Editing Atrium (architecture) (section)

==Ancient atria==
{{See also|Cavaedium|label 1=Cavaedium, for Ancient Roman atria}}
[[File:Atrium interior.jpg|thumb|A late 19th-century artist's reimagining of an atrium in a [[Pompeii|Pompeian]] ''domus'']]
[[File:Il·lustració d’una escena a l’atri de l’edifici dels banys de la vil·la romana dels Munts.jpg|thumb|Illustration of the atrium in the building of the baths in the Roman villa of "Els Munts", close to [[Tarraco]]]]
In a ''[[domus]]'', a large house in [[ancient Roman architecture]], the atrium was the open central [[Courtyard|court]] with enclosed rooms on all sides. In the middle of the atrium was the ''[[impluvium]]'', a shallow pool sunken into the floor to catch [[rain]]water from the roof. Some surviving examples are beautifully decorated. The opening in the ceiling above the pool (''compluvium'') called for some means of support for the roof, and it is here where one differentiates between [[Cavaedium|five different styles]] of atrium. As the centrepiece of the house, the atrium was the most lavishly furnished room. Wealthier houses often included a marble ''cartibulum'', an oblong marble table supported by ''trapezophoros'' pedestals depicting mythological creatures like winged griffins.<ref>John J. Dobbins and Pedar W. Foss, The World of Pompeii, Routledge Press, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-415-47577-8}}</ref> Also, it contained the little chapel to the [[lares|ancestral spirits]] (''[[lararium]]''), the household [[safe]] (''arca'') and sometimes a bust of the master of the house. The cylindrical [[puteal]] (a wellhead) gave access to the water cistern fed by water seeping through the porous bottom of the overlying impluvium. The atrium contributed to the [[Passive cooling#Preventive techniques|passive cooling]] of the house.

The term was also used for a variety of spaces in public and religious buildings, mostly forms of [[Arcade (architecture)|arcade]]d courtyards, larger versions of the domestic spaces. [[Byzantine]] churches were often entered through such a space (as are many [[mosque]]s, though the term atrium is not usually used to describe [[Islamic architecture]]).