Engineering:False front
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In architecture, the false front (also false facade, flying facade, screen wall) is a facade designed to disguise the true characteristics of a building, usually to beautify it.[1][2][3] The architectural design and purposes of these wall-like[4] features vary:
- making a building appear larger, more important, and better-built, like in the Western false front architecture,[5] German Blendfassade (de) (lit. blind facades) or Brick Gothic main facades (Schaufassaden, lit. show facades). Some sources also use the term screen facade (German: Schirmfassade) when discussing the Medieval and Renaissance churches,[6][7][8] not to be confused with the modern "membrane" screen facade;
- creating a fake appearance to improve aesthetics, an architectural equivalent of trompe-l'oeil;[9]
- in facadism, keeping the old facades with the goal of preserving the visual character of a historical neighborhood while allowing an entirely modern design of the actual buildings. In the view of preservationists, this creates a "Disneyland of false fronts"; [10]
- deliberate violation of the truth to materials principle ("false in material")[5] for economical, insulation, or aesthetic purposes, like masonry veneer using a non-structural outer layer of stone[11] or a membrane screen facade;
- hiding a gable roof, like a tall parapet wall,[12] as opposed to cross-sectional facade (de);
- a purely decorative way to increase height, like the one of a roof comb, a flat structure that tops buildings in Mesoamerican architecture. Sometimes the comb was shifted from the center of the roof to one of the walls, forming a flying facade.[13]
Tradition of "show facades" goes back to the very beginnings of the architecture, when the simplest buildings might have just one opening serving both as a door and a window. The special role of the wall with this opening was stressed through articulation and decoration.[14]
Outside of architecture, "false front" is used to describe a deceptive outward appearance in general,[15] false hair in front (like bangs).[16] In cabinetry, false drawer fronts give sink cabinets the appearance of having drawers (for aesthetical reasons) where the sink and plumbing leave insufficient space for them.[17]
Facadism
Screen facades in Romanesque architecture
Popularity of Romanesque church fronts facades in the form of flat, decorated screens (façades-écrans), as opposed to projecting tower-porches, is traced to 11th-century Poitou, western France. Stone vaulting enabled bell towers to be supported over the crossing of the nave and transept, reducing the need for towers at the entrance. Dispensing with the tower-porch also allowed larger western windows to illuminate the vaulted interior and provided a broad surface for arcades and sculpture.[18]
An early example was Saint-Jean-de-Montierneuf in Poitiers, founded in 1069 by William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine. The original scheme included two western bell towers, but construction had barely begun before this arrangement was abandoned in favour of a straight screen façade, dated to approximately 1086–1096. The ground plan of the facade was unearthed during 1990 excavations, with the sculpted fragments reused in the later front indicate that its decoration included carved archivolts. Marie-Thérèse Camus (fr), a French architectural historian, suggested that Montierneuf have served as a prototype for the large, sculpted screen façades of western France, with its design signifying a transition from towered church fronts to the elaborate façades of the 12th century, as in Notre-Dame-la-Grande in Poitiers.[18]
Show facades
In the Brick Gothic,[citation needed] the Schaufassaden (lit. show facades,[19] display facades), the facades facing the main street, were richly decorated and frequently concealed the cross-section structure of the building.[20]
Lombard architecture
In Lombard Gothic architecture, the facciata a vento (lit. wind facade) is a type of screen facade where the stone facing rises higher than the roofline, characterized by windows (often the round oculi) that open into the empty sky ("sfondanti sul cielo").[21] Angiola Maria Romanini identified these "windows breaking into the sky" as a defining stylistic hallmark of the region's Gothic architecture.[21]
While the church of San Francesco in Brescia (c. 1254) was traditionally considered the prototype of this style, recent stratigraphical analysis suggests that the upper section of its facade is a later addition.[21] Instead, the Basilica of San Francesco in Bologna (completed 1263) is likely the true innovative prototype of the facciata a vento.[22][23]
The facciata a vento reduces the building's front to a two-dimensional screen, replacing the earlier Romanesque tradition of the elaborately 3D-sculpted German: Schirmfassade (screen facade).[8] Following its introduction by the Mendicant orders, the style became a distinctively Lombard phenomenon, spreading to Cremona Cathedral, Monza Cathedral, and the (now demolished) Santa Maria della Scala in Milan.[8] The style eventually migrated to the Adriatic coast, influencing architecture in the Marche region.[8]
Western false front architecture
See also
- Fake building, an urban-building-like shell housing unsightly machinery
- Westwork, a structural element that also presents a show facade
- Rood screen and iconostasis, internal decorative walls in church
- Stepped gable, Dutch gable, and clock gable, designs at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building projecting above the roofline
- Bell-gable, a wall extension in the church in lieue of the bell tower
- Potemkin village, the use of structures to make the grim reality appear better
- Cladding (construction), a thin layer of material used primarily for better weather resistance, but also for thermal insulation and appearance
- Stone veneer, cladding using a thin layer of stone
- Formstone, a type of stucco imitating stone
- Harvard brick, a technique for building brick facades in imitation of much older ones
- Rustication (architecture), a range of masonry techniques contrasting with smooth ashlar
References
- ↑ Ching 2011, p. 16.
- ↑ De Gruyter 2008, p. 143.
- ↑ Stevens 2008.
- ↑ Kreuz 2016, p. 509, Note 277.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Heath 1989, p. 210.
- ↑ Malone 2004, pp. 90–92.
- ↑ Davies & Jokiniemi 2012, p. 426, screen facade.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Rossetti 2018, p. 37.
- ↑ Lessard 1987, p. 38.
- ↑ Stevens 2008, p. 34.
- ↑ Thompson 1983, p. 23.
- ↑ Treu 2012, p. 28.
- ↑ Stone 1931, p. 40.
- ↑ Pech, Pommer & Zeininger 2014, p. 12.
- ↑ Phillips 2018, p. 168, facade.
- ↑ "False front". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/false+front.
- ↑ Feirer & Feirer 2010, pp. 786–787.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Camus 1991, pp. 237–253.
- ↑ Giese 2021, p. 432.
- ↑ Koepf & Binding 2005, p. 411.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Rossetti 2018, p. 30.
- ↑ Rossetti 2018, p. 31.
- ↑ Rossetti 2018, p. 36.
Sources
- Camus, Marie-Thérèse (1991). "De la facade à tour(s) à la facade-écran dans les pays de l'Ouest : l'exemple de Saint-Jean-de-Montierneuf de Poitiers" (in fr). Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 34 (135): 237–253. doi:10.3406/ccmed.1991.2497. ISSN 0007-9731. https://www.persee.fr/doc/ccmed_0007-9731_1991_num_34_135_2497. Retrieved 2025-10-16.
- Ching, Francis D. K. (2011-12-30). A Visual Dictionary of Architecture. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-16049-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6I0oddgcj8C&pg=PA16. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
- Davies, Nikolas; Jokiniemi, Erkki (2012-05-04). Architect's Illustrated Pocket Dictionary. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-44406-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=7PXEeoS88lQC&pg=PA426. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
- Feirer, Mark D.; Feirer, John L. (2010). Carpentry & Building Construction. Woodland Hills, California: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. pp. 786–787. ISBN 978-0-07-879784-2. https://search.worldcat.org/title/298553990.
- (in de) Das Baudenkmal: Zu Denkmalschutz und Denkmalpflege. Systematisches Fachwörterbuch. De Gruyter. 2008-12-31. doi:10.1515/9783110978872. ISBN 978-3-598-11113-6. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110978872/html. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
- Giese, Francine (2021-03-22). "The Hybridization of Sebka Ornament". Mudejarismo and Moorish Revival in Europe: Cultural Negotiations and Artistic Translations in the Middle Ages and 19th-century Historicism. Brill. pp. 431–460. doi:10.1163/9789004448582_022. ISBN 978-90-04-44858-2. https://brill.com/view/title/57741. Retrieved 2025-10-02.
- Heath, Kingston Wm. (1989). "False-Front Architecture on Montana's Urban Frontier". Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture (Vernacular Architecture Forum) 3: 199–213. doi:10.2307/3514305. ISSN 0887-9885. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3514305. Retrieved 2025-09-24.
- Koepf, Hans; Binding, Günther (2005). "Schaufassade" (in de). Bildwörterbuch der Architektur. Kröners Taschenausgabe. 194 (4th ed.). Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag. ISBN 978-3-520-19404-6. https://moodle.unifr.ch/pluginfile.php/975203/mod_resource/content/0/KOEPF%2C%20BINDING%2C%202005%2C%20Bildwoerterbuch%20der%20Architektur.pdf. Retrieved 25 September 2025.
- Kreuz, Gottfried Eugen (2016-07-11) (in de). Besonderer Ort, poetischer Blick: Untersuchungen zu Räumen und Bildern in Statius' Silvae. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-647-20870-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=aLLkEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA509. Retrieved 2025-10-02.
- Lessard, Michel (Summer 1987). "L'art du trompe-l'oeil: le phénomène de la fausse facade" (in fr). Cap-aux-Diamants 3 (2): 37–40. ISSN 0829-7983. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/cd/1987-v3-n2-cd1039400/6693ac.pdf. Retrieved 25 September 2025.
- Malone, Carolyn Marino (2004-01-01). facade as Spectacle: Ritual and Ideology at Wells Cathedral. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-13840-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=SGn5lbRNRVwC&pg=PA90. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
- Pech, Anton; Pommer, Georg; Zeininger, Johannes (2014-09-23) (in de). Fassaden. Birkhäuser. ISBN 978-3-99043-087-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=NY3pBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA12. Retrieved 2025-10-02.
- Phillips, Mark (2018-06-26). Vocabulary Dictionary and Workbook: 2,856 Words You Must Know. A J Cornell Publications. ISBN 978-0-9727439-4-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=kXzDiG4brTQC&pg=PA168. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
- Rossetti, Jores (2018). "Il fastigio a vento nei prospetti sacri del gotico lombardo. Il caso del San Francesco di Brescia: nascita o recupero di un modello?" (in it). Studi e ricerche di storia dell'architettura (3): 30–37. doi:10.17401/STUDIERICERCHE-3/2018-ROSSETTI. https://www.edizionicaracol.it/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Studi-e-ricerche-3-Rossetti.pdf.
- Stevens, Deirdre A. (May 2008). Changing the Perspective of Facadism within San Francisco (Doctor of Architecture thesis). University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
- Stone, Daniel James (1931). The culture of the Mayas as shown by their ruins (MA thesis). University of the Pacific. Retrieved 25 September 2025.
- Thompson, Bethany (1983). Historic Bridge Inventory, Island of Oahu. State of Hawaii, Department of Transportation, Highways Division. https://books.google.com/books?id=fmCM4E6gloUC&q=false+front+masonry. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
- Treu, M. (2012). Signs, Streets, and Storefronts: A History of Architecture and Graphics Along America's Commercial Corridors. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-1-4214-0494-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=t8wmRYF7M64C&pg=PA28. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
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