A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes or Gun turret-shaped, often built in a park, garden, or spacious public area.[A longer definition appears in the Merriam-Webster Concise Encyclopedia: Retrieved 25 October 2012.] Some are used on occasions as .
In British English, the word is also used for a tent-like canopy with open sides to provide shelter from sun and rain at outdoor events.
Etymology
The etymology given by Oxford Dictionaries is "Mid 18th century: perhaps humorously from gaze, in imitation of Latin future tenses ending in -ebo: compare with
lavabo."
L. L. Bacon put forward a derivation from
Casbah, a
Muslim quarter around the citadel in
Algiers.
[Bacon, Leonard Lee. "Gazebos and Alambras", American Notes and Queries 8:6 (1970): 87–87] W. Sayers proposed Hispano-Arabic
qushaybah, in a poem by Cordoban poet
Ibn Quzman (d. 1160).
[William Sayers, Eastern prospects: Kiosks, belvederes, gazebos. Neophilologus 87: 299–305, 2003.[2]]
The word gazebo appears in a mid-18th century English book by the architects John and William Halfpenny: Rural Architecture in the Chinese Taste. There Plate 55, "Elevation of a Chinese Gazebo", shows "a Chinese Tower or Gazebo, situated on a Rock, and raised to a considerable Height, and a Gallery round it to render the Prospect more complete."[ British Library catalogue. Retrieved 16 September 2020.]
George Washington had a small eight-sided garden structure at Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson wrote about gazebos, then called summerhouses or pavilions.
Design
Gazebos are freestanding or attached to a garden wall, roofed, and are often open on all sides. They provide shade, shelter from rain and a place to rest, while acting as an ornamental feature. Some gazebos in public parks are large enough to serve as a
bandstand.
Types
Gazebos overlap with pavilions,
,
[The word as applied to late medieval structures in Iran and Turkey corresponds to a gazebo. The modern English senses of a street stall or a telephone box do not. Collins English Dictionary: "(in Turkey, Iran, etc., esp. formerly) a light open-sided pavilion."] belvederes,
folly,
,
, and rotundas.
Such structures first appeared in Ancient Egypt gardens approximately 5,000 years ago and appear in the literature of China, Persia and other classical civilizations.
Examples in England are the garden houses at Montacute House in Somerset. The gazebo at Elton on the Hill in Nottinghamshire, thought to date from the late 18th or early 19th century, is a square, crenelated, brick and stone tower with an arched opening. It acted as a focus for an extensive system of red-brick walled gardens, which has survived with some more modern additions.[ British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 25 October 2012.]
In today's England and North America, gazebos are typically built of wood and covered with standard roofing materials, such as Roof shingle. Gazebos can be tent-style structures of poles covered by tensioned fabric. Gazebos may have screens to aid in the exclusion of flying insects.
Temporary gazebos are often set up in the campsites of in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, usually accompanying around them.
A structure resembling a gazebo, found in villages in the Maldives, is known as a holhuashi.
Gallery
File:Spitz Pavillon Hinterhaus-3233.jpg|Austria
File:Slovakia Bratislava 947.jpg|Unique gazebo in Janko Kráľ Park is former gothic tower from the Franciscan church
File:Greek-Style Gazebo 2.jpg|Greek-style gazebo in Longwood Gardens
File:Bandstand at Royal Palace, Sarahan, HP, India.jpg|Bandstand at Royal Palace, Sarahan, India
Image:Barrington IL Gazebo 1.jpg|A gazebo during winter, topped with a weather vane
Image:Gazebo in Sam Houston Park -- Houston.jpg|Gazebo in Sam Houston Park, Houston, Texas
Image:Gazebo Late 19th Century USA.JPG|Gazebo, United States, late 19th century
Image:Foxmoor Park in Fox River Grove, Illinois.jpg|Weathered gazebo near a fishing hole in Fox River Grove, Illinois
Image:Mohonk Mountain House 2011 Fishing Gazebo in Early Morning FRD 3158.jpg|A gazebo to shade fishing, Lake Mohonk, New York
Image:15 18 0264 junaluska.jpg|Gazebo at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina
Image:Ammand Dam (135).jpg|A two-story gazebo at Ammand Dam, Tabriz
Image:Zabytkowa altana.JPG|Gazebo in Prudnik
File:Kuopio - huvila.jpg|A small gazebo in Väinölänniemi, Kuopio, Finland
See also
External links
