Architecture

Architecture is the art of building according to principles de­termined not only by the purposes the structure is to serve, but also by considerations of beauty and harmony.

The task of an architect is to design beautiful and comfortable apartment houses, public buildings and industrial enterprises. It is an important and honourable task

The word "architecture" comes from a Greek word "architecon" which meant the chief builder. It is the architect who is the first person to plan any building. He chooses the style and determines the size of the structure, its layout and architectural appearance suitable for the purpose.

The architect must coordinate the work of a big group of specialists concerned with the construction of a building (a sanitary engineer, a construction engineer, a planning expert and many others). Very often the skill and talent of the architect decide the success of the whole work.

The architectural speciality of Ural State Technical University trains not only painters who are able to create monuments, memorial parks and interiors of important big public buildings but engineers who can successfully solve different practical problems of construction and architecture.

The graduates of the chair of architecture work in various towns and cities of our country and abroad. Some of them are head architects of designing offices, and whole towns while the others are the authors of many civil and industrial construction designs.

The basis of the architectural speciality is architectural desig­ning which helps students to acquire practical knowledge of architecture from the very first year of their studies here such as volume and space, architectural elements of buildings and their shapes, proportions, tectonic structure and harmony as well as elements of architectural drawing. The would-be architects design first rather simple and further on more and more complicated structures.

Great attention is paid to the knowledge of monuments of classical architecture, the architecture of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the Renaissance as well as various modern styles both in our country and abroad.

In addition to special architectural subjects some general con­struction engineering disciplines are absolutely necessary for a future architect. These are:

1. Building materials.

2. Construction technology.

3. Footings and foundations.

4. Theory and designing of reinforced concrete, steel and tim­ber units.

5. Various elements of buildings such as:

a) precast and monolithic foundations;

b) bearing and curtain walls;

c) floors, stairs, windows, stained-glass panels, lanterns, roofs and so on.

The university gives the fundamentals of all these disciplines. The instruction is given by specialists highly qualified in the field of civil and industrial architecture and all branches of construc­tion engineering. The knowledge obtained at the institute will form a solid basis for the future practical work of the architect, for his fruitful creative work.