Atrium (architecture)

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Looking up inside the 32-story atrium of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt, part of the Jin Mao Building.

In architecture, an atrium (plural atria) is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within an office building and usually located immediately beyond the main entrance doors. Atria are popular with companies because they give their buildings "a feeling of space and light", but have been criticised by fire inspectors as they could allow fire to spread to a building's upper stories more quickly.

The Latin word atrium referred to the open central court, from which the enclosed rooms led off, in the type of large ancient Roman house known as a domus.

[edit] The Roman Atrium

The atrium originally was the bedroom of the mother of the family in an old Latin household. Hence a bed lectus genialis stood opposite the main entrance. The Romans kept the bed standing as a symbol of the sanctity of marriage (the bride was still placed upon it by the groom as part of the marriage ceremony), but it served only symbolic use.

A further symbol connected with the atrium was the hearth. In early houses the hearth, which all its symbolisms of homeliness, was situated in the atrium the centre of the house and domestic life. But the more classic Roman houses don't have a hearth in the atrium. In fact, it remains unclear where the highly symbolic hearth was thereafter moved.

The impluvium was the shallow pool sunken into the floor to catch the rainwater. Some surviving examples are beautifully decorated. The opening in the ceiling above the pool called for some means of support for the roof. And it is here where one differentiates between five different styles of atrium.

atrium tuscanium: This type had no columns. The weight of the ceiling was carried by the rafters. Though expensive to build, it seems to have been the most widespread type of atrium in the Roman house.
atrium tetrastylum: This type had one column at each corner of the impluvium.
atrium corinthium: This type was similar to the atrium tetrastylum but had a greater opening in the roof and a greater number of columns.
atrium displuviatum: The roof actually sloped towards the side walls, so a large amount of rainwater ran off into other outlets than the impluvium.
atrium testudinatum: This atrium had no opening in the roof at all and was only seen in small, unimportant houses.

As the centrepiece of the house the atrium was the most lavishly furnished room. Also it contained the little chapel to the ancestral spirits (lararium), the household safe (arca) and sometimes a bust of the master of the house.