging is rough brickwork used to fill in the spaces between the uprights of a wooden partition.
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In architecture a brick trimmer is a brick arch under a hearth, usually within the thickness of a wooden floor, used to guard against accidents by fire.
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Bridewell was formerly a famous house of correction in Blackfriars, London, latterly the term has been used as a general term for houses of this kind. The building took its name from a well once existing between Fleet Street and the Thames, and dedicated to St Bride. Henry VIII built on this site, in 1522, a palace for the accommodation of the Emperor Charles V, which was afterwards converted by Edward VI into an hospital to serve as a workhouse for the poor and a house of correction for the idle and vicious.
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A bridge, a structure of stone, brick, wood, iron or other material, affording a passage over a stream, valley, or the like. The earliest bridges were probably the trunks of trees. The simplest form of bridge is known as a clapper-bridge and consists of planks or slabs of stone which rest on piles of stones.
The arch seems to have been unknown amongst most of the nations of antiquity. Even the Greeks had not sufficient acquaintance with it to apply it to bridge building. The Romans were the first to employ the principle of the arch in this direction, and after the construction of such a work as the great arched sewer at Rome, the Cloaca Maxima, a bridge over the Tiber would be of comparatively easy execution. One of the finest examples of the Roman bridge was the bridge built by Augustus over the Nera at Narni, the vestiges of which still remain.
It consisted of four arches, the longest of 43 meters span. The most celebrated bridges of ancient Rome were not generally, however, distinguished by the extraordinary size of their arches, nor by the lightness of their piers, but by their excellence and durability. The span of their arches seldom exceeded 20 or 25 meters, and they were mostly semicircular, or nearly so.
The Romans built bridges wherever their conquests extended, and in Britain there are still a number of bridges dating from Roman times. One of the most ancient post-Roman bridges in England is the Gothic triangular bridge at Croyland, in Lincolnshire, said to have been built in 860, having three archways meeting in a common centre at their apex, and three roadways. The longest old bridge in England was that over the Trent at Burton, in Staffordshire, built in the twelfth century, of squared freestone, and pulled down in the 19th century. It consisted of thirty-six arches, and was 47 meters long.
Old London Bridge was commenced in 1176, and finished in 1209. It had houses on each side like a regular street until 1756-58. In 1831 it was altogether removed, the new bridge, which had been begun in 1824, having then been finished.
The art of bridge-building made no progress after the destruction of the Roman empire until the eighteenth century, when the French architects began to introduce improvements, and the constructions of Perronet (Nogent-sur-Seine; Neuilly; Louis XVI bridge at Paris) are masterpieces. Some of the stone bridges built in later times far surpass those of older times in width of span.
Stone bridges consist of an arch or series of arches, and in building them the properties of the arch, the nature of the materials, and many other matters have to be carefully considered. It has been found that in the construction of an arch the slipping of the stones upon one another is prevented by their mutual pressure and the friction of their surfaces; the use of cement is thus subordinate to the principle of construction in contributing to the strength and maintenance of the fabric. The masonry or rock which receives the lateral thrust of an arch is called the abutment, the perpendicular supports are the piers. The width of an arch is its span; the greatest span in any stone bridge is about 75 meters. A one-span bridge has, of course, no piers.
In constructing a bridge across a deep stream it is desirable to have the smallest possible number of points of support. Piers in the waterway are not only expensive to form, but obstruct the navigation of the river, and by the very extent of resisting surface they expose the structure to shocks and the wearing action of the water. In building an arch, a timber framework was used called the centre, or centering. The centering had to keep the stones or voussoirs in position until they were keyed in, that is, all fixed in their places by the insertion of the key-stone.
The first iron bridges were erected from about 1777 to 1790. The same general principles apply to the construction of iron as of stone bridges, but the greater cohesion and adaptability of the material give more liberty to the architect, and much greater width of span is possible. At first iron bridges were erected in the form of arches, and the material employed was cast-iron; but the arch has been generally superseded by the beam or girder, with its numerous modifications; and wrought-iron or steel was likewise found to be much better adapted for resisting a great tensile strain than cast-metal.
Numerous modifications exist of the beam or girder, as the lattice-girder, bow-string-girder, etc; but of these none is more interesting than the tubular or hollow-girder, first rendered famous from its employment by Robert Stephenson in the construction of the railway bridge across the Menai Strait, and connecting Anglesey with the mainland of North Wales. This is known as the Britannia Tubular Bridge. The tubes are of a rectangular form, and constructed of riveted plates of wrought-iron, with rows of rectangular tubes or cells for the floor and roof respectively. The bridge consists of two of these enormous tubes or hollow beams laid side by side, one for the up and the other for the down traffic of the railway, and extending each to about a quarter of a mile in length.
Other tubular bridges of interest are the Conway Bridge, over the river Conway, an erection identical in principle with the Britannia Bridge, but on a smaller scale; the Brotherton Bridge over the river Aire; the tubular railway bridge across the Damietta branch of the Nile, which has this peculiarity, that the roadway is carried above instead of through the tubes. The Victoria Bridge over the St Lawrence at Montreal, originally tubular, is no longer so, the upper portion having been reconstructed with an open track. It is nearly two miles in length, or about five and a half times as long as the bridge across the Menai Strait. A girder railway bridge across the Firth of Tay at Dundee was opened in 1887, being the second built at the same place, after the first had given way in a great storm. It is 2 miles 73 yards long, has 85 spans, is 77 feet. high, and carries two lines of rails. The bridge over the Firth of Forth at Queensferry, was completed in 1889, and was the largest bridge built on the cantilever principle and was the first very notable example.
A cantilever is a structure the main feature of which is a projecting arm jutting out over the space to be spanned and supporting the roadway; and two cantilevers may be made to meet directly, or the space between may be bridged over by a girder connected with both. The cantilever principle has the advantage that it may be employed where there might be great difficulties in the way of a bridge otherwise constructed, since the projecting arm may be built out from either side of the river or other opening to be crossed, and at a great height if necessary. In some cases a bridge with an arch or arches of wrought iron or steel is preferred chiefly or solely because such a structure has a more handsome appearance than some other bridges.
American engineers have been very successful as builders of iron bridges, adopting various forms of girder, and constructing also some splendid bridges, with arches of great span, built up of wrought iron and steel.
Suspension-bridges, being entirely independent of central supports, do not interfere with the river, and may be erected where it is impracticable to build bridges of any other kind. The entire weight of a suspension-bridge rests upon the piers at either end, from which it is suspended, all the weight being below the points of support. Such bridges always swing a little, giving a vibratory movement which imparts a peculiar sensation to the passenger. The modes of constructing these bridges are various. The roadway is suspended either from chains or from wire-ropes, the ends of which require to be anchored, that is attached to the solid rock or masses of masonry or iron. One of the earlier of the great suspension-bridges is that constructed by Telford over the Menai Strait near the Britannia Tubular Bridge, finished in 1825. The cable-stayed bridge is a type of suspension bridge in which the supporting cables are connected directly to the bridge deck without the use of suspenders.
Though the oldest bridges on record were built of wood, like the Sublician Bridge at Rome, or that thrown by Caesar across the Rhine, it is only in certain places and for certain purposes that wood was much used after 1800. In the 19th century Germany was the school for wooden bridges. Perhaps the most celebrated of all wooden bridges was that which spanned the Rhine at Schaffhausen in Switzerland. This was 364 feet in length and 18 feet broad. It was designed and executed by Ulric Grttbenman, a village carpenter, in 1758, and was destroyed by the French in 1799. In the United States, where timber was still in common use in the 19th century, the Trenton Bridge over the Delaware, erected in 1804; the bridge over the Susquehannah, etc were examples of wooden bridges.
Trestle Bridges, or bridges the roadway of which is supported on wooden trestles or frames, formed of a series of beams and braces and often built up to a great height, were common in America until recently. Certain kinds of bridges are known as movable bridges. The bascule, balance, counterpoise or drawbridge - in which the roadway may be raised and lowered in one or two pieces, - is a common form; and there are also swing bridges (also known as pivot bridges) - opening horizontally to let shipping pass; bridges constructed so as to roll horizontally on wheels or otherwise; bridges in which the movable part, carrying the traffic, is suspended from a high iron framework or cables, under which shipping passes; these forming transporter bridges, as the bridge across the Mersey between Runcorn and Widnes, etc.
Pontoon or floating bridges are formed of pontoons or boats over which the roadway is laid, there being often the means of making an opening for shipping. A flying bridge is simply a kind of ferry. The Tower Bridge, London, crossing the Thames, is a unique structure, a combined suspension and bascule bridge, opening in the centre to admit ships, and originally having an elevated footway for passengers, with lifts and stairs in two towers.
The Bailey bridge is a temporary bridge made of prefabricated steel parts that can be rapidly assembled. It is named after its inventor, the Englishman Sir Donald Bailey who designed the Bailey bridge during the early-mid 20th century.
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In architecture, a bridgeboard is a notched board to which the treads and risers of the steps of wooden stairs are fastened.
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In architecture, bridging is the system of bracing used between floor or other timbers to distribute the weight.
In decorating, bridging refers to a continuous film of paint that is not in complete contact with the surface to which it is applied, soon leading to a lifting and cracking of the dried film.
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In scaffolding, a bridle is a horizontal scaffold tube secured between two putlogs to give support to intermediate transoms across window openings.
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In architecture a bridle iron is a strong flat bar of iron, so bent as to provide support, as in a stirrup, one end of a floor timber, etc., where no sufficient bearing can be had.
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In architecture, brise-soleil refers to a slattered or louvered sun-screen comprised of horizontal and vertical compartmental screens often found incorporated into the facades of buildings in sunny countries notably Brazil and Egypt, so as to keep the glare of the sun out, while still admitting light and air and allowing a view from the window. The brise-soleil was first used in architecture in a design for a block of offices to be built in Algiers in 1933 by le Corbusier. In 1937 Le Corbusier was consultant to the Brazilian architects who incorporated the brise-soleil device into the offices of the Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro.
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In architecture, a broach is a spire rising directly from a tower, there being no intermediate parapet.
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Browning is a smooth coat of brown mortar, usually the second coat, used as the preparation for the finishing coat of plaster.
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In architecture, a bull's-nose is the name given to an external angle when obtuse or rounded.
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In architecture, a bundle pillar is a column or pier, with others of small dimensions attached to it.
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In architecture, a butment is a buttress of an arch; the supporter, or that part which joins it to the upright pier. The term is also applied to the mass of stone or solid work at the end of a bridge, by which the extreme arches are sustained, or by which the end of a bridge without arches is supported.
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In paperhanging, the term butt joint refers to paper hung with the edges lying side-by-side, rather than overlapping.
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In scaffolding, a butting tube is a very short piece of tube used in tubular scaffolding to make it possible for a diagonal brace to be fastened to a standard with right-angled couplers instead of with swivel couplers, thereby giving extra strength to the structure.
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In architecture, a buttress is a projecting mass of masonry, used for resisting the outward thrust of an arch, or for ornament and symmetry. When an external projection is used merely to stiffen a wall, it is called a pier, rather than a buttress.
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Byzantine is a style of architecture developed in the Byzantine empire. Its leading forms are the round arch, the dome, the pillar, the circle, and the cross. The capitals of the pillars are of endless variety, and full of invention. The mosque of St. Sophia, Constantinople, and the church of St. Mark, Venice, are prominent examples of Byzantine architecture.
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