ארכיטקטורה

Hebrew

Etymology

From Latin architectūra, itself derived from Ancient Greek ἀρχιτέκτων (arkhitéktōn, “master builder”). Likely via Russian архитектура (arxitektura); the earliest trace in Hebrew is from Yosef Haim Brenner's 1911 novel Mi-kan u-mi-kan. It was punctuated with niqqud (see quote) and there was a significant gap before other authors picked it up, implying that he was most likely the first to use it in writing.

Pronunciation

• (Modern Israeli Hebrew) IPA^(key): /arxitekˈtura/, [(ʔ)äʁxite̞kˈturä]

Noun

אַרְכִיטֶקְטוּרָה • (arkhitektúra) f (plural indefinite ארכיטקטורות, singular construct ארכיטקטורת־, plural construct ארכיטקטורות־)

1. architecture (the art and science of designing and managing the construction of buildings and other structures, particularly if they are well proportioned and decorated)
   • 1911, Yosef Haim Brenner, Mi-kan u-mi-kan‎^[1]:

     אנכי טענתי אליו: “מה בכך שבעל-המחברת הוּא, כדבריך, איש שהספרות היתה אומנותו? במטותא, איזה ערך אמנותי יש לכתביו הטרוּפים האלה, שפּתוֹס שירי אין בהם, ואף לא רחבות-הדעת, ואף לא שכלול-הנוסח, ואף לא כל אַרכיטקטוּרה, ואף לא התבטאות הנפש הכל-עולמית, כמו שדורש מבקר אחד בדברו על תעוּדת האמנוּת, ואף לא מטרות נעלות אחרות – המטרות הנצחיות של האמנות – לרומם את הרוחות ולגרום עונג אֶסתטי?… הגע בעצמך, מה יש פה?

     I argued to him: "What does it mean that the owner of the notebook is, as you say, a man whose art was literature? In short, what artistic value do these tropes of his writings have, there is no poetic pathos in them, not even broad-mindedness, not even the perfection of the text, not even any architecture, not even the expression of the universal soul, as one critic demands in his speech on the certificate of art, and not even Not other lofty goals - the eternal goals of art - to lift the spirits and cause aesthetic pleasure?... Reach for yourself, what's here?

2. (by extension, computing) Architecture: the design of multilayered computer systems.

Synonyms

• (design of buildings): אַדְרִיכָלוּת (adrikhalút)

Related terms

• אַרְכִיטֶקְט (arkhitékt)

References

• Klein, Ernest (1987) “אַרְכִיטֶקְטוּרָה”, in A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English‎^[2], Jerusalem: Carta, →ISBN, page 56