Hall

In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls.^[1] In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the great hall was the largest room in castles and large houses, and where the servants usually slept. As more complex house plans developed, the hall remained a large room for dancing and large feasts, often still with servants sleeping there. It was usually immediately inside the main door. In modern British houses, an entrance hall next to the front door remains an indispensable feature, even if it is essentially merely a corridor.

Today, the (entrance) hall of a house is the space next to the front door or vestibule leading to the rooms directly and/or indirectly. Where the hall inside the front door of a house is elongated, it may be called a passage, corridor (from Spanish corredor used in El Escorial and 100 years later in Castle Howard), or hallway.

History

In warmer climates, the houses of the wealthy were often built around a

Until the early modern era that majority of the population lived in houses with a single room. In the 17th century, even lower classes began to have a second room, with the main chamber being the hall and the secondary room the parlor. The hall and parlor house was found in England and was a fundamental, historical floor plan in parts of the United States from 1620 to 1860.^[3]

In Europe, as the wealthy embraced multiple rooms initially the common form was the enfilade, with rooms directly connecting to each other. In 1597 John Thorpe is the first recorded architect to replace multiple connected rooms with rooms along a corridor each accessed by a separate door.^[2]

Other uses

Collegiate halls

Many institutions and buildings at colleges and universities are formally titled "_______ Hall", typically being named after the person who endowed it, for example, King's Hall, Cambridge. Others, such as Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, commemorate respected people. Between these in age, Nassau Hall at Princeton University began as the single building of the then college. In medieval origin, these were the halls in which the members of the university lived together during term time. In many cases, some aspect of this community remains.

Some of these institutions are titled "Hall" instead of "College" because at the time of their foundation they were not recognised as colleges (in some cases because their foundation predated the existence of colleges) and did not have the appropriate

• St Edmund Hall
• Hart Hall (now Hertford College)
• Lady Margaret Hall
• The (currently six) Permanent private halls.

In colleges of the universities of

A hall is also a building consisting largely of a principal room, that is rented out for meetings and social affairs. It may be privately or government-owned, such as a function hall owned by one company used for weddings and cotillions (organized and run by the same company on a contractual basis) or a community hall available for rent to anyone, such as a British village hall.

Religious halls

In religious architecture, as in

In architecture, the term "double-loaded" describes corridors that connect to rooms on both sides. Conversely, a single-loaded corridor only has rooms on one side (and possible windows on the other). A blind corridor does not lead anywhere.

• Billiard hall
• City hall, town hall or village hall
• Concert hall
• Concourse (at a large transportation station)
• Convention center (exhibition hall)
• Dance hall
• Dining hall
• Firehall
• Great room or great hall
• Moot hall
• Prayer hall, such as the sanctuary of a synagogue
• Reading room
• Residence hall
• Trades hall (also called union hall, labour hall, etc.)
• Waiting room (in large transportation stations)

See also

• Hall of fame

References

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Hall".

• The dictionary definition of hall at Wiktionary
• Media related to Halls at Wikimedia Commons