Glossary · V
Villa
Also called villas
A country house with its estate. In the Veneto of Palladio a villa was both a working farm and a retreat, the owner’s house flanked by barchesse.
See also: Barchessa
Rules that use the word
The villa garden: porticoes, grottoes, evergreens in rows. Give the villa garden porticoes for sun and for shade, grottoes made in imitation of nature with tufa and shells, evergreens planted in straight rows at equal distances, and hedges of box; set vines on columns over the walks.
Terraces on the axis of the villa. On a hillside, cut the garden into level terraces held by retaining walls, join them by stairs and ramps on a single axis that runs from the house, and lead water down the axis from level to level.
A park paid for by the houses round it. Lay out the public park with a drive round its edge, lakes dug in the hollows and the spoil raised into mounds, winding paths through groves and lawns inside; sell plots for villas round the boundary to pay for it, their gardens facing the park.
Where to build a villa. Build the country house by a navigable river if you can, for cheap transport of the harvest and for beauty, or else by a main road; on raised ground open to the air, away from standing water and deep valleys, and in the middle of its own land.
Where it appears in the book
In the chapters Proportion and Number, Stairs, The Tuscan Order, The Ionic Order, The Temple, China, Japan and Korea, Renaissance and Baroque, Gardens and Landscape.
A feature of Italian Renaissance garden, Palladian, The Picturesque architecture.
Nearby in the glossary
Vastu Purusha Mandala · Vedika · Veranda · Vihara · Vimana · Volute · Voussoir · Wall rib