ruin complex at
Teotihuacan, 5th century AD. , Granada,
Spain Middle East Courtyards were widely used in the ancient
Middle East. Middle Eastern courtyard houses reflect the nomadic influences of the region. Instead of officially designating rooms for cooking, sleeping, etc., these activities were relocated throughout the year as appropriate to accommodate the changes in temperature and the position of the sun. Often the flat rooftops of these structures were used for sleeping in warm weather. In some Islamic cultures, private courtyards provided the only outdoor space for women to relax unobserved. Convective cooling through transition spaces between multiple-courtyard buildings in the Middle East has also been observed. In c. 2000 BC
Ur, two-storey houses were constructed around an open square were built of fired brick.
Kitchen, working, and public spaces were located on the ground floor, with private rooms located upstairs.
Europe The central uncovered area in a Roman
domus was referred to as an
atrium. Today, we generally use the term
courtyard to refer to such an area, reserving the word
atrium to describe a glass-covered courtyard. Roman atrium houses were built side by side along the street. They were one-storey homes without windows that took in light from the entrance and from the central atrium. The hearth, which used to inhabit the centre of the home, was relocated, and the Roman atrium most often contained a central pool used to collect rainwater, called an
impluvium. These homes frequently incorporated a second open-air area, the garden, which would be surrounded by Greek-style
colonnades, forming a
peristyle. This created a colonnaded walkway around the perimeter of the courtyard, which influenced monastic structures centuries later. The medieval European farmhouse embodies what we think of today as one of the most archetypal examples of a courtyard house—four buildings arranged around a square courtyard with a steep roof covered by thatch. The central courtyard was used for working, gathering, and sometimes keeping small livestock. An elevated walkway frequently ran around two or three sides of the courtyards in the houses. Such structures afforded protection, and could even be made defensible.
China The traditional Chinese courtyard house, (e.g.
siheyuan), is an arrangement of several individual houses around a square. Each house belongs to a different family member, and additional houses are created behind this arrangement to accommodate additional family members as needed. The Chinese courtyard is a place of privacy and tranquility, almost always incorporating a garden and water feature. In some cases, houses are constructed with multiple courtyards that increase in privacy as they recede from the street. Strangers would be received in the outermost courtyard, with the innermost ones being reserved for close friends and family members. In a more contemporary version of the Chinese model, a courtyard can also be used to separate a home into
wings; for example, one wing of the house may be for entertaining/dining, and the other wing may be for sleeping/family/privacy. This is exemplified by the
Hooper House in Baltimore, Maryland.
United States in
Evanston, Illinois from 1914 A courtyard apartment building type appeared in
Chicago in the early 1890s and flourished into the 1920s. They are characterized primarily by a low height, a structure along three sides of a rectangular or square lot, and an open court extending perpendicular to the street. The courtyards are generally deeper than they are wide, but many finer ones are wider than they are deep. Influenced by the privacy and domesticity of a
standalone house as much as by strict
health codes, the architectural style provided outdoor access and ventilation unseen in earlier multi-unit housing in the United States. == Relevance today ==