The balcony is a room so familiar to us that it is perhaps impossible to imagine a residential building without it. But did you know that the first balconies did not appear for drying clothes?
The first structure, which has a consonant with the modern name “Balcone”, is an Italian defensive structure of the 13th century.
The monolithic stone structure was a fenced area held by brackets. Installed over the city gates, balconies adorned the entrance and provided a safe view of the surroundings, and during the siege provided a tactical advantage.
In the 14th century, balconies lightened and tightly covered with slabs in Romanesque patterns appeared on the facades of Italian public buildings and residential buildings.
The photo shows the famous balcony of Juliet from the play of William Shakespeare.
Interesting: “Juliet balconies” - an idiom of the English language, was born thanks to the tragedy of “Romeo and Juliet”. Pronounced without clarification, this phrase means the type of balcony, "which can not be reached" and means the modern "French balcony".
According to one version, the “French balconies” have a rather dirty history that begins in the palace of the Louvre. For lack of toilets, at the courtyard the Parisians celebrated the need for "night vases" or directly on the street, sitting back down to the window. The inconvenient and risky posture taken by the nobles daily led to lengthening of the window frames and the addition of an external fence.
Having lost its original purpose, but retaining its original form, the "French Balcony" is still present in the architecture of French, Spanish and Italian cities.
In the 15th century, in Italy, with the advent of Gothic style, a flat balcony base went out of fashion, giving way to mock rows of lined stones like a basket.
A new type of balcony was used both outside and inside as a cathedral chair.
In the Renaissance, feudal artisans began to create architectural works of art that exist to this day. Balconies of the XV-XVI centuries were decorated with antique ornaments and human faces.
Renaissance architects did not pass over the forging, filling the fencing of balconies with intricate figures.
In Russia, such elaborate architectural elements were found only on the facades of palaces of the 18th century. The balconies of the Catherine Palace are a wonderful example of Russian baroque.
Thanks to the discovery of cement and cast iron in the second half of the 19th century, the decoration of balconies and loggias became much cheaper and simpler: summer rooms were built everywhere.
In the layout of residential buildings of the XX-XXI centuries, the presence of a balcony is provided from the point of view of fire safety.
Today, a balcony or loggia is a great opportunity to expand your living space. If you approach the arrangement competently, then it is a balcony or a loggia that can become a place for wonderful tea drinking, a winter garden, a playroom for a child, an office or even a gym. It is unlikely that our ancestors could imagine how we would use these premises. Below are the designs of modern loggias from the company "European Windows". Information about the features of the decoration is excellently presented on their .