What Style Are Curved Hallways Part Of?

Classical Style

• The classically designed Roman Colosseum had curved hallways known as vomitoria -- from the Latin word for "rapid discharge" -- because they accommodated the quick movement of tens of thousands of spectators in and out of the building's 80 ground-level entrances. Similar to the corridors of modern sports stadiums, the hallways of the Colosseum also contained booths where vendors sold food.

Panopticon All-Seeing Style

• British philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century created a building style called panopticon, meaning "all seeing," to be used for prisons and other institutions where people were confined. Although he suggested that panopticons would also work well for schools or hospitals, the style was mainly used for penal facilities.

  Bentham's prison design included tiered floors with circular hallways that had partial-height walls. The warden observed inmates from a central tower. One of the few remaining panopticon-style prison building in the United States is part of the Stateville Correctional Facility in Joliet, Illinois.

Modernist Schools

• Many public schools display the simple facades of mid-to-late-20th-century modernism along with the signature curves of Frank Lloyd Wright's earlier organic-style architecture. Some are clearly circular from the outside. Others combine a variety of geometric shapes, but include curving hallways. These designs weren't intended for ease of observing students. Instead, their cores typically house common areas, such as the front office and library. In elementary schools, grade-level clusters of classrooms often branch off of curved corridors like spokes in a bicycle.

  Curving hallways can offer unique learning opportunities, according to the Lab Out Loud website. Physics students at one circular high school crisscrossed strands of yarn in different colors along the circumference of one hallway ceiling to demonstrate the trajectory and collision of atomic bits in a particle accelerator.

Wright's Gugenheim

• From the outside, New York City's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum looks like a giant, curving teacup with glowing horizontal stripes, which are actually windows. Inside, a curving, partial-height, ramp-style hallway spirals from the first to the top floors of the 1940s structure. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright broke outside the box of previous art pavilions, transforming museums themselves into works of art. The name Guggenheim now symbolizes avant garde style, including architect Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain and his Las Vegas Ruvo Center for Brain Health, which looks almost as serpentine as gray matter.

Kiva Style

• Curving hallways are an important feature of Casa de Vidrio -- house of glass -- a contemporary southwestern home designed by architect Aaron Bohrer. The residence offers a 360-degree panorama of Santa Fe with clear views of sunrise and sunset. Its concentric circles reflect the circular style of ancient Pueblo Indian religious structures called kivas.