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Looking up inside the 32-story atrium of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt, part of the Jin Mao Building

Atrium of the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center

The Grand Piazza atrium inside the SuperStar Virgo

In architecture, an atrium (plural atria) is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within an office building and usually located immediately beyond the main entrance doors. Atria are popular with companies because they give their buildings "a feeling of space and light", but have been criticised by fire inspectors as they could allow fire to spread to a building's upper stories more quickly.

The Latin word atrium referred to the open central court, from which the enclosed rooms led off, in the type of large ancient Roman house known as a domus.

The impluvium was the shallow pool sunken into the floor to catch the rainwater. Some surviving examples are beautifully decorated. The opening in the ceiling above the pool called for some means of support for the roof. And it is here where one differentiates between five different styles of atrium.

The Tucson High Galleria and reflexive library (pictured) feature a modern atrium tetrastylum with four support columns and open roof.

• atrium tuscanium: This type had no columns. The weight of the ceiling was carried by the rafters. Though expensive to build, it seems to have been the most widespread type of atrium in the Roman house.
• atrium tetrastylum: This type had one column at each corner of the impluvium.
• atrium corinthium: This type was similar to the atrium tetrastylum but had a greater opening in the roof and a greater number of columns.
• atrium displuviatum: The roof actually sloped towards the side walls, so a large amount of rainwater ran off into other outlets than the impluvium.
• atrium testudinatum: This atrium had no opening in the roof at all and was only seen in small, unimportant houses.

As the centrepiece of the house the atrium was the most lavishly furnished room. Also it contained the little chapel to the ancestral spirits (lararium), the household safe (arca) and sometimes a bust of the master of the house.

As of 2007, Dubai's Burj Al Arab, the world's tallest hotel, has the tallest atrium as well. The Burj Al Arab was built to impress and to iconize the urban development in the city of Dubai, and currently it is considered to be the most significant landmark of the city.

One of the main public spaces at Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia is called The Atrium and is a street-like space, 5-stories high with glazed walls and roof. The structure and glazing pattern follow the system of fractals used to arrange the panels on the rest of the facades at Federation Square.

Four floor atrium of Gould Hall, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, at the University of Washington.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Atriums

• Courtyard
• Quadrangle

• Roth, Leland M (1993). Understanding Architecture: Its Elements History and Meaning. Oxford, UK: Westview Press. ISBN 0-06-430158-3.  pp. 520

• buildings (pictures, plans, constructions, planning instructions)