Threshold and transition
Gallery
public building school cloister hospital courtyard housing
It is a long, roofed space open on one side through columns or arches. It can be on the ground floor or an upper floor.
What it solves
It links rooms with a shaded, ventilated route. It creates a deep facade that filters sun and rain.
Today
In tropical schools and public buildings use it as open circulation instead of closed interior corridors.
Common mistake
Orienting it so that the low afternoon sun crosses it from side to side.
Tomorrow
Open galleries allow buildings that work without air conditioning for much of the year. With stronger storms their edge should resist wind and sideways rain.
Where it comes from
- 1Ancient Greece Greece, Antiquity
The stoa was a covered colonnaded walkway for public use that framed the market square. - 2Ancient Egypt Egypt, Antiquity
Many houses had a loggia on the roof terrace or an inner one overlooking the courtyard. - 3Italian city Florence, Italy, 14th century
The Loggia dei Lanzi, begun in 1376, opens a covered hall onto the square.
Masters
- Filippo Brunelleschi Hospital of the Innocents, Florence, Italy, 1445
He opens toward the square a gallery of nine arches on columns, raised a few steps above the ground. It is one of the first works of the Renaissance and a model of a public gallery.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Threshold and transition
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.