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A cylindrical container at San Isidoro in León is the only Viking object known from the Iberian Peninsula. The León piece is compared to other Viking artifacts of similar style and similar materials to place it in its context. The cylinder most probably is red-deer antler, and the carving is executed in the late-tenth and early-eleventh-century Viking style called Mammen. The motif on the box is a bird of prey with splayed-out wings and with its head carved three dimensionally looking downward from the top of the cylinder like a gargoyle. The antler body of the object as well as the metal top and bottom are pierced, suggesting that the function of the box may have been to hold aromatic scents. Although Vikings harried the coast of the Iberian Peninsula from the mid-ninth through the twelfth centuries, it is not likely that the piece was a casual loss by a hostile invader. More likely, it was a marriage gift associated with a northern woman who came to Iberia as a bride, a hybrid object made to order for someone who could appreciate the Viking animal style of the ornamentation combined with the exotic use of aromatics unknown in the North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents an experimental investigation of a new use of phase change materials (PCM) as a coating material on concrete and hollow brick walls. Its aim is to study the influence of the integration of PCM on the thermal behaviour of cells and on the improvement of thermal comfort in buildings under the Algerian climate. Tests of the flexural strength, compressive strength, bond strength, and hardness were performed at seven days of age on composite plaster/PCM materials. Different percentages of phase change material were used in the designs of composition (plaster/PCM). In situ measurements of air and walls temperatures were made in three cells. The first one was built with traditional materials and the other two with a composite material plaster/PCM. The cells are located in the Algiers region. The measurement results show that the use of a gypsum plaster incorporating 30% PCM contributes to a reduction of the amplitude of indoor temperature of the cell by 4°C in the summer. The use of PCM has also improved thermal comfort and increased the maximum cell temperature by 2°C during winter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on history of the gargoyles at the Augustinian Convent in Cuitzeo (Michoacan) and discusses elements of religious life that gain expression in the iconographic display of architectural wholes.

The thesis here presented is a result of the study that we developed earlier in the realization of our dissertation in Art, Heritage and Restoration, under the theme "The Gargoyles at the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória. Function and form", publicly defended and approved at the Faculty of Arts, University of Lisbon, in 2008. The research is based in a concept of architecture understood as an articulated set of systems that are one of the concerns of the master builder. The sense of Portuguese gothic architecture and its technical solution gains a new approach if analyzed from this point of view, system for system, solution by solution, to fully understand the building as a functional organic unity. Thus, in a Gothic building we find, amongst others, the system of external roofing (roofs and terraces), hydraulic system (pipes and gargoyles, collection and drain pipes) internal hedges (domes and their typologies) the wall system (stone cutting, solution tear openings), buttress system (arches, internal and external buttresses, etc.), working together to create the perfect expression of devotion, the iconography and the beauty of light. The universe of our study is the Portuguese Gothic sacred architecture between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Since this is a very broad scope will be necessary to establish criteria for inventory and case study in order to choose the examples whose solutions used are innovative. We will perform a comparison of hydraulic systems present in the Portuguese case with other European examples: Spain, France, England and Germany in order to identify and understand the originality and complexity of hydraulic systems present in the Portuguese Gothic architecture, their technical and typological affiliations. We will focus our attention in the restoration carried out in the buildings by the Monuments Directorate General at the Portuguese Institute of Architectural Heritage and also analyze the interventions yet undocumented. This is a very important point because the restoration of buildings made over time, changed in a manner sometimes remarkable, in its appearance but also in its functionality. In the penultimate chapter we will analyze the upper and lower hydraulic system present in the Portuguese Gothic architecture, using the architectural and archaeological concepts. The hydraulic system is undoubtedly very important for the efficient functioning of buildings, as this is a wide range of elements that are a subsystem of the general architectural organization of the building. Since always, a primary concern of the architect when designing the building was to lead rainwater to the outside of the covered area. Thus, over time, solutions were rehearsed, even during the middle ages in Portugal, which took various types and contributed to the removal of water from the wall structure of the building. All this hydraulic subsystem demonstrates a highly complex and care, as it is very important for builders / architects to combat water seepage and rainfall in buildings. Finally we will analyze the originality and the possible iconographic study of the gargoyles. We decided to open this section since the gargoyles are one of the most important elements of the system studied by us, and that these are generally the last element in this system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the gargoyles as representations of the ugly and the grotesque in religious buildings has proven to be an important approach to the medieval and late medieval imaginary in the national context. Apart from their utilitarian purpose, gargoyles mirrored the daily life of humans, their fears and tensions, their fascination with social and behavioral phenomena, and displayed, in the form of art, the confrontation between the religious and the social spheres, the critique and the example, taking on an important educational role amongst audiences. Such catechizing character gained special contours given the role of the gargoyles during the religious reforms of the 16th century, which coincided with the heyday of their placing in Portuguese constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]