Glossary · H
Hearth
The fixed fireplace at the heart of a house or hall; in the Mycenaean megaron a large raised circle of painted plaster, open to a smoke-hole or lantern above.
See also: Megaron
Rules that use the word
The megaron: porch, vestibule and hearth hall. Plan the principal hall as a long rectangle entered on its short side through a porch with two columns between the side walls and a vestibule, and put a great round hearth in the centre of the hall, ringed by four columns carrying a raised roof.
The hearth at the centre. Plan the house around a great fireplace at its heart, and let the wings of the plan extend from it in a cross or a pinwheel.
The four elements. Understand every building as a combination of four elements (the hearth, the roof on its supports, the enclosure and the mound), each descended from a craft: ceramics, carpentry, weaving and masonry.
The Usonian house. Build the family house on one level on a heated concrete slab, on a planning grid, round a brick core of hearth and kitchen; wall it in wood towards the street and in glass towards the garden; roof it flat with deep eaves, and shelter the car in a carport instead of a garage.
Almshouses, not workhouses. House the poor as a Christian community: small dwellings, each with its own door and hearth, round a garden court, with a chapel over the gate, not in a walled workhouse built for surveillance and punishment.
Where it appears in the book
In the chapters Post and Lintel, The Ancient World, Enlightenment and Revival, The House in England and America, The Modern Movement.
A feature of Aegean Bronze Age, Organic architecture, Craftsman architecture.
Nearby in the glossary
Harmika · Harmonic mean · Haunch · Header · Hearting · Helix · Henge · Herbaceous border